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Urban Planning

Policy Brief: Disaster Risk Reduction in Urban Areas

In the context of urbanisation, disaster risk increases as a result of badly planned and managed urban development, degraded ecosystems and poverty. The Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) processes developed in several Latin American cities show the benefits of making risk reduction an integral part of local development. The importance of good information for risk assessment, government civil society collaboration, and links […]

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Paper City: Urban Story

As part of its Urban October celebrations, UN-Habitat has launched “Paper City”, a stop-motion video animation portraying today’s urban challenges using a paper and cardboard mock city. Aimed at an audience not yet familiar with urbanization processes, the video intends to draw attention on current issues caused by rapid and uncontrolled city growth. It points

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Smart cities for 11 billion people: Mitchell Joachim at TEDxBerlin

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently

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Powering Progress: Smart Infrastructure and The Future of Cities: Massoud Amin at TEDxUMN

Massoud Amin witnessed the 1977 NYC blackout, the 9/11 tragedies near DC, and the collapse of the I-35W bridge. He works on enabling smart, secure and resilient infrastructures. He leads extensive projects in smart grids and is considered the “father of smart grid.” He holds the Honeywell/H.W. Sweatt Chair in Technological Leadership at the University

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Simon Giles on Developing Intelligent Cities: Smart, Sustainable Urban Spaces

About the Speech: Simon Giles discussed the opportunities presented by ‘Smart’ cities — urban spaces that harness the latest ICT developments to deliver more efficient and sustainable services and infrastructure. From electric cars to e-health services to energy-efficient buildings that use ‘smart’ meters, intelligent cities comprise a wide range of innovations that can be of

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Smarter Cities, Accra, Ghana

A new report by IBM entitled “A Vision for Smarter Growth: an IBM Smarter Cities Report on Accra, Ghana” highlights how the rapidly emerging West African city should turn to technology to transform its key urban systems. Based on the opinions of local experts from across public and private sectors the report identifies transportation, energy

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Making Child Friendly Cities through School Safety: A Case Study

So much is said about future of cities and yet city planning is not done by those who have a long future: children. This is odd. The 108th issue of Southasiadisaster.net is titled ‘Children in Urban Space: Making Child Friendly Cities’ highlights the concept of a ‘Child Friendly City’. This issue of Southasiadisasters.net outlines the

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Climate Change, Disaster Risk, and the Urban Poor: Cities Building Resilience for a Changing World

Poor people living in slums are at particularly high risk from the impacts of climate change and natural hazards. They live on the most vulnerable land within cities, typically areas deemed undesirable by others and thus affordable. This study analyzes the key challenges facing the urban poor, given the risks associated with climate change and

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Guiding principles on security of tenure for the urban poor

This Guidelines are published by the Special Rapporteur on Adequate housing in Feb 2014.  I believe that these principles can be useful on our programs, (specially our Recovery  and Urban programming) as it presents an overview on how to strengthen diverse tenure forms, both formal and informal, an overview of mechanisms conducing to security of

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