I was recently asked to write a piece for Meeting of the Minds on the above topic…full article here excerpts below. What should a revitalization plan for a Middle East city look like? It should address the challenge of introducing walkability and effective public transport into existing urban cores, especially since most cities have been […]
Urban Revitalization in Middle East Cities Read More »
I have to start by apologizing for the silence on this blog during the past couple of months…”dissertation” is all I can say. If you’re wondering about my research topic, this article I wrote recently might give you a clue, although the story unfolding is turning out to be a lot ‘juicier’ than I expected. More on
The first 10 years of my career Read More »
If April was the month of resilience, then May was definitely the month of adaptation – climate change adaptation. Globally, over 1600 delegates came together for the Adaptation Futures 2016 conference in Rotterdam, the fourth and so far largest international conference on the topic. Closer to home, media reports have highlighted recent scientific research drawing
No one will adapt our cities for us Read More »
April has been an exciting month for Resilience. The first resilience strategies for the Middle East (Byblos, Lebanon) and Europe (Vejle, Denmark) were released – well done, Byblos, Vejle, and Arup! There were also very interesting updates from other cities on the journey: New York published its first resilience progress report, and Pittsburgh’s Chief Resilience Officer (CRO), Grant Ervin,
Resilience: what can cities learn from Byblos and Pittsburgh Read More »
I had the pleasure of visiting Barcelona a few weeks ago as part of an urban planning field trip organised by UCL. That translated into many, many hours of walking around the less-touristy areas of the city, and the opportunity to hear firsthand from local planning experts from academia, government, and civil society. There is so
Best of Barcelona Public Realm Read More »
I have often been on the receiving end of this question, and I usually end up providing a long-winded response with several examples to make the point that we do lots of very exciting things that are constantly evolving! Since the last post was a view on planning in general, I thought it would be interesting
What do environmental and sustainability planners do anyway? Read More »
A lot, particularly about successful planning of mega projects, argues Roger Allport. Not only did Allport complete a PhD on this topic, but he also published a book on it: Planning Major Projects. Rather than undertake a review of the work, which is well worth reading, I will highlight some of the concepts and quotes which particularly drew my attention and which help
What can we learn from 9 metro projects? Read More »
A few weeks ago, a series of thought-provoking debates were held at LSE to celebrate the 10 years of the Urban Age programme. A beta website was also launched, making available the research was undertaken as part of the programme. If you have a few spare minutes this holiday season, I highly recommend watching the recorded presentations.
Questions for the Urban Age Read More »
Note: I am honoured to be a contributor to the The Nature of Cities virtual magazine, and very pleased to shared excerpts from my first essay below. As a start, let us remind ourselves of the figures published by WHO last year: air pollution is responsible for over 7 million deaths a year. Out of those, around
Air Pollution: Urban Myths and Realities Read More »
Earlier this week, I gave a talk in Dubai about the concept of One Planet Consumption and how built-environment professionals can and are ‘fixing’ the planet. After thirty minutes of listening to me talk about cities taking action, the questions from the audience seemed to all point in one direction: how do we translate this momentum to more sustainable
Advice to frustrated champions Read More »