An article on the baublatt website reported that the experts travelled in from various European countries as well as China, Japan and South Korea. Building information modelling (BIM) is the digital representation of physical and functional characteristics of a facility. This already comes into play in the planning stages and is accessible to all involved in the project, so they can immediately see any changes to plans.

BIM is also used to monitor construction progress. One way in which it manifests itself is through codes attached to windows in individual rooms. In the article, Martin Peiner, BIM Manager of general contractor Losinger Marazzi AG, explains: “The QR codes are created with Finalcad. The room and its characteristics are automatically recognised when the code is scanned. In combination with Revit, this means it can be precisely tracked who completed what work in each room.” Alongside building progress, BIM also records material deliveries.

Furthermore, BIM serves as a basis for virtual reality representations. For example, many different pipes will be installed in the central ventilation. A 3D representation of the room can be opened on a tablet on which the different pipes can be identified through colour coding. In future, BIM will also be used in building management. This is another reason why the international experts travelled to Schlieren to learn more about the many possibilities presented by this technology....

The vice-president of the World Bank, Mahmoud Mohieldin, and its lead economic advisor for transport, Nancy Vandycke, have considered the future of mobility in an article.

Despite its importance in achieving numerous targets, transport is not a distinct global sustainable development goal.

In order to achieve sustainable mobility, the World Bank has launched the Sustainable Mobility for All platform. Diverse stakeholders from the transport sector are involved.

Mohieldin and Vandycke highlighted the importance of considering mobility coherently to develop a sustainable concept. So far, UN authorities, individual development banks, the manufacturing industry and civil society have all acted independently.  

The two World Bank representatives added that it would be paramount to develop concrete objectives for sustainable mobility. They underlined that these objectives are embodied by universal access to mobility, safety, efficiency and climate awareness.   

As a third important aspect, the authors called for a transformation in attitudes towards the economic evaluation of transport projects. Traditionally, these analyses have focused on speed. However, high speed can cause more accidents. For this reason, explained Mohieldin and Vandycke, it is important to integrate aspects such as safety into these evaluations.    

Technology will form the backbone of sustainable mobility in the future. The next important step is not to simply improve transport further, but to work on avoiding excess traffic.   

Mohieldin and Vandycke revealed that passenger traffic will increase by 50 per cent by 2030. Freight volume will rise by as much as 70 per cent. ...

Liuzhou – China has broken ground on the world’s first ‘forest city’, which will feature 40,000 trees and 1 million plants. Solar panels and geothermal energy will provide inhabitants in the city of Liuzhou with electricity.

Designed by Italian architect Stefano Boeri, the forest city will be home to 30,000 people when it is completed in 2020, reported the Handelszeitung. 

All buildings in the city – residential, office towers, hotels, schools and a hospital – will be covered with trees and plants. The objective: to absorb 10,000 tonnes of CO2 and 57 tonnes of fine dust from the air per year. The plants are also expected to produce some 900 tonnes of oxygen each year. 

“For the first time in China and in the world, an innovative urban settlement will combine the challenge for energy self-sufficiency and for the use of renewable energy with the challenge to increase biodiversity and to effectively reduce air pollution in urban areas,” wrote the architecture firm Stefano Boeri Architetti. 

Liuzhou Forest City will feature geothermal energy for interior air-conditioning and solar panels on the roofs for collecting renewable energy, added the architects.

The air filtering aspect in the overall concept is particularly relevant to China, explained the Handelszeitung, which is why Boeri is also building two green-covered towers in the city of Nanjing. According to his vision of sustainable development, several smaller forest cities are preferable to megacities, and Liuzhou Forest City could act as a new model for similar projects around the world.   

Boeri came to forest fame after he built a pair of plant-covered residential towers in Milan called Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest). 

Construction on a similar residential project is expected to begin this year in Lausanne: La Tour des Cèdres (The Tower of Cedars) is a 117-metre high building that will be planted with cedar trees, shrubs and plants, covering a surface of around 3,000 square metres....

Moscow – Singapore is the city most ready in the world to adopt new technologies, according to a PwC Russia survey of 1,500 people from 10 global cities. The city-state received top marks for its digital economy and use of adaptive software in schools.

Nairobi – Renowned architect Shigeru Ban is partnering with UN-Habitat to design shelter for residents of a refugee camp in northern Kenya. Ban has pioneered the use of recycled cardboard tubes to quickly and efficiently house disaster victims.

Under a partnership with the Voluntary Architects Network (VAN) the award-winning Japanese architect Shigeru Ban will develop potential shelter designs for residents of the Kalobeiyei refugee camp based on their socio-economic needs and available data from UN-Habitat. 

VAN and UN-Habitat will also hold design workshops with the community and develop 20 shelter design models, writes UN-Habitat in a statement announcing the partnership.

Shigeru Ban is a celebrated architect known for his innovative work with paper and recycled cardboard tubes. His paper log cabins were used to provide shelter to people displaced by earthquakes in Kobe, Japan in 1995 and in Kaynasli, Turkey in 1999. His designs have also been used for churches, mostly famously in Christchurch, New Zealand after the devastating earthquake of 2011. 

Ban received the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2014 in recognition of “the dedication of his architecture skills and creativity to humanitarian aid”. His architecture is often called sustainable and environmentally friendly and the materials used are locally available and inexpensive. They are also easy to transport, mount and dismantle, and can be water- and fire-proofed as well as recycled.

Ban is also highly regarded for his private commissions. For the Swiss media company Tamedia, he designed a seven-storey headquarters with the main structural system entirely in timber. The wooden beams interlock, requiring no metal joints.

UN-Habitat has been working in northern Kenya since 2015 in a joint project with the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR to provide urban planning expertise to humanitarian shelter provision. The project is funded by the government of Japan....

Bonn – Rapid urbanisation increases the climate risk for billions of people. But a series of initiatives around the world are bolstering the resilience of cities, towns and villages.

The statistics are already well known: more than half the world’s population now live in cities, and a further 2.5 billion people are expected to join them by 2050. At the same time, the impact of climate change – from extreme storms to sea level rise – are putting urban dwellers at risk, especially those living in marginalised, informal settlements like slums or along coastal areas. Desertification for its part is reducing the amount of arable land needed to feed the growing urban population, explains the UN's climate change agency. 

To combat these threats to sustainable development, initiatives around the world are working to build resilience and address the growing climate-related risks posed to inhabited areas. A new UN report has compiled a summary of some of the most prominent global and regional programmes, structured around five opportunities for action offered by them: learn, access technical support, commit, finance and unite. ...

The winners, who must be between the ages of 18 and 35, include students and workers from start-ups and SMEs from Sweden, Romania, Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France and the UK. Their solutions range from futuristic systems for moving people and freight in cities to an e-parking platform, emergency vehicle communication systems, a chatbot, services for people with reduced mobility, and technologies to improve the cycling experience. 

“For us to win the European Transport Innovation Challenge is a huge recognition of our visions and goals,” Christoffer Hamin from Digital reliable railway, one of the winners, is quoted in Cities Today. “The recognition at the top level of political influence shows that there is a need for disruptive change for a better and a safer railway.”

The winners were selected by a professional jury and received a free trip to Strasbourg to follow the European ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) Congress at the end of June. They were also able to participate in a dedicated mentoring workshop to meet investors and EU policy makers and receive personal coaching. 

The 12 winning projects of the European Transport Innovation Challenge 2017 are:...

Dübendorf ZH – At the NEST building in Dübendorf, eight ETH Zurich professors are working with robots and 3D printers to build the three-storey DFAB HOUSE. It is the first house in the world to be designed, planned and built using predominantly digital processes.

NEST is a modular research and innovation building at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) and the Aquatic Research Institute (Eawag) where researchers can test new building and energy technologies under real-life conditions. Construction recently began on the DFAB HOUSE there, which was not only digitally designed and planned, but is also being built using predominantly digital processes. The pilot project enables researchers to examine how digital technologies can make construction more sustainable and efficient, and increase the design potential.

Eight professors from the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich are collaborating with business partners on the DFAB HOUSE project. The work itself is being carried out by robots and 3D printers, as four new construction methods developed at ETH Zurich are being put to the test there. One is the construction robot In situ Fabricator: it fabricated a steel wire mesh that serves both as formwork and as reinforcement for the concrete. Another technology being used is called Smart Dynamic Casting, an automated robotic slip-forming process that can produce customised concrete facade mullions. 

“Unlike construction projects that use only a single digital building technology, such as 3D printed houses, the DFAB HOUSE brings a range of new digital building technologies together. This allows us to use the advantages of each individual method as well as their synergies, and express them architecturally,” ETH professor Matthias Kohler said in a statement.

DFAB HOUSE is scheduled to be completed in summer 2018, at which point the three-storey building will serve as a residential and working space for Empa and Eawag guest researchers and partners of NEST. Digital technologies will also be used once the building is inhabited, such as devices and systems that communicate intelligently with one another or which control the building in a way that improves both energy efficiency and comfort....

Miami Beach – The US Conference of Mayors approved a resolution on Monday calling for 100 per cent renewable energy in US cities by 2035. The resolution was approved by leaders from more than 250 cities.

The resolution was introduced by the co-chairs of Mayors for 100% Clean Energy, an initiative led by the co-chairs of the Sierra Club’s renewable energy campaign and a small, bipartisan group of mayors, reported CityLab. The resolution supports a transition to wind, solar, geothermal and hydroelectric power by 2035. Not only does it reject energy derived from fossil fuels, it also specifically excludes nuclear, waste-to-energy and large-scale hydroelectric dams as qualifying as renewable energy.

“What better way to kick off Donald Trump’s energy week than with a message from our nation’s mayors that cities are ready for 100 per cent clean and renewable energy,” Sierra Club’s executive director Michael Brune said in a statement. “Cities don't need to wait for Washington, D.C. to act in order to move the ball forward on clean energy.”

According to Sierra Club, if cities belonging to the US Conference of Mayors were to transition to 100 per cent clean and renewable energy, this would reduce electric carbon emissions by more than that of the five worst carbon polluting US states combined. If the 100 per cent energy targets were achieved 10 years earlier by 2025, the total electric sector carbon pollution reductions would fill anywhere from 87 per cent to 110 per cent of the remaining reductions the US would need to achieve in order to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.

To date, 36 cities across the US have pledged to transition to 100 per cent renewable energy. ...

Brisbane – The world’s tallest office tower made entirely out of engineered timber is set to be built in Australia by the end of 2018. Featuring nine storeys and reaching a height of 45 metres, the new design as already considered the future of modern construction.

The design from the Australian architecture firm Bates Smart calls for the use of engineered timber or Cross Laminated Timber (CLT). Considered by many to be the future of construction, CLT is when several layers of wood are glued together under high pressure with the grain of each perpendicular to the one before. This achieves a structural stability and strength akin to concrete and steel.

“Buildings made from engineered timber have a lower carbon footprint than other building materials: the production process produces zero waste, and timbers are sourced from certified sustainably managed forests,” according to the developer, Lendlease.

Engineered timber projects also generate less noise pollution during construction, and the structures, which can be plugged in together similar to Lego or an IKEA kit, can be erected much faster than those built using traditional construction methods – up to six times faster for the all-timber office tower planned for Brisbane.

Australia’s building code was changed last year to permit medium-rise timber structures, but one of the major outstanding concerns is that they pose a fire hazard. According to Nick Hewson, a technical manager with the New Zealand-based engineered wood supplier XLam, the new wooden buildings require sprinklers and fire-resistant linings, and when the wood is cleared, it must be thick enough.

“[With thick wood] you can subject it to long periods of fire exposure,” the expert told the Guardian.

Written by Barbara Barkhausen...

Washington, D.C. – The smart city accelerator URBAN-X is going on its first world tour in an effort to find start-ups across the US, Canada and Europe that can change and improve the way cities work.

URBAN-X is a Brooklyn-based smart city accelerator that wants to drive the energy transition at the level of the city. Every six months, it invests USD 100,000 in up to ten start-ups to help them work effectively with cities in sectors like transportation, real estate, local government, local services, and utilities. The start-ups go through a 20-week immersive programme.

The smart city accelerator focused on US cities and start-ups for its first two programme rounds. But now URBAN-X is on a world tour to broaden its scope and impact. From June to August, the company is travelling to 14 cities across the United States, Canada and Europe for its third programme round, including Chicago (22 June), Paris (6 July), London (10 July), Montreal (12 July) and Berlin (13 July). 

The world tour will also help URBAN-X convince start-ups of their potential for cities. “They might not think of themselves as city projects, and we want to make sure we are tapping into those verticals,” said Miriam Roure, programme director at URBAN-X.

Start-ups that have already gone through the accelerator programme include contextere, an Industrial IoT software company enabling the connected workforce; Revmax, which develops fleet management and routing software for ride-hail vehicles; Sencity, which developed an interactive waste bin that rewards the act of waste disposal; and Upcycles, which develops electric cargo bikes for moving goods around urban environments.

The deadline for the third round is 21 July. According to SmartCitiesDIVE, URBAN-X is open to a range of ideas for this next group, but is especially interested in government technology, housing and built environments, and ideas that will grow in importance in the future....

Ouagadougou – A slum upgrade project in Burkino Faso is empowering women and youth to deliver basic urban services to some 30,000 residents in the country’s capital.

The object of the slum upgrade project is to improve the living conditions of slum and informal settlement dwellers in Bissighin area, located in Ougadougou. The project received USD 100,000 from the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP), an initiative of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Secretariat, financed by the European Commission and implemented by UN-Habitat.

Since the project was launched, women and youth living in Bissighin have constructed public spaces, including a road and health centre, to increase the number of safe public spaces available. In addition, rainwater drainage infrastructure was constructed to prevent flooding and reduce the spread of water-borne diseases, especially for children under five years and pregnant mothers, Florence Comporé, who lives in Bissighin, said in a UN-Habitat statement.

Funds were also used to promote gender equality, and women and girls were trained in brick construction and solid waste management to provide them with the skills needed to earn a living and escape the vicious cycle of poverty.

“Girls were also trained in the installation and maintenance of the alternative energy sources that include solar and plumbing, thereby contributing to an increase in the number of skilled labourers available at neighbourhood level to address plumbing and energy issues,” said Comporé. “Before the training, men formed the majority of skilled labourers in the energy and plumbing sectors.”

According to UN-Habitat, Burkina Faso’s population is predominately rural, with just 29 per cent of its population residing in urban areas. However, an overwhelming 65.8 per cent of its urban population resides in slums and informal settlements, highlighting the urgent need to increase the availability of housing, basic services and infrastructure in urban areas....

Vancouver – Award-winning Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has unveiled his latest design for what is set to become the world’s tallest hybrid timber structure.

There’s something of a competition going on for the title of the world’s tallest timber structure, said Tobi Reyes, the CEO of PortLiving. 

The Vancouver-based developer is behind the residential project Terrace House, an innovative hybrid structure of wood, glass and concrete. When built in downtown Vancouver, it will stand 19 storeys and 71 metres tall, one storey higher that the current record holder for world’s tallest wood building – Brock Commons at the University of British Columbia, which also happens to be in Vancouver.

According to PortLiving, Terrace House is a “prominent gesture that demonstrates Vancouver’s commitment to forward-thinking sustainable design and advanced timber engineering and construction”.

Designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, Terrace House will be Ban’s tallest project to date, and his first building in Canada. As the design magazine Dezeen reported, it will feature triangular shapes, natural materials and terraces overflowing with greenery to ensure continuity with its neighbouring landmark, the Evergreen building designed by the late Canadian architect Arthur Erickson.

Ban’s first timber project was the Tamedia headquarters in Zurich. The building’s most notable feature is its exposed structural system made entirely of timber, with no metal connectors, wrote Dezeen.

According to a recent article in the Vancouver Sun, architects across Europe are working on similar projects: a 57-metre tall tower in Bordeaux, France, a 73-metre tower in Amsterdam, and even a 304-metre tall skyscraper in London — all in wood. 

But Reyes isn’t particularly concerned about getting beaten to the prize: unlike those other projects, his already has a development permit and is now working toward securing a building permit. ...

Paris – The French network of urban planning agencies has published a guide outlining the role that urban planning agencies can play in implementing the New Urban Agenda.

According to the French Network of Urban Planning Agencies (FNAU), urban planning agencies play an essential role halfway between the worlds of technology and politics. They can be the missing link in development and planning policies as they mediate between key stakeholders – be it at the level of the city or state – to help them make informed decisions and take proper action. 

But in the context of unprecedented urbanisation, there is an uneven distribution of planning agencies around the world. The FNAU, in collaboration with the French Development Agency (AFD), recently published a guide to help local stakeholders create urban planning agencies to support communities implement the New Urban Agenda.

The guide describes the different forms of urban planning agencies around the world, their areas of action – such as planning projects, monitoring and assessing them, and capacity building – and a step-by-step process for creating an urban planning agency. Throughout the guide are success stories and inspiring case studies.

FNAU is an association of 50 urban agencies across France. Its technical network brings together 1,500 urban planning professionals who are rooted in local realities and contribute to national and European debates about urban policies and the future of cities. The AFD works to fight poverty and promote sustainable development in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, the Caribbean and the French overseas territories....

Cologny – Cities, not nation states, will determine our future survival, argues the World Economic Forum. In contrast to closed, parochial nation states, cities are places of innovation and prosperity.

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), nation states are looking out-dated and even dangerous. Cities in contrast are open, plural and cosmopolitan. Already today they are responsible for generating over two-thirds of global GDP, and urbanisation is set to increase this with an estimated two-thirds of the world’s population expected to be living in cities by 2030.

But while cities are taking bold steps towards agitating for a new urban agenda with coalitions such as C40 or the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy promoting connectivity between cities, the WEF warns that the world’s cities “will need to do more than swap good ideas if humanity is to survive this century”. 

A first step to empowering cities to reduce carbon emissions, resource consumption and other risks such as income inequality, unemployment and crime is to ensure they have access to basic information – not only on the risks they face but also on how they themselves are adapting. This is particularly the case for cities in the Americas, Africa and Asia, which suffer from a critical information shortfall yet will be responsible for 90 per cent of all future population growth.

Examples of information include data visualisations that show how climate change will affect neighbourhoods, such as from rising sea levels, or time lapses that offer a glimpse into tomorrow’s landscape. The WEF is also calling for making data visualisations open to the public, especially museums, universities and schools....

By John DyerJohn Dyer

New York – The US may be withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, but numerous states, cities and companies have pledged to uphold it. New York’s former mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is coordinating the effort.

When President Donald Trump announced his intention to quite the Paris Accord on Thursday, he cited the American city synonymous with steel.

“I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” said the Republican real estate mogul and ex-reality television star.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto wasn’t pleased.

“This city does not support the initiatives that he is doing. This city is adamantly opposed to them,” said Peduto, a Democrat. “For him to use this city as his example of who he is elected to represent — he’s not representing us at all, or not very well.”

Now Peduto is joining a host of local officials, chief executives, university presidents and others who have launched a campaign to reduce carbons emissions locally or privately on a scale that they hope would keep the country on track with its commitments under the Paris agreement.

“While the executive branch of the US government speaks on behalf of our nation in matters of foreign affairs, it does not determine many aspects of whether and how the United States takes action on climate change,” wrote the group’s leader, Michael Bloomberg, to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in a draft letter released to the press. 

“The bulk of the decisions which drive U.S. climate action in the aggregate are made by cities, states, businesses, and civil society. Collectively, these actors remain committed to the Paris accord.”

Bloomberg said he was forming a coalition of more than 200 bigwigs to adopt renewable energy sources that would reduce US carbon emissions, reported the New York Times. The group includes the governors of California, New York and Washington State; the mayors of Atlanta, New York City, Los Angeles; corporate leaders as well as 80 university presidents. 

“The electric jolt of the last 48 hours is accelerating this process that was already underway,” said Robert Orr, the dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and an ex-diplomat who helped negotiated the Paris accord. “It’s not just the volume of actors that is increasing, it’s that they are starting to coordinate in a much more integral way.”

The governors especially have significant influence in reducing American greenhouse gas emissions. Take California as an example. Because of the size of its population and economy, the state’s air quality standards and vehicle regulations often dictate how the rest of the country behaves.

California is already on track to reducing its carbon footprint to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030.

Similarly, New York’s status as the financial center of the world often means its laws are models for the rest of the country. It has already committed to cutting carbon emissions by 80 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050. 

"We will not ignore the science and reality of climate change, which is why I am also signing an executive order confirming New York's leadership role in protecting our citizens, our environment, and our planet," said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Businessmen like Elon Musk echoed Cuomo. The PayPal founder who now runs electric carmaker Tesla and other Silicon Valley businesses quit Trump’s council of economic advisors along with Disney boss Robert Iger.

“Climate change is real,” he tweeted. “Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.” ...

Sussex – The ‘urban heat island’ effect could make climate change costs for cities at least twice as high as the rest of the world. But simple measures such as installing cool pavements and roofs could cut those costs.

An international team of economists from the world’s major cities have published the first study quantifying the potentially devastating combined impact of global and local climate change on urban economies. 

The analysis of 1,692 cities shows that the total economic costs of climate change for cities this century could be 2.6 times higher when heat island effects are taken into account than when they are not, according to a statement from the University of Sussex. For those cities hit hardest, losses could reach 10.9 per cent of GDP by 2100, compared with a global average of 5.6 per cent.

The urban heat island occurs when natural surfaces, such as vegetation and water, are replaced by heat-trapping concrete and asphalt, and is exacerbated by heat from cars, air conditioners and so on. 

Not only is it expected to add a further two degrees to global warming estimates for the most populated cities by 2050, it also damages urban economies: more energy is required for cooling, air is more polluted, water quality decreases and workers are less productive, to name a few. 

Measures that could limit the high economic and health costs of rising urban temperatures are therefore a major priority for policy makers.

The research team found that the cheapest measure to reduce the urban heat island effect is a moderate-scale installation of cool pavements and roofs. Changing just 20 per cent of a city’s roofs and half of its pavements to forms that reflect more sunlight and absorb less heat could save up to 12 times what they cost to install and maintain, and reduce air temperatures by about 0.8 degrees....

Montreal – Ambitious and innovative mobility projects that contribute to advancing public transport around the world were honoured at this year’s UITP Global Public Transport Summit in Montreal.

The UITP Awards are handed out every two years to honour sustainable mobility projects that contribute to the objective of doubling the public transport modal share worldwide by 2025. Successful projects should be innovative and transferrable to other cities and regions. 

More than 230 applications were received for the 2017 awards, which went to projects that were successfully implemented between 2015 and 2017. 

Among this year’s winners were Addax Assesoria Economica e Financeira LTDA and Empresa Metropolitana de Transportes Urbanos de São Paolo S.A., who won the Smart financing and business models award for their public-private partnership that will include LRT and bus modes in Baixada Santista, Brazil. The project was praised as an example of how to finance the new public transport systems needed to meet the increasing mobility demand in growing economies. 

The Cape Town Transport and Urban Development Authority won the Public transport strategy awards for its project that redefines the city’s approach to integrated land and public transport development and growth management. It could result in a 20 per cent improvement in public transport mode share by 2032, which in turn would significantly lower transport emissions in the city....

Living in cities can take a toll on human health in many different ways, explained Ann Aerts in an article for the “Huffington Post”. The head of the Novartis Foundation mentioned examples including air pollution, commuting and working hours, which leave no time to prepare healthy food.

One disease that can be easily managed but is out of control in many cities is high blood pressure. The question, according to Aerts, is how we can prevent the urbanisation boom from becoming a health crisis.

It will be important to develop strategies and involve lots of interest groups, said Aerts, adding that only in this way can a multidisciplinary approach be found. Meanwhile, urban planners, non-governmental organisations, governments and companies must all work together.  

Aerts highlighted the example of a Novartis Foundation initiative called “Better Hearts Better Cities”, which has already launched in Mongolia, Senegal and Brazil. The foundation worked with companies and city governments to develop a programme focused on healthy lifestyles and nutrition, transport systems, working conditions and air pollution.  

The initiative targets primarily low-income urban areas. It is most advanced in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, where cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death.  ...

Paris – The Coalition for Urban Transitions is committed to making the economic case for better urbanisation. But to achieve this, its target is not cities themselves but rather national leaders whose policies affect cities.

The Coalition for Urban Transitions is a new think tank jointly managed by the World Resources Institute and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. But while its focus is on sustainable urbanisation, its target is key national decision-makers, said Nick Godfrey, the New Climate Economy’s head of policy and urban development. In an interview, he told Citiscope’s Gregory Scruggs that the coalition targets national leaders because many of the powers that impact the performance of cities are in the hands of national decision-makers.

One of the main obstacles facing cities in realising the Sustainable Development Goals and New Urban Agenda comes down to money and the narrow domestic revenue bases of many cities. According to Godfrey, national governments should help provide their cities with some of the power they need to start to grow their domestic revenue bases. Examples include providing assistance in improving municipal credit ratings, as was seen in Lima, or experiments with new models like municipal green bonds, as occurred recently in Johannesburg. 

The coalition is also working closely with national governments to help them develop effective national urban policies, said Godfrey. These are based on the three C’s: compact (efficient land use), connected (investing in urban mobility and public transport systems) and coordinated (ensuring that national policy is compatible with local policy in the cities).

According to Godfrey, a good example of a robust national urban policy is in China, which in 2013 released a major new national urban policy focusing on better-planned urban growth, more low-carbon development, pilot cities, and significant resources for municipal authorities. Another example is India, which is in the early stage of implementing its 100 Smart Cities programme. He also pointed out that one third of countries in Africa have their own national urban policies, which gives good momentum to build on....