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2011 Urban Environmental Accords Summit Focuses on Green Cities 13 October 2011: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Deputy Executive Director Amina Mohamed addressed the 2011 Urban Environmental Accords (UEA) Gwangju Summit, which convened under the theme of "Green Cities, Better Cities." Ban told the Summit that the experience of cities "can provide valuable input to the "Rio+20 discourse and outcomes," highlighting the opportunity to "scale up transformations already under way" to catalyze a development path that is sustainable. Mohamed underscored that green economy and sustainable development, through "resource efficiency and sustainable consumption and production" are achievable goals. She outlined challenges for cities including, unsustainable resource and energy consumption, carbon emissions, pollution, and health hazards. But said cities also provided opportunities as they house "hope and innovation," are the focal points of the economy. Reflecting on the need to enable green cities, Mohamed called for policy frameworks at all levels of government, as well as new finance mechanisms and incentives. She urged policy makers to ensure that there are "synergies which simultaneously promote sustainable consumption and production patterns, deliver economic prosperity and reduce resource intensity, while promoting social inclusion." Looking torward the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20), Mohamed indicated that UNEP would be looking for more adequate ways and means for strengthening cooperation and building partnerships with national and local governments to deliver the needed transformative change. The Summit is convening in Gwangju, Republic of Korea, from 12-13 October 2011. [UNEP Press Release, 12 October 2011] [UN Secretary-General's Speech] [UNEP Press Release, 13 October 2011]

Financing cities: fiscal responsibility and urban infrastructure in Brazil, China, India, Poland and South Africa George E. Peterson, Patricia Clarke Annez 0 Resenhas World Bank, 04/04/2007 - 352 páginas This book looks at the practical policy dimension of reconciling two valid policy perspectives: the need to boost urban infrastructure investment levels and the need for prudent fiscal management across all levels of government-all in the context of decentralizing service delivery responsibilities. Several countries are featured to offer contrasting approaches and experiences. The book addresses different dimensions for reconciliation between fiscal policy and urban infrastructure investment: in policy design, analytical understanding, national and international debt rules, and the politics of policy implementation. The volume provides a menu of experience-tested institutional arrangements and financing strategies, thus offering a much better informed basis for making policy choice

Hyun Bang Shin Page contents > Title | Departments | Biography | Research Interests | Selected recent publications Title Lecturer in Urban Geography Departments Department of Geography and Environment Biography Hyun Shin joined the Department of Geography and Environment in 2008 as Lecturer in Urban Geography. He is also an Associate at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE and a Research Associate at the White Rose East Asia Centre, University of Leeds. He was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Social Policy Research Centre, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (2002-2003) and also at the Asia Research Centre, LSE (2006-2007). Hyun Shin was awarded his BSc from Seoul National University in 1994, and worked in the construction sector for six years before arriving at the LSE to pursue his MSc (2000) and PhD (2006). His main research interests lie in critically analysing political and economic dynamics of contemporary urban (re-)development and its socio-spatial implications, with special emphasis on Asian cities. He has recently received the STICERD/LSE Annual Fund New Researcher Award (2009-2010) to fund his examination of the social legacy of 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games in China. To view more details, please visit Dr Shin's personal website, http://personal.lse.ac.uk/shin Research Interests Political and economic dynamics of urban (re-)development Socio-spatial implications of East Asian urban development Urban governance and community participation Housing and social change Urban heritage conservation Mega-events and social legacy Transitional cities, especially cities in post-reform China  Selected recent publications Shin, H.B. (2010) 'Urban Conservation and Revalorisation of Dilapidated Historic Quarters: the case of Nanluoguxiang in Beijing', Cities Vol.27, Supplement 1, pp. S43-S54   Shin, H.B. (2010) 'Empowerment or marginalisation: land, housing and property rights in poor neighbourhoods' in Wu, F. and Webster, C. (eds.) Marginalization

In the globalisation age, cities are the drivers of economic growth. However, sustainable economic growth demands considerable investment in infrastructure. South African cities face a triple challenge of eradicating historical infrastructure backlogs inherited from the Apartheid era, servicing and maintaining existing infrastructure and providing new infrastructure to stimulate economic growth. In the South African context, the provision of municipal infrastructure plays a critical role in eradicating sociospatial inequalities as part of an overall poverty reduction strategy. This places a huge burden on local governments in South Africa in particular as they face capacity constraints and challenges in terms of raising sufficient own revenue in order to finance infrastructure projects. This paper argues that in light of the South African government's current infrastructure drive and the significant amount of public resources being spent on transport infrastructure upgrades, it is an opportune time to consider the impact of transport infrastructure investment in particular on land value and how this value can be captured to finance the provision of infrastructure at local level. The paper cautions though that any programme aimed at capturing betterment needs to be based on sound research and needs to take cognisance of the legislative, policy and economic context in South Africa. Keywords  Infrastructure - Growth - Betterment - Betterment taxes - Land value

Mechanisms of Growth Today, there are four primary mechanisms that have fueled the current growth pattern within our towns and neighborhoods. None of these are financially sustainable. 1. Transfer payments between governments. Nearly every city in America is reliant, to one degree or another, on intergovernmental subsidies to finance infrastructure. Whether the money comes through an established program, an earmark or a block grant, the result is the same: a land use pattern that does not reflect local economic realities. Local values and priorities are distorted when there is little pressure to generate a return on public infrastructure investments. The result: inefficient growth patterns that cannot be financially sustained. At the same time our infrastructure maintenance liabilities are ballooning, our federal and state legislatures are struggling to reconcile huge budget shortfalls. Even if it were good policy, the reality is that we do not have the ability to build Strong Towns with intergovernmental transfer payments as they are currently designed. 2. Demand-driven transportation spending. Transportation improvements today are made primarily to increase safety and reduce congestion. After two generations of trying to build our way out of congestion, we not only have massive maintenance liabilities but congestion is actually worse. An approach to transportation spending that pits federal and state priorities (transportation) against local priorities (land use) when we should be linking them is a recipe for waste and inefficiency. To add to this disconnect, federal transportation policy actually rewards states with additional funds for building additional roads, regardless of their efficiency. Political meddling, often in the form of earmarks, further distorts transportation spending by prioritizing improvements based on political clout, not overall return on the public investment.  3. Debt, both public and private. Where we once paid for infrastructure

For four decades, the Center for Urban Policy Research has served the nation with basic and applied research on a broad spectrum of public policy issues. CUPR, a component of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, is nationally and internationally recognized for its research on affordable housing, land use policy, environmental impact analysis, state planning, public finance, land development practice, historic preservation, infrastructure assessment, development impact analysis, the costs of sprawl, transportation information systems, environmental impacts, and community economic development. As a full-time academic research institution, CUPR has developed a wide array of fiscal, environmental, transportation, and quality of life impact models that have been used in major public policy evaluations throughout the United States. Housed within the center is CUPR Press, one of the nation's premier publishers in the field of city and regional planning. (CUPR Press is now joined with Transaction Publishers.) Also housed there is R/ECON, a quarterly economic forecasting service for the state; the New Jersey Public Policy Research Institute (NJPPRI), a research center specializing in policy for and about the African-American community; and the Community Development Institute (CDI), a training institute for community development professionals. The Center's multidisciplinary faculty and staff have backgrounds in city and regional planning, economics, public administration, regional science, sociology, urban geography, computer programming, geographic information systems, and statistics. They have testified as expert witnesses before all branches of the federal government as well as state and local governments. Since its founding, the Center has completed more than $40 million in sponsored research for federal agencies, major private foundations, state and local government agencies in New Jersey, and a score of other states and private funders. Fede

SITES THE BUELL HYPOTHESIS ABOUT BLOG MoMA BUY TICKETSCREDITSSHARE In the summer of 2011, New York's Museum of Modern Art invited five teams of architects, planners, ecologists, engineers, landscape designers, and other specialists in the urban and suburban condition to develop proposals for housing that would open new routes through the mortgage-foreclosure crisis that continues to afflict the United States. Establishing studios at MoMA PS1, MoMA's Long Island City affiliate, the teams set out to imagine new models of housing, thinking not only of its physical form but of the systems of infrastructure and finance that support it. Their focus was not the inner city, but rather the suburbs, which are often passed over in the push of development toward an ever-more-distant periphery. Working with the findings of The Buell Hypothesis, a research report prepared by the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University, each team focused on a specific town in one of five regions-the Northeast, the Southeast, the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and the Southwest-and each developed an inventive proposal that reimagined existing patterns of living, working, and home ownership. Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream lays out their ideas, through detailed illustrations of their projects and through essays by Barry Bergdoll, MoMA's Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, and Reinhold Martin, Director of the Buell Center. Note: 1.1% is more than double the highest national foreclosure rate prior to 2006. The previous highest rate was .5%. FORECLOSED: REHOUSING THE AMERICAN DREAM

Brands And Branding Geographies Andy Pike Edited by Andy Pike, Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS), Newcastle University, UK October 2011 384 pp Hardback 978 1 84980 159 1 Hardback $150.00 on-line price $135.00 Qty This book is also available as an ebook  978 0 85793 084 2 from - www.myilibrary www.ebooks.com www.ebookscorporation.com www.dawsonera.com www.ebrary.com/corp/ www.books.google.com/ebooks Description 'An important effort to pull together multidisciplinary research on the spatial dimensions of brands and branding in an international context.' - John A. Quelch, Harvard Business School, US Contents Contributors: S. Anholt, A. Arvidsson, D. Bennison, U. Ermann, H. Halkier, A. Harris, A. Hauge, P. Jackson, J. Jansson, G. Julier, B. Kubartz, N. Lewis, C. Lury, D. Medway, L. Moor, N. Papadopoulos, C. Pasquinelli, A. Pike, D. Power, P. Russell, N.-L. Sum, A. Therkelsen, N. Ward, G. Warnaby Futher information 'An incomparably rich trove of work on the multifarious and contradictory "entanglements" between space, place, and brand. The volume helps us understand how and why "places of origin" play an ever greater role in the marketing of commodities, even while corporations continue to seek "placelessness" in pursuit of the bottom line. And it illuminates how and why entrepreneurial governments seeking to enhance global competitiveness increasingly turn to place branding - at the neighborhood, urban, and national scale - even while launching rounds of restructuring that undercut the authenticity and viability of local identities. A valuable and accessible contribution to the urban studies and cultural studies literature.' - Miriam Greenberg, University of California, Santa Cruz, US 'An important effort to pull together multidisciplinary research on the spatial dimensions of brands and branding in an international context.' - John A. Quelch, Harvard Business School, US Despite overstated claims of t

Major Report Series 1974-95 1. A. Rose, Citizen Participation in Urban Renewal, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, 1974, (Part V, National Housing Act, CMHC), 319 pp. 2. L. Curry and R. D. MacKinnon, Aggregative Dynamic Urban Models Oriented Towards Policy, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, 1974, (Ministry of State for Urban Affairs CMHC), 419 pp. 3. L. W. Kennedy, Adapting To New Environments Residential Mobility From The Mover's Point of View, Centre for Urban and Community Studies and Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, 1975, 199 pp. 4. W. Michelson, Time-Budgets and Social Activity - Volume 1, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, (Statistics Canada), 207 pp. 5. F.G. Schliewinsky, A Systems Approach to Neighborhood Change: Metropolitan Toronto 1951-1971, Centre for Urban and Community Studies and Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Toronto, 1975, (Cadillac-Fairview Corporation), 133 pp. 6. H.F. Andrews and H.J. Breslauer, User Satisfaction And Participation: Preliminary Findings from a Case Study of Cooperative Housing, March 1975, (Ministry of State for Urban Affairs), 331 pp. 7. C.M. Biernacki, Housing Stock Trends: A Summary. Canada, Ontario and Toronto, May 1976, (Connaught Fund), 87 pp. 8. P. Brown, Some Perspectives on the Toronto Housing Market, 63 pp. 9. S.M. McKinnon, Traditional Rural Architecture in Quebec 1600-1800, Centre for Urban and Community Studies and Centre for Medieval Studies, April 1976, (Cadillac-Fairview Corporation), 113 pp. 10. P.S. Morrison, Data Sources on Residential Change And the Housing Market. A Guide To Contemporary Sources and Tests of Bias in Residential Property Data in Metropolitan Toronto, March 1977, 76 pp. 11. C.M. Biernacki, Temporal Perspectives on the Toronto Housing Market: Descriptive Indices and Time Series, June 1977, Urban Housing Markets Program, 96 pp. 12. C.M. Biernacki, Tests of the Temporal Sensitivity of The Toronto Housing Market, July 1977, 61 pp.