The Cities Diplomacy Series (II): Are Mayors (& Networks Of Cities) the Rising Stars of Global Politics?
Against the secrecy and elite-reserved performance of classical Diplomacy skills, some Cities are getting on very well in developing the charms of soft and subtle Diplomacy in international arenas, by … Continue reading
The Cities Diplomacy Series (I): Urban Issues and Soft-Influence in The Global Agenda Of Governance
In a moment in which the World is becoming more open and connected than ever, Cities, traditionally mere followers of the dictates of national governments in terms of foreign affairs, … Continue reading
Hacking the City: A New Model for Urban Renewal
How do you turn a place around without money or resources, and by empowering residents rather than displacing them? “What we’ve done is change the software of the city,” Westbury … Continue reading
Islamic Feminism – A contradiction in terms?
In recent times, Islamic feminism has emerged as a challenge to patriarchy in Muslim societies. Given the varieties of Islam and feminisms that exist, a fixed meaning cannot be attached … Continue reading
Balancing the Burden? Women’s Time Poverty and Infrastructure in Asia
Around the world, women do more work than men because of gender divisions of labor that cause most of the burden of housework and care work to fall on women … Continue reading
Making the invisible visible: generating data on ‘slums’ at local, city and global scales
The largest and most detailed set of data about what are termed ‘slums’ or ‘informal settlements’ has been built from enumerations undertaken by the residents of these settlements and their … Continue reading
Why Smart Cities still aren’t working for us after 20 years. And how we can fix them.
Originally posted on The Urban Technologist:
(The futuristic “Emerald City” in the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz“. The “wizard” who controls the city is a fraud who uses theatrical…
Institutional Political Economy for Inclusive, Resilient Cities
The conventional and mainstream approaches for studying and understanding cities are ill-suited for the post-2015 urban context and the alternatives that the international community seeks. Institutional political economy, or institutionalism, … Continue reading
This is What We Die For: Human rights abuses in the DRC power the global trade in cobalt
This report documents the hazardous conditions in which artisanal miners, including thousands of children, mine cobalt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It goes on to trace how this … Continue reading