Selected Readings

 

  •  20-May-2016

    UN-Habitat's first-ever World Cities Report is out!

    Dear Colleagues, As the world has transformed, so have urban areas. Today, cities are home to 54 per cent of the world’s population, and by the middle of this century that figure will rise to 66 per cent. While cities face major problems, from poverty to pollution, they are also powerhouses of economic growth and catalysts for inclusion and innovation. With vision, planning and financing, cities can help provide solutions for the world.

  •  26-Apr-2016

    Asia-Pacific Human Development Report

    Demographic change in Asia and the Pacific is happening at a rate the world has never seen. An explosion in the working age population and a fall in birth rates that took a century in Europe are happening here in just 30 years.

  •  27-Apr-2016

    Pretoria Declaration on Informal Settlements

    Informal settlements are a global urban phenomenon. They exist in urban contexts all over the world, in various forms and typologies, dimensions, locations. While urban informality is more present in cities in developing countries, housing informality and substandard living conditions can also be found in developed countries. Currently, there are around one billion slum dwellers worldwide, compared to three quarters of a billion in 1996. If curative and preventative policies are not initiated, sustained and up scaled, this is expected to increase threefold by 2050. The continued existence of informal settlements is directly linked to the persistence of poverty and inequality, distorted land markets, excluding people from decent work and livelihood to attain individual and collective progress and prosperity. People living in informal settlements are particularly vulnerable to spatial, social, and economic inequalities, dependence on precarious income generation and livelihoods, poor health as well as lack of affordable housing, high vulnerability to the adverse impacts of poor and exposed environments, climate change, and natural disasters. The recently adopted Agenda 2030 for sustainable development and especially a new transformative urban agenda will have to address the above challenges taking stock of the shortcomings and achievements of the previous development frameworks and approaches.

  •  04-Feb-2016

    Food Insecurity and Undernutrition in the Urban Slums of Bangladesh

    Over the past few decades, the urban population in Bangladesh has grown rapidly. With the survey on Food Insecurity and Undernutrition in the Urban Slums of Bangladesh, WFP sought to update the information available on the food security situation among urban slum households, while also complementing this information with key nutrition data on women and children.

  •  31-Dec-2015

    Ten global urban narratives that shaped 2015

    For mayors, city leaders and urban activists around the globe, 2015 was an important and busy year. A whirlwind of international meetings set the stage for next year’s Habitat III conference, the UN’s once-every-20-years summit on the future of cities. Meanwhile, cities continued to operate as prime global laboratories for social, economic and technological innovation.

  •  08-Dec-2015

    Debhata – a lost municipality in Bangladesh!

    It is very interesting to be researched in-depth by the Urban Planners and other relevant professionals- why an urban settlement i.e., a municipality named Debhata located in the extreme western part of Sathkira district has been abolished. The stunning Ichamati River is flowing gently on the western part of Debhata.

  •  02-Nov-2015

    State of Cities: Solid Waste Management in Dhaka City- Towards Decentralised Governance

    Bangladesh’s imprecise economic growth “story” is underpinned by the large measure in urbanisation of Dhaka at a “break weak” pace. The mega city has lately been in the news headlines for all the wrong reasons.

  •  01-Nov-2015

    Leveraging Urbanization in South Asia: Managing Spatial Transformation for Prosperity and Livability [PDF]

    South Asia's urban population grew by 130 million people between 2001 and 2011, and it is forecast to rise by almost 250 million more in the next 15 years.

  •  01-Nov-2015

    OVERVIEW Leveraging Urbanization in South Asia: Managing Spatial Transformation for Prosperity and Livability [PDF]

    South Asia's urban population is poised to grow by almost 250 million people by 2030. If recent history is any guide, this increase could peopel the region toward greater economic growth and prosperity.

  •  01-Nov-2015

    Climate and disaster resilience of greater Dhaka area : a micro level analysis (English)

    Megacity Dhaka encounters various kinds of natural disasters quite frequently owing to its geographical location and a number of other physical and environmental conditions including low topography, land characteristics, multiplicity of rivers and the...

  •  23-Nov-2015

    The Human Cost of Weather Related Disasters (1995 -2015)

    A new report issued today by the UN, “The Human Cost of Weather Related Disasters”, shows that over the last twenty years, 90% of major disasters have been caused by 6,457 recorded floods, storms, heatwaves, droughts and other weather-related events.

  •  01-Nov-2015

    Unless we act now: The impact of climate change on children

    Today’s children, and their children, are the ones who will live with the consequences of climate change. This report looks at how children, and particularly the most vulnerable, are affected and what concrete steps need to be taken to protect them.

  •  31-Oct-2015

    YES, A BETTER DHAKA IS POSSIBLE!

    Had traffic been more disciplined, had housing been a serious enterprise, had civic and public spaces been nurtured, and had the landscape of water and green been sustained, Dhaka would also have been a magnificent, livable place. And that city is possible.

  •  02-Sep-2015

    Open Working Group proposal for Sustainable Development Goals

    Full report of the Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals is issued as document A/68/970, available at http://undocs.org/A/68/970

  •  05-Jul-2015

    Global Assessment Report on disaster Risk Reduction 2015

    The Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) 2015 includes enhanced content. Augmented reality (AR) icons link the report to its companion application, GAR for Tangible Earth (GfT), and provide the reader with additional information and multimedia content.

  •  24-Jun-2015

    Time-Use Patterns and Sustainable Urban Planning: A Case Study to Explore Potential Links

    Linking time use of the inhabitants of a city with their energy consumption and urban form is an approach which allows integration of the social dimension into research on sustainable urban development. While much has been written about the planning of cities and its implications for human social life, the question of the relationship between time-use patterns and urban form remains underexplored. This is all the more astonishing as time-use statistics offer a unique tool for analysing socio-economic changes regarding family and household structures, gender relations, working hours, recreational behaviour and consumption patterns. Furthermore, spatial planning plays a significant role in establishing time structures. With this paper we aim to explore the possibility of using the time-use data of an urban population to find links between individual time-use patterns and urban form. We describe a case study in Vienna where we addressed time use and mobility of citizens in a participatory approach to jointly develop an integrated socio-ecological model of urban time-use patterns and energy consumption.

  •  21-Jun-2015

    Check Out The Habitat III Issue Papers

    The United Nations Task Team on Habitat III, a task force of UN agencies and programmes working together towards the Conference (Habitat III), has prepared and released 22 Issue Papers under six broad areas related to housing and sustainable urban development. These are summary documents that address one or more research areas, highlight general findings, and identify research needs on topics.

  •  18-Jun-2015

    CityNet Annual Report 2014

    CityNet has published the 2014 Annual Report that gives an overview of key events, programmes, and projects throughout 2014.

  •  11-Jun-2015

    LIVEABLE AND SUSTAINABLE CITIES: COMMON CHALLENGES, SHARED SOLUTIONS

    Cities are taking centre stage as key players in the future of human populations. By 2030, only about 15 years away, over five billion people or 60 per cent of the world’s population will live in cities, compared with 3.6 billion today, an increase of 1.4 billion. If mankind is to forge a path forward to make a better life for itself, cities will have to take the lead.

  •  01-Jun-2015

    Urban Solutions #7: Are our cities resilient?

    The World Cities Summit is the exclusive and premier platform for government leaders and industry experts to address liveable and sustainable city challenges, share integrated urban solutions and forge new partnerships.