The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
The Government of India (GoI) initiated the ‘100 Smart Cities Mission’ in 2014. This has triggered deliberations across the country on the concept of smart cities, the need and the orientation of the Mission in the context of India’s present urbanisation scenario. The concept of a ‘Smart City’ is a …
The Safe Cities Index 2015 is an Economist Intelligence Unit report, sponsored by NEC. The report points out how the frequency of terrorism and natural disasters has changed the nature of urban safety: power, communications and transport systems must be robust and able to withstand new external shocks. Meanwhile, new …
Part of a series of four entitled Urban Patterns for a Green Economy, this guide explores the compact city and its benefits within the developed and developing world’s contexts. The guide illustrates how the compact city concept and planned (versus unplanned) urban extension can support sustainable urban patterns that benefit …
This discussion paper reviews literature on the political economy of four key urban services: solid waste management, water supply, transport, and urban health services. The four sector reviews demonstrate the importance of governance factors – partly rooted in physical, economic, social and political differences between rural and urban environments – …
A National Urban Policy is a coherent set of decisions derived through a deliberate government-led process of coordinating and rallying various actors for a common vision and goal that will promote more trans-formative, productive, inclusive and resilient urban development for the long term. As such an national urban policy is …
The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has prepared a draft guidelines for conservation, development and management of urban greens. Cities and towns are emerging as centres of domestic and international investments where most of the commercial activities take place. However, cities are facing a number of environmental challenges …
ICLEI Canada and the Toronto and Region Conservation launch their latest resource on biodiversity, biodiverCities: A Primer on Nature in Cities. With the majority of the world's population living in urban areas, its time to ask how they can become more livable, sustainable and resilient. biodiverCities explores why biodiversity should …
In the last 30 years, China’s record economic growth lifted half a billion people out of poverty, with rapid urbanization providing abundant labor, cheap land, and good infrastructure. While China has avoided some of the common ills of urbanization, strains are showing as inefficient land development leads to urban sprawl …
The theme for Earth Day 2014 is 'Green Cities'. To focus on this, Earth Day Network-India has produced an e-Book that compiles accounts of ways that organisations around India have helped to green their cities. The e-Book 'Pathways to Green Cities: Innovative Ideas from Urban India' has accounts shared by …
This document considers how the nature of urban space and of urban populations influences disasters in cities; it discusses the question of urban disasters in comparison with rural disasters and factors that can decrease the risk and potential impact of disasters in urban areas. This paper also outlines how the …
This brief reviews and connects SEI’s recent work at the city scale on water resources, sanitation, climate, and sustainable lifestyles. Given the pace of urbanization, the development paths that cities take and how they use esources are critical issues for sustainability. SEI examines resource use in cities not only under …
The African continent is currently in the midst of simultaneously unfolding and highly significant demographic, economic, technological, environmental, urban and socio-political transitions. Africa’s economic performance is promising, with booming cities supporting growing middle classes and creating sizable consumer markets. But despite significant overall growth, not all of Africa performs well. …
Urban Greening Guidelines, 2014 is the outcome of blatant and random concretization of pavements in Indian cities. Of late, a number of Urban Development Authorities and Urban Local Bodies have undertaken large scale concretization of pavements which has resulted in destruction of a large number of trees by first rendering …
The new version of the ‘Future of Urban Mobility’ study was released and identifies the mobility challenges facing cities worldwide. The report includes an update of Arthur D. Little’s Urban Mobility Index, assessing the world’s cities in terms of mobility maturity and performance and together with UITP identifies strategic directions …
Cities can use a range of principles and approaches to integrate the environment in urban planning and management. This report is intended to encourage and support urban decision-makers in this process. It starts with recognizing that action taken in towns and cities is essential for addressing global environmental problems. It …
This publication considers disaster risk reduction from an urban perspective, with a focus on the cities of the Asia Pacific region. It focuses on the children of the Asia Pacific region who are living in or moving to large towns and cities, and asks the question: what more needs to …
Cities can use a range of principles and approaches to integrate the environment in urban planning and management. This report is intended to encourage and support urban decision-makers in this process. It starts with recognizing that action taken in towns and cities is essential for addressing global environmental problems. It …
A new report issued jointly by the Atlantic Council and the Stimson Center, The Security of Cities: Ecology and Conflict on an Urbanizing Planet, argues that the environmental security field has yet to incorporate global urbanization, the twenty-first century’s central demographic trend, fully into its purview. Environmental security, which focuses …
This new Springer publication describes and analyses multiple dimensions of urbanization, focusing on how the processes affect patterns of biodiversity and ecosystem services within as well as outside city boundaries. It is therefore an assessment of the process of urbanization, rather than an assessment of cities per se . Further, …
To understand the core processes and benchmarks that can transform cities into superior places to live and work, McKinsey developed and analyzed a comprehensive database of urban economic, social, and environmental performance indicators. The research included interviewing 30 mayors and other leaders in city governments on four continents and synthesizing …
