URBLOG

COPENHAGEN: Maputo and Rotterdam

Rising sea levels: A tale of two cities

When people talk about the impact of rising sea levels, they often think of small island states that risk being submerged if global warming continues unchecked. By 2050 the number of people living in delta cities is set to increase by as much as 70%, experts suggest, vastly increasing the number of those at risk.

Government responds to forgotten Britain

Communities Secretary John Denham has outlined a £12m plan to reinvigorate and connect with those communities (many of which have seen strong BNP support) that are feeling the pressure from recession most acutely and ensure they are well placed to share fully in future prosperity and emerge stronger and more cohesive.

'The communities involved vary considerably and the challenges are different from place to place. But there are a number of key issues that cut to the core of local concerns. These include;

• a decline in traditional jobs in predominantly white areas and worries about young people's future;
• recent migration is perceived as having changed communities and created competition for jobs and resources like social housing; and
• anti-social behaviour - although fallen across the country - remains a real challenge and can create tensions between the majority of hard working families and the troublesome minority.

For some, the pace of change has led to a sense of resentment and a rise in insecurity and threatens to corrode the cohesion of these communities and create tensions. In some places support for the far right has risen. There could be a rise in migration and resentment at the perception that others are getting a better deal. Some people are left feeling that 'no one is speaking up for us'.

To support this programme CLG is publishing new guidance Building Cohesive Communities - what frontline staff and community activists need to know.

Urban Theology in Birmingham

Who is my Neighbour? Faith and Difference in the 21st century City.

Birmingham Urban Theology Forum on Wednesday 2nd December (2-4.30pm) at Elmfield House on the Selly Oak campus of the University of Birmingham.

Sajida Madni,garss-roots worker with Birmingham Citizens organisation
Laura Zahra McDonald,lecturer in the Sociology Department at Birmngham University
Chris Baker, William Temple Foundation and author of 'The Hybrid Church in the City'

Download Urban Theology Forum Dec09 FLYER

Eco-blind-alley

For green living, head for Mumbai or New York  Simon Jenkins offers an alternative to the ecotown.

New York, London, Mumbai, Hong Kong are crammed with buildings and people, economising on walls, roofs, central heating, offices, open space and mass transit.

In Britain the VAT incentive to replace rather than restore buildings – the result of builder lobbying – is flagrantly anti-green. If Britain must build at all, it should build high-density, low-rise, which conserves energy more efficiently than high-rise.

Urban Population Trends

URBAN POPULATION GRAPH

Orginal Guardian data blog

Urbanization is, to be sure, still manifested in the continues massive expansion of cities, city-regions, and mega-city-regions,   it equally entails the ongoing socio-spatial transformation of  diverse, less densely agglomerated settlement spaces that are, through constantly thickening inter-urban and inter-metropolitan infrastructural networks, being even more interlinked to the major urban centres. We are witnessing, in short, nothing less than the intensification  and extension of  the urbanization process at all spatial scales and across the entire surface of planetary space.

Neil Brenner     ‘What is critical urban theory’ in CITY 13/2-3 June- September2009 p. 205

 

Cities under Obama

Metropolis now

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised to champion America’s cities and help them help themselves. So how are they faring under his presidency?

While cities have long been to a large extent invisible in American public life, the country now has a president who actually likes them and understands their centrality. He recognises that almost all the big trends in US demographics (smaller households, ageing), culture (more tolerant, less racist), economics (the need for innovation, less waste, greater self-sufficiency) and the environment (dying) either predict or recommend the growth of cities. And he thinks their present dysfunction - the source of most of the country's main domestic problems, such as inequality, unsustainability and declining competitiveness - can be cured.

In Britain's dockland mirror, China is sailing into view

Tristram Hunt in The Guardian

Emblems first of empire, then post-industrial drift and rampant capitalism, London's docks are now in hock to a new power. [...] This unbecoming location on the Isle of Dogs has always told us a broader truth about the condition of Britain. In the Victorian era, the docks symbolised the prosperity and progress of empire.

Canary Wharf, an icon of modern capitalism, is now a totem of state-funded corporatism. The docks that once played host to the British empire and housed the finance titans of US imperialism are now in hock to a new power rising in the east.

“I’m sorry, you can’t drink here.”

A Public Nuisance:  Tim Abraham investigates the increasing control of public space.

“Something is lost when our understanding of the public is reduced to consumers on best behaviour.”

Which social problems pose the greatest threat to British society in the 21st century?

JRF publish Contemporary Social Evils

A hundred years after its philanthropist founder identified poverty, alcohol, drugs and gambling among the social evils of his time, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation initiated a major consultation among leading thinkers, activists and commentators, as well as the wider public.

Welcome to a world class place

CABE commissioned Ian McMillan to write Welcome to a world class place, a poem to mark the launch of the government’s strategy for improving quality of place. Ian is poet-in-residence for The Academy of Urbanism and Barnsley FC.

So here’s to world class places; cities of dreaming and myth,
Here’s to looking forward to streets and towns that dance.
Here’s to places we want to be in, places we want to love
Places built on light and history, and hints of sheer romance.

An optimistic street map and a smiling face:
That’s my definition of a world class place!