Posts tagged with 'poverty'
A decade ago, the South African city of Durban was facing severe water shortages. Dam reservoirs were decreasing at alarming rates, and were 20% lower than average levels. At least one in four residents were already living in water-stressed informal settlements. ...
National governments face an enormous triple challenge right now: recovering from COVID-19, creating sustainable and inclusive development, and addressing the climate crisis. New research shows that focusing on cities is key to overcoming these challenges while generating considerable economic, social and environmental benefits. A ...
The COVID-19 pandemic did not break the world, but rather revealed a world already broken. COVID-19 and the climate crisis exposed the fragility of economies and societies, upending the lives of people worldwide and, in particular, harming vulnerable communities and countries already facing ...
2020 upended life as we know it. The coronavirus killed almost 2 million people and counting, while roughly 100 million people fell into extreme poverty. The world entered its worst recession since the second world war. Deep-rooted racial and economic injustices were ...
Solid waste workers have been indispensable to protecting cities around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their heroic examples, from India to Vietnam to Latin America, have helped cities keep moving. But a critical alignment of factors is making their ...
Along the Ngong River in Mukuru, one of Nairobi’s slum neighborhoods and home to more than 100,000 people, residents face a dual threat when the rains come. First, the river rises, flooding into streets and houses. Then the water reaches ...
Across the world, from Wuhan to New York City, cities are on the frontline of the unfolding COVID-19 crisis. Starting with overwhelmed heath care systems, cities are experiencing unprecedented strain across social, economic and environmental systems as economies grind to ...
“Poor and vulnerable” is a common refrain in climate change stories. It’s a phrase used with good reason, to highlight how climate change disproportionately affects the disenfranchised. Economically, politically and socially vulnerable communities feel climate impacts first and hardest. They have fewer ...
Climate action is rarely a primary consideration when investments are made in cities. Roads and transport networks are built to improve mobility, homes to provide shelter, offices to create places to work. But with more than three-quarters of global emissions ...
Some time ago, professor Christo Venter of the University of Pretoria sent me an intriguing message: Did I have data on how bus rapid transit systems, or BRTs, affect equity in cities? Impact evaluations for changes in travel time, cost, ...
Diana Mitlin is a Principal Researcher with the International Institute for Environment and Development’s (iied) Human Settlements program, conducting research on urban poverty and community development. Mitlin is also an academic, teaching on Global Urbanism at the University of Manchester. ...
This blog is part of our World Resources Report (WRR) series. The WRR looks at cities as drivers of economic and social opportunity, and simultaneously as areas with concentrations of poverty, environmental degradation, and inequality. Responding to these opportunities and ...
Taking even a quick look at India’s current pattern of growth, it’s not hard to see both the rising energy insecurity and the stress that cities across the country are experiencing. Congestion, urban sprawl, and poor access to reliable energy ...
China’s capital city of Beijing is already home to 5.4 million cars, the most of any Chinese city. The country’s rising wealth means that this is a trend unlikely to stop. This rapid motorization has led to many city government ...
Yahoo Labs has recently created a mapping algorithm that helps pedestrians find not the shortest route to their destination, but the most attractive one. This is great for visitors who want to spend every second of their time sightseeing in ...
