Downtowns That Are Sustainable and Healthy
In a reversal from trends of the last century, U.S. central cities are now growing faster than their suburbs, according to the latest census data. Sure, suburbs are continuing to grow as well, but there is been a marked shift, from 2010-2013, as Baby Boomers and young...
Mobility as a Service – In Las Vegas
It seems like you can’t turn a corner without encountering a tech company tackling a mobility challenge these days. The CEO of Zappos Tony Hsieh moved their corporate headquarters from the suburbs to downtown Las Vegas and, in a reversal from the Silicon Valley tech...
Santiago, Chile: Ingredients for a Smart City
Santiago, Chile may very well be the smart city of the future. To start with, 40% of the country lives in Santiago, and 85% of the population lives in urban areas, thus modeling the urbanization trend predicted throughout the rest of the world. Though the country is...
Cities and Cars Running on Trash
Many resources flow into cities to make them run; people, products, information, energy, water, food, money. What flows out? Products, air emissions, waste water, and of course, trash. As more cities are discovering, both the waste water and trash can prove to be new...
Will Smart Cities be Gentrified Cities?
Can cities become victims of their own success as they enhance and prosper? The idea of dislocation and displacement from a community is contrary to the urban ethic, and yet this undercurrent is rising in the public discourse wherever revitalization is occurring....
On the Verge: Key Topics and Trends at the 2013 VERGE Conference
A few weeks ago I was fortunate to attend VERGE, a conference hosted by GreenBiz.com in San Francisco exploring the convergence of buildings, transportation, energy, and the latest in technology. Technologists of any ilk, from corporations such as eBay and Dell, to...
Mapping a Community’s Key Assets — Its People
Entrepreneurs and product designers are universally taught to focus on the problem they’re trying to solve or user need they are addressing. They are trying to correct deficiencies and improve performance. Designers and leaders of tomorrow’s cities are trained to...
Financing Urban Innovation and the Rise of Social Impact Bonds
As local governments struggle to meet their budgets, they have been forced to cut social programs often because of reduced federal support. This bears several questions: Where will cities get the money to get smarter? How can a smart city also be good for its people?...
Water Storage in Mumbai Starts With a Park Bench
Mumbai faces increasing strains on its water resources – monsoons bring torrential downpour and flooding for four months, and then for the remainder of the year water needs to be pumped from increasingly distant sources. Though securing water is difficult in...
Risks of Job Sprawl and Progress on Regional Planning
Cities, People, and Jobs Sometimes cities are faced with disasters that strike unpredictably and quickly, leading to long recovery and many resources focused on future preparation. Other times cities create the conditions for disaster through a buildup of decisions...
Middle East Green Building and China’s Sustainable Urban Clusters
How are two world leaders of growth faring in relation to smart cities? China’s future of sustainable urban clusters It goes without saying that even at its best, a smart city is only one component of a regional, national, and global system of cities that seek to...