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n 2011, the World Bank initiated the Partnership for Sustainable Cities, a group of leading urban actors with a mission to collaborate on city development around the world and foster city-led sustainable development. This synthesis paper, Building Sustainability in an Urbanizing World, is a product of the partnership's early discussions. In this paper, members of the partnership have collaborated to identify and analyze the issues that guide their work together. The report summarizes the sustainability issues faced by cities and points toward the road ahead. It reviews successes in policy as well as investment and discusses what is needed to reach out to the rapidly growing cities of the developing world and make them effective users of existing knowledge. Examples of programs established by the partners are described in both the text and the Annexes. This report aims to be useful to the partners who contributed with knowledge and experiences, to cities who may benefit from an honest discussion of what works and what needs improvement, and to businesses and development practitioners entering the wide world of sustainable cities.

UN database software DevInfo is a database system endorsed by the United Nations Development Group for monitoring human development. It is a tool for organizing, storing and presenting data in a uniform way to facilitate data sharing at the country level across government departments, UN agencies and development partners.

On my flight home from California last week, I took the photo above. It's not the greatest photo, but I captured the image to illustrate the edge of suburban sprawl in some place or other, I'm not sure where. Reviewing it later, one of the things that struck me is that the development protruding onto the landscape in the photo is actually relatively high-density, as single-family residential development goes. Those are small lots, and my very wild guess is that we could be looking at 15-20 homes per acre, enough to pass the density prerequisite of LEED for Neighborhood Development and maybe even earn a density point or two.

the Singapore Housing agency. Over the last 50 years, Surbana has sculpted the unique skyline of Singapore, creating a million homes for over 85% of the population in an integrated living environment. With the support of our majority shareholder Temasek Holdings, as well as our new shareholder CapitaLand, we have grown to be a premium international building consultant and township developer with offices in 16 cities across Asia and the Middle East. Our value proposition lies in our expertise across the whole real estate value chain, encompassing development, fund management, architecture, engineering, project and construction management, urban planning, coastal engineering, infrastructure, sustainable design technologies and city management.

It's a mid-rise building that encompasses nearly an entire city block, usually developed over a surfacing parking lot or under-utilized former industrial site. There are countless more examples, even at the townhouse level (two examples from Minneapolis' downtown: here and here). Certainly, the loss of a parking lot is nothing to shed a tear over, but this building typology, which currently represents our American view of 'urban', presents itself as somewhat problematic.

Density. For planners and urban designers helping to create transit-oriented developments (TODs), density is the crucial factor in achieving a critical mass for ridership and a mixed-use walkable environment that will entice people out of their cars. In many cases if planners can't reach that threshold of density than transit is the baby that gets thrown out with the bath water.

Global Urbanization surveys essential dimensions of this growth and begins to formulate a global urban agenda for the next half century. Drawing from many disciplines, the contributors tackle issues ranging from how cities can keep up with fast-growing housing needs to the possibilities for public-private partnerships in urban governance. Several essays address the role that cutting-edge technologies such as GIS software, remote sensing, and predictive growth models can play in tracking and forecasting urban growth. Reflecting the central importance of the Global South to twenty-first-century urbanism, the volume includes case studies and examples from China, India, Uganda, Kenya, and Brazil. While the challenges posed by large-scale urbanization are immense, the future of human development requires that we find ways to promote socially inclusive growth, environmental sustainability, and resilient infrastructure. The timely and relevant scholarship assembled in Global Urbanization will be of great interest to scholars and policymakers in demography, geography, urban studies, and international development.

Macro forces continue to have an impact on the global influence of cities. Political power is rotating back from West to East, and with economic drivers having shifted from agrarian to industrial to information-based, more people live in cities than in rural areas. While New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo still rank among today's top cities, it appears that Beijing and Shanghai may become significant rivals in the next 10 to 20 years. These are among the highlights of the 2012 Global Cities Index (GCI), a joint study performed by A.T. Kearney and The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. In addition, a panel of academic and corporate executive advisors informed and challenged the study results. We've expanded this year's study; in addition to classifying the current global influence of 66 cities, we have also developed an Emerging Cities Outlook (ECO) to project which emerging-market cities may eventually rival the established global leaders for dominance. Figure 1 summarizes the 2012 results, along with the rankings from our 2008 and 2010 findings of major world metropolitan areas. (The censorship metric added in 2010 affected the positions of several emerging-market cities.) In the first section of this report, we explore the results and implications of the 2012 GCI rankings. The second section summarizes the results of our Emerging Cities Outlook, which analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of cities in developing markets by examining the rates of change and key factors that will affect their ability to capitalize on future globalization trends (see Appendix: About the Study).

One of the problems I have with a lot of what passes for smart infill development - on the whole, a good thing - is that parks and green space are treated as afterthoughts at best, and frequently ignored altogether.

Also read: http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2012/2/6/from-the-mayors-office-part-1.htmlhttp://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2012/2/20/from-the-mayors-office-part-2.htmlhttp://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2012/3/12/from-the-mayors-office-part-3.html Fictional Mayor addressing his staff on sustainable urban development. Great tone.

City Design at MIT - The Joint Program in City Design and Development/CDD is is an academic program, a research community, and a forum for debating propositions about the future of city form.

software-based simulation model for integrated planning and analysis of urban development

Later for Tool development?

Iberoamerican Center for Strategic Urban Development (CIDEU in the Spanish acronym), which has more than a hundred member cities, all of which have applied the Barcelona Strategic Urban Planning methodology.

World-Class Buildings For The Underserved, At Under $10k INNOVATION BY DESIGN THE EUROPEAN PRIZE FOR ARCHITECTURE HONORS NORWAY'S TYIN TEGNESTUE, WHO SPECIALIZE IN LOCALLY SOURCED, LOCALLY BUILT PROJECTS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD.

Many of these stories support the wider definition of Smart cities as above which incorporates: a)  Investments in human and social capital b) Investments in traditional (ex transport) and modern(ex ICT) communications infrastructure c) Sustainable economic development d) Higher quality of life with a wise management of natural resources  e) Participatory governance

good read in general about keeping things simple and not assuming too much.

his section contains some practical tools for you to try and work with. They have been used in 70 cities throughout Europe and brought important and innovative results. Have a look at: Future City Game - a team-based process designed to create new thinking and action to improve quality of life in cities Urban Ideas Bakery - builds skills and shares experience on how cities 'bake ideas' - that is turn them into practical solutions, Exploratory events - a series of events to provide a forum for sharing of knowledge and ideas about creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation in urban development.

CGLU, seat in barcelona. Llop invovlved. 

Another city network dedicated to the dissemination of strategic planning is UCLG, with more than a thousand member cities. In a recently published guidebook, UCLG (2010) offers detailed recommendations for the implementation of strategic plans, and it seeks to influence institutions such as the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, several UN organizations, as well as the Commission of the European Union, requesting them to "encourage strategic planning processes providing human, financial and technical resources primarily to small and medium sized cities" (p. 21).

is an association for professionals in urban and regional development. Nirov is situated in The Hague and consists of approximately 45 employees with different areas of expertise.

Dutch Regional Planning Professionals Network

Institut für Städtebau und Raumplanung Leopold-Franzens Universität Innsbruck Peter Trummer | Univ.-Prof. Arch. DI MScInstitusleiter | head of institute Later, for tool development