The Future of The ‘Smart City’
Six segments from The Takeaway, a co-production of WNYC Radio and Public Radio International, in collaboration with The New York Times and WGBH Boston. Hudson Yards: The Dawn of New York … Continue reading
Beyond exchange and agglomeration: resource flows and city environments as wellsprings of urban growth
The conversation between economic geographers and political economists has not made much progress. The former focus on exchange, markets and efficiency, as can be seen in work on urban economies. … Continue reading
Changing What Counts
This report looks at how citizens and civil society groups can generate data as a means to influence institutional data collection. In the following pages, we profile citizen-generated and civil … Continue reading
Citizen-generated Data and Governments: Towards a Collaborative Model
This piece explores how government hosting of citizen‑generated data sets (CGD) can meet the needs of both governments and civil society, and open up opportunities for increased collaboration between government … Continue reading
Building Resilience in Cities under Stress
This report aims to highlight diverse sources of urban fragility and approaches to urban transformation, renewal, and resilience. Five authors explore the drivers of fragility in their cities and offer … Continue reading
What if Cities Used Data to Drive Inclusive Neighborhood Change?
Policy responses to neighborhood changes that displace or otherwise harm vulnerable populations often come too late and at too great a price. This essay proposes integrating multiple data sources to … Continue reading
Knowing and governing cities through urban indicators, city benchmarking and real-time dashboards
Since the mid-1990s a plethora of indicator projects have been developed and adopted by cities seeking to measure and monitor various aspects of urban systems. These have been accompanied by … Continue reading
Making Politics Work for Development: Harnessing Transparency and Citizen Engagement
Too often, government leaders fail to adopt and implement policies that they know are necessary for sustained economic development. Political constraints can prevent leaders from following sound technical advice, even … Continue reading
Cities without children
A bevy of trend-conscious city planners, opportunistic real-estate developers, municipal officials eager to grow their cities’ tax bases, and entrepreneurial urban gurus… ballyhoo the national renaissance of what inevitably gets … Continue reading
Reading Development 