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The Planet of Cities
22 January 2025
Column
Journey of Latin American Cities
From unequal, sprawling metropolises of the 1980s to today’s vibrant hubs of innovation, Latin American and Caribbean cities have transformed their challenges into opportunities for reinvention. Large migration to cities in the 70s and 80s exacerbated persistent challenges including economic inequality, informal housing, poor quality of life, and crime. Yet the last decades show how Latin American urbanisation has induced profound creativity and innovation, fostering new ways, models and tools to empower and retrofit cities for more inclusive and sustainable futures.
19 December 2024
Column
Journey of North American Cities
With just 6% of the world’s population, North America (Canada, Mexico and United States) commands outsized global attention due to its economic clout. Over the past 40 years, cities in North America have charted a dual trajectory: the global success of ‘superstar cities’ alongside the stark decline of once-thriving industrial cities. Shaped by financial crises, globalisation, industrial offshoring, suburbanisation, the COVID-19 pandemic and shifting geopolitics, North America’s urban landscape tells a story of resilience, reinvention and disruption.
2 December 2024
Column
The journey of European cities from 1980 to 2080
In the last 50 years, European cities have struggled to keep pace with the world’s fastest-growing urban centres, in terms of size, demographics, productivity, economic dynamism, connectivity and innovation. Cities in Asia and the Middle East are growing at an unprecedented scale and cities in North America push the boundaries of technology and innovation. Conversely, European cities are often seen as at risk of being irrelevant in the global future...
11 November 2024
Column
Peak population and urbanisation in the next 100 years
As discussed in the first column of this series, when considering the future of cities, it is important to observe the increasing urbanisation of our people and planet. Headlines on this topic often focus on the growing importance of cities, with the world already majority urban. In this column, we will examine the whole cycle of our journey towards...
28 October 2024
Column
The rise of a global urban population
For almost 8,500 years, we have embraced population growth, new technologies and the spread of trade and civilisation. We did this first by building, and then, regenerating, cities. A turning point in the global urbanisation process came in 1980 due to the emergence of three connected urbanisation trends.
16 January 2023
Column
Recovery, or Reinvention, for our cities?
In this month’s column Greg Clark examines the need for cities to reinvent themselves in light of different kinds of changed behaviour patterns across the world’s cities. As we begin 2023 the impact of the pandemic is still playing out in our cities world-wide...
2 August 2021
Column
Cities can be the engines of the net zero transition
It’s been a busy few weeks on the global urbanism stage. Many cities and city groupings are gearing up for COP26 – readying themselves to address the array of tectonic imperatives scheduled for discussion in Glasgow in November. For the next few months, I propose that we use this column to chart the emerging story of COP26 and the world’s cities. Let’s start with a quick review. From where I stand, it appears that..
12 February 2021
Column
Has the world left Europe behind?
As I wrote in my Planet of Cities column Business Districts as Usual? in October 2020, different parts of the world are in distinctive cycles with the pandemic itself. Whereas some are largely free of COVID-19 and their city centres active again, others are still in full lockdown. In certain places, leaders are...
13 November 2020
Column
Good governance pays dividends
I’d like to begin this month’s column by asking a question. How could it be that cities with broadly comparable attributes enjoy varying levels of success on the global stage? Take two cities with apparently similar fundamentals: population size, geographic...
15 October 2020
Column
Business districts as usual?
The COVID-19 crisis has only sharpened the debate over the future of cities. Distinct perspectives, underset by a variety of considerations, are emerging across the world. Attitudes towards public and private amenities, the adoption of new technologies, and existing preferences for mobility, transport systems and housing all appear to be shaping...
4 September 2020
Column
The net-zero transition and post-pandemic prosperity
As the western world moves into the second half-year of COVID-19, one senses widespread expectation that the pandemic legacy must include lasting environmental dividends. Sustainability has become a key motif of recovery strategies at...
7 August 2020
Column
It's too soon to sort the Covid-19 winners and losers
If you were to rank the cities best placed to emerge from the pandemic with their reputations enhanced, you’d likely settle on one of two lists. The first The first would include cities such as Taipei, Athens, Singapore, Seoul and Kyoto; those in which...
5 July 2020
Column
The beginning of the end of the urban century?
As the Covid-19 crisis has played out, the chorus of voices prophesying a new great moment of de-urbanisation has grown. Those with portable jobs, able to leave the world’s major cities, temporarily appear to be doing so in significant numbers. The professional class is capitalising on newly won, digitally enabled freedom of movement....
3 July 2020
Column
The new map of urban investment opportunity
As you will know by now, July is WBEF’s Build Back Better month. We, like many others, are focused on how the planet can emerge stronger from this ordeal. For my part, I’d like to focus on the funding challenge. I believe there are three critical, crosscutting considerations...
5 June 2020
Column
The beginning of the end of the urban century?
As the Covid-19 crisis has played out, the chorus of voices prophesying a new great moment of de-urbanisation has grown. Those able to leave the world’s major cities without compromising their employment status temporarily appear to be doing so in significant numbers.. The professional class is capitalising on newly won, digitally enabled freedom of movement to escape the threat of contagion posed by high proximity urban life.
7 May 2020
Column
An accidental experiment in a new way of life
You’ll recall that last month, I posed three questions regarding the urban legacy of the Covid-19 crisis. I must say thank you to everyone who replied: the volume and quality of the responses that we received was wonderful to see. If you haven’t already, you can read a selection of the most thought-provoking answers here. What is clear to me... </p>
6 May 2020
Column
The Year of the Rat and the urban century
Today marks the final day of the first month of the new decade; it is a time to look forward with renewed hope. For Chinese communities worldwide, today is the final day of the first week of the new year: the year of the rat. The rat is the first of the Chinese zodiac’s 12 signs, symbolic of renewal. Perhaps then, at this moment, a sense of fresh opportunity could span both the Eastern and Western hemispheres.
3 April 2020
Column
Thoughts on a pandemic
Firstly, I hope all of our readers are well. We are living in very troubling times. Like many of you, I am working from home and keenly following developments across the world. Clearly, there is much to keep abreast of. The seemingly exponential growth in infection rates across...
5 March 2020
Column
MENAT’s year in the global spotlight
The cities of the middle east, north Africa and Turkey – collectively, the MENAT region – are, for an urbanist, some of the most interesting in the world. This year alone, three cities in the region will host major gatherings of global importance. The tenth session of the World Urban Forum...
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