Group items tagged

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.

In 1991 City Council issued a challenge to create a community that is sustainable: "on the south shore of false creek, develop a neighbourhood that is the model of sustainability, incorporating: forward-thinking infrastructure; strategic energy reduction; high-performance buildings; and high transit access". This webpage highlights the planning policy that responds to Council's direction, and also provides site information, guiding documents, and current planning initiatives.

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.

In a piece called The Beauty of Urban Planning from Space, the Sustainable Cities Collective highlights views from space of uniquely designed street pattern designs in various cities around the world. There are ten examples that illustrate the zenith of urban planning. As attractive as the street patterns are, they highlight the inevitable inability of designers, or anyone else for that matter, to influence much more than small changes in the overall urban form.

Getting the right city density - generally expressed in the US as people per square mile or homes per acre - to support sustainable and pleasant living is one of the trickiest problems we face as we address the future of our communities. The typically low densities of suburban sprawl built in the last half of the 20th century, despite their popularity at the time with a considerable share of the market, have been shown by a voluminous body of research to produce unsustainable rates of driving, carbon emissions, pollution. stormwater runoff, and adverse health impacts.

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

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.

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.

LSE Cities is an international centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science that carries out research, education and outreach activities in London and abroad. Its mission is to study how people and cities interact in a rapidly urbanising world, focussing on how the design of cities impacts on society, culture and the environment. Through research, conferences, teaching and projects, the centre aims to shape new thinking and practice on how to make cities fairer and more sustainable for the next generation of urban dwellers, who will make up some 70 per cent of the global population by 2050.

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

Later for Tool development?

Conference Series on the Future of Cities