Dozens of mayors of cities from every continent pledge cleaner air in a bid to improve urban health and tackle climate change

COPENHAGEN, Oct 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - From penalising cars to planting trees, dozens of mayors from every continent pledged cleaner air on Friday in a bid to improve urban health and tackle climate change.

More than 90% of people breathe dirty air, causing death and disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Drone data has allowed us to find solutions for a wide range of social challenges, like humanitarian aid, resource conservation, resilient urban planning and many more. But as the field has expanded, three pressing issues have emerged:

1. how to produce impactful analysis in a rapid manner;
2. how to then bring back results to beneficiaries to turn data into action; and
3. how to make ethics a main concern in each step of the process.

The year was 2009, and Typhoon Ketsana — known locally in the Philippines as Ondoy — had just struck Metropolitan Manila, Philippines. One of the strongest typhoons to have made landfall in the megacity, Ketsana displaced thousands of families and left them without their source of livelihood and income. I was a researcher then, assigned to do a rapid assessment of Tatalon, a village in Quezon City, known to be a site of informal settlement families.

Government should consider upgrading the city’s Karail slum community instead of summarily evicting its 200,000 people for a software park

magine a community of 200,000. Convivial, walkable, six times the density of Manhattan but with a smaller ecological footprint. It provides low-cost services and affordable housing mixed with productive uses such as recycling, farming and trading. It’s a city within a city.

Residents say that quality of life is under threat from increasing tourism and rising rents that are pushing out young people and poorer families

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Walking through the hip San Juan neighbourhood (barrio) of Machuchal, it is hard to miss the house painted bright yellow, green and red, with a sign on the side reading "Casa Taft 169".

Can urban planners use the technology in “Smart Cities” to create cities that are more just—and safe—for all?

What does a “smart city” look like from a gender perspective?  Is there a difference as to how women experience a city? Does technology help or hinder that experience? And how can technology be harnessed to purposefully address challenges of most concern to women? 

New Delhi._ The 21st century is often projected as one of Urbanity. Some go to the extent of even saying that if the hallmark of 20th century was the rise of nation states (and of welfarism), the current one will be that of cities, urbanity and ecology, and defined by struggles of millions to claim urban spaces and redefine urbanity, generating enormous challenges.

Agriculture makes up only about 1 percent of Singapore's land area, but urban farming - including vertical and rooftop farms - is fast becoming popular

SINGAPORE - Rain or shine, every day for the past year, Kanti Kagrana walks a short distance from his son's flat to Singapore's HortPark, a national park where he grows chillies, eggplant and spinach in his allotment garden.

The protesters said there was widespread frustration among those still waiting to be rehoused more than a decade after war drove them from their homes

TBILISI, April 5 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Dozens of Georgian families occupied a tower block this week in a protest activists said highlighted widespread frustration among people still waiting to be rehoused more than a decade after war drove them from their homes.

NEW DELHI - A push to formalise land claims, map settlements and digitise records is not always in the best interests of vulnerable communities, and may even lead to greater rights abuses, analysts warned on Friday.

From Peru to the Philippines, governments are curtailing the rights of indigenous communities and forcibly resettling people in slums, land campaigners say, while mapping lands and digitising land records with the aim of increasing efficiency.

A charter designed by civil society organisations, workers’ collectives, and the urban poor reimagines our cities

While agrarian distress has slipped into the pre-election discourse as an important political subject, it is imperative to ask why the urban question is no less political. India’s cities are grappling with acute urban livelihood issues relating to jobs, housing, migration, living conditions, mobility, sanitation, climate change and sustainability.

Innovation Programme Call for Proposals 2019. The Cities Alliance has launched a Call for Proposals to award small grants for innovative ways to improve tenure security, land and property rights in African cities.

The Secure Tenure in African Cities initiative