Animation of urban migration patterns 1950 - 2040. What’s the role of tactical urbanism in this future?
Animation by DoTank.
Peter Calthorpe on ‘Resilient Cities: Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change’
From the California Academy of Sciences, via Fora TV:
This event is the second part of a two-part discussion featuring Bay Area architect and planner Peter Calthorpe, author of Sustainable Communities and Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change, discusses the aspects of a livable city.Click here for part 1 featuring Timothy Beatley, author of Biophilic Cities and Resilient Cities. For more from Calthorpe check out his interview with Grist where he explains ‘Why urbanism is the cheapest, smartest way to fight climate change’.
via plantedcity:
Digital China’s smart city strategy gaining an edge_Insight—China Economic Net
It is estimated that 70 percent of China’s population will be urbanized by the year 2017. It takes China 20 to 30 years to finish the urbanization process that has taken western industrialized countries 100 to 200 years. “Behind the rapid urbanization there lie many contractions and conflicts. Information technology is undisputedly the most effective means to resolve the contractions during the rapid development of cities.” said Qian Weilie.
Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History is Reshaping Our World
Trends & Transportation: Younger Generation Prefer Electronics Over Cars - CNBC
Kal Gyimesi IBM Institute for Business Value
Today, a confluence of events is starting to change all that. Industry research indicates that younger people don’t value vehicle ownership like their older (over thirty) brothers and sisters or their parents do. It’s no accident that many of these younger folks are leading an urbanization movement, the exact opposite of the stampede to the suburbs that characterized their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. In the city, younger drivers today see cars as an underutilized, expensive and hard to keep asset. Even in suburban and rural areas, young people often have a desire to live environmentally sustainable lives, and increasingly take a dim view of owning gas- or diesel-powered cars.
urban difference: A city is not a T-shirt
Review of the book “Making Competitive Cities” by citybreaths:
In the era of rapid urbanization, we are all trying to understand how numerous processes and phenomena shape our cities: globalization, post-industrialization, entrepreneurial cities, creative classes, clustering…
Owen, a staff writer for The New Yorker, makes a convincing case that Manhattan, Hong Kong and large, old European cities are inherently greener than less densely populated places because a higher percentage of their inhabitants walk, bike and use mass transit than drive; they share infrastructure and civic services more efficiently; they live in smaller spaces and use less energy to heat their homes (because those homes tend to share walls); and they’re less likely to accumulate a lot of large, energy-sucking appliances. People in cities use about half as much electricity as people who don’t, Owen reports, and the average New Yorker generates fewer greenhouse gases annually than “residents of any other American city, and less than 30 percent of the national average.”
By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster?
(via edificecomplex)
