Cities surpass governments in climate change targets
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More than 2,500 cities worldwide have formally issued plans to cut carbon emissions since late 2014, as Reuters reported. And many of these local targets are more ambitious than those set by governments under the global...
Very different cities can benefit from ride sharing
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Cambridge, MA – A new study shows that urban ride sharing is feasible in a wide variety of cities around the world. It found that shareability is influenced by the way we organise our lives, rather than...
SIA supports Energy Strategy 2050
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Construction represents a key area for sustainable energy use, according to the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects (SIA), and the Energy Strategy 2050 would require architects and engineers to take action in...
African cities to become more resilient
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100 Resilient Cities (100RC) is a project by the Rockefeller Foundation that is helping cities around the world tackle everything from rising sea levels and coastal erosion to housing and energy challenges, according to a...
ETH researchers quantify impact of street trees
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Zurich/Singapore – Researchers at ETH Zurich in Singapore have developed a method to quantify the impact of trees on urban ecosystems by using Google Street View. One of their findings is that planting more trees in Singapore...
Cooling cities down in a warming world
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Los Angeles – The city of Los Angeles is collaborating with scientists from the University of Southern California to test different ways of reducing urban heat. Strategies include cool roofs and reflective sidewalks.
The...
Singapore, Barcelona and San Francisco among world’s smartest cities
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Oslo – Singapore, New York, Barcelona, Oslo, London and San Francisco are among the world’s smartest cities in terms of technology-sensing infrastructure, according the latest Proximity.Directory report.
Proximity technologies are most commonly known as a marketing tool...
Densely populated areas save on costs
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Ittigen BE – Sparsely populated areas in the periphery have higher infrastructure and mobility costs than centrally located, densely populated ones, a new study shows. It also found that the costs are not fully borne by those...
Nordic countries lead the way on New Urban Agenda
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The independent Swedish think tank Global Utmaning hosted the first regional post-Habitat III conference in mid-December in collaboration with the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) and the Swedish National Centre for Architecture and...
Public-private cooperation key to sustainable urban development
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Geneva – The World Economic Forum has released a report that identifies public-private cooperation as the key to implementing the New Urban Agenda. It encourages the private sector to commit its resources, skills and experience towards developing economically...
Vertical forest concept comes to China
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Stefano Boeri Architetti shot to international fame after the firm’s vertical forest project in Milan – Bosco Verticale – was named the best tall building worldwide in 2015 by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat...
Dutch wood high-rise wins WAN award
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Amsterdam – The tallest wood-framed building in the Netherlands has won an award as the best residential building of 2016. Patch22 features rooftop solar panels, a biomass heating system and can be easily converted from residential to...
Melbourne’s trams turn to the sun
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The government of Victoria has announced that it will issue an open tender in the first half of 2017 to build the state’s first large-scale solar farm by the end of 2018. The solar farm will have...
Aviation is the key to urbanisation in India
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New Delhi – An international conference held in India focused on the emergence of smart cities and urbanisation. Emphasis was placed on the important role played by aviation in the country’s urbanisation.
Numerous international speakers attended...
New Urban Agenda stays on the agenda in 2017
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2016 was an important year for sustainable urban development when the Habitat III conference on urbanisation adopted a 20-year strategy on sustainable cities called the New Urban Agenda. And now 2017 is shaping up to be the...
Cooperation with Switzerland sets example, says Xi Jinping
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This week, Xi Jinping will become the first Chinese head of state to address participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In a guest commentary published in the newspaper the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, he...
UN takes steps to monitor implementation of New Urban Agenda
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After the New Urban Agenda was adopted at the Habitat III conference in Quito, the 24-page document went to the UN’s main legislative body, the General Approval, for formal approval. It did so on 21 December –...
Local Agenda 2030 key to sustainable urban development
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Paris – Urban activists are proposing a new initiative called Local Agenda 2030. It could help anchor the sustainable development goals and Paris Agreement in cities and facilitate implementation of the New Urban Agenda.
2016 was...
Smart cities save energy
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Songdo in South Korea is a showcase project when it comes to smart cities, writes the Handelszeitung in an article. China, too, has more and more projects for cities of the future. But there, there...