With Australia’s current federal government wishing to be known as ‘the infrastructure government’, Chairman of the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia - David Singleton – is urging decision makers to move forward with infrastructure investment but to tread wisely. He shares five ideas for cities and says "let's get on with it!" Read more here: http://ow.ly/w6vjb
3. More than half of humanity now lives
in cities. Urban areas account for
between 60-80% of energy
consumption and a commensurate
share of global CO2 emissions.
Within a decade, more than 500 cities
globally will have populations
exceeding one million.
4. A statement on climate adaptation
from the recent C40 Summit in
Johannesburg:
“…..countries talk…but cities act”
February 2014
5. Cities are the clusters around which
human interaction is fostered,
creativity and innovation flourish
and economic activity is focussed
6. They are the focii for economic
development
To foster the contributions that cities
make we must understand what
drives their success
7. These drivers can be thought of in
terms of:
Demographic factors
Density
Design and planning
Diversity, of all types
Digital economy
8. These drivers can be thought of in
terms of:
Demographic factors
Density
Design and planning
Diversity, of all types
Digital economy
10. Urbanisation
In 2008 the majority
of the world’s
population lived in
cities
By 2050 the UN
projects that 6.9
million people will
live in cities (>75%
of population)
Urbanisation most
marked in emerging
markets
43. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change defines resilience as “...the ability of
a social or ecological system to absorb
disturbances while retaining the same basic
structure and ways of functioning, the
capacity for self-organisation, and the
capacity to adapt to stress and change”
IPCC, 2007
44. Cities should adopt a systemic approach to
resilience that allows them to fail 'gently', rather
than catastrophically.
A solution based around ‘gentle’failure is
considered a success when the city is able to
function after disaster by using alternative
resources and systems and through the
initiatives of the local community.