Tag Archives: urbanisation

Plan Verde – Mexico City’s climate change strategy

By , Monday, 20 February 2012, Be the first to comment

In June the Rio +20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development will be held. Few will place much confidence in the capacity of national governments to drive forward an inclusive and environmental agenda for the world, as happened at Rio in 1992. Rather, the leaders of change today more and more seem to be the mayors of cities in Latin America. For example, Mexico City is at the forefront of planning and implementing strategies for environmental improvement and climate change adaptation and mitigation. Read more »

Cities and Climate Change

By , Wednesday, 7 December 2011, Be the first to comment

We are facing a “deadly collision between urbanization and climate change”. This is the warning given in the 2011 Global Report on Human Settlements published by UN-Habitat. It comes at a time when expectation is rock bottom that governments will achieve a positive outcome at the climate summit in Durban. The UN-Habitat report recognises that many local authorities are implementing adaptation and mitigation measures. However, it says that climate change is still seen as a “marginal issue” by most policy makers. Furthermore, the connections between urbanisation and climate change are often overlooked, though they are crucially important. Read more »

Nowa Huta – town planning and heroes

By , Monday, 28 November 2011, Be the first to comment

Nowa Huta was a showcase development by the communist government in Poland in the 1950s. Today, on a bright, cold central European winter afternoon, I took the bus from the old town of Krakow, and rode out to see the place that in 1949 promised poor people “a better future”.  In this homage to socialist realist town planning and architecture I was also retracing my own past. In 1970, during my first year teaching in the Department of Town and Country Planning at Heriot-Watt University/Edinburgh College of Art, I came here on a study visit with my students. Read more »

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