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
The transformation of Indonesian housing policies
Indonesia, with a population of over 250 million, has been experiencing rapid urbanization in the last few decades. This rapid urbanization has caused many problems in Indonesian cities. The issue … Continue reading
Crossing to safety
Two people die on the roads each minute worldwide, 1.24 million people each year.Without interventions, annual deaths on the roads are predicted to surge to 1.9 million by 2020. Globally, … Continue reading
Flood Governance in Jakarta: The Role of CBOs in Mitigating Annual Floods
Jakarta is a megacity of 28 million residents and is the largest and one of the most dynamic metropolitan areas in Southeast Asia; it is also beset with most of … Continue reading
The challenge and potential of informal settlements
The United Nations estimates that more than 860 million people are currently living in urban slums! On the one hand, the proportion of people in slums today is lower than … Continue reading
The Future of Jakarta: Urbanization Reaches a Breaking Point
Since 2000, the world’s second-largest megacity, Jakarta, has seen its population swell by a staggering 34 percent. Though the city proper is home to just 10 million, the urban zone … Continue reading
