Robin King

Director of Knowledge Capture & Collaboration, WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities

Bio

Robin King is the Director of Knowledge Capture and Collaboration at WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. In this role, she promotes collaboration across WRI’s international network to better integrate urban planning, land use, and sustainable transportation using her experience working in policy matters in the Americas and Asia.

Prior to WRI, she worked as Principal Research Scholar at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), in Bangalore, India, where she helped lead the Next Generation Infrastructure Laboratory since August 2008. She also is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Foreign Service (SFS) at Georgetown University. Previously, she served as Academic Director of the Masters Program in Latin American Studies in SFS at Georgetown, and held posts at the G7 Group, the Organization of American States, the US Department of State, and Mellon Bank.

She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin, and a BS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. She spent a year as a Rotary Exchange student in Oruro, Bolivia, and more than a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Mexico.

Blogs

Tackling Inequality in Cities is Essential for Fighting COVID-19
by Jillian Du, Robin King and Radha Chanchani - April 14, 2020
To curb the spread of the coronavirus, cities must address inequality. City preparedness and resilience are key to withstanding this and future crises.
To Fix City Slums, Don't Just Knock Them Down: Involve Residents in Upgrading Efforts
by Maria Hart and Robin King - November 13, 2019
Historically, cities have upgraded poor neighborhoods by razing and reconstructing them, often displacing residents. But to actually improve affordable housing and give residents access to services and opportunities, cities need a different approach.
India's Boom Pushed Cities to Their Limits. Here's How Pune Coped.
by Valeria Lvovna Gelman and Robin King - August 16, 2018
Civil society organizations in Pune pushed for reforms to waste management and transport. Government worked with them—to a point.
The Crisis in Affordable Housing Is a Problem for Cities Everywhere
by Robin King - October 02, 2017
Affordable housing has moved to the fore of global concerns, but cities and developers still don't adhere to the key lesson: to make development inclusive, involve communities in the process.
Confronting the Urban Housing Gap
by Robin King - July 12, 2017
Affordable housing is a critical need in the cities of the global south. Innovative approaches can help replace slums with healthier environments.
3 Challenges to Safe and Affordable Urban Housing
by Robin King and Terra Virsilas - October 12, 2016
A good home gives families a base to build the foundations of society, but in urbanizing areas, good housing can be difficult to find. People like Jussara and her family in Porte Alegre, Brazil, face a trio of critical challenges to locating affordable housing that apply in many growing cities worldwide.
A Safe City is a Just City
by Ben Welle and Robin King - April 04, 2014
Improving developing cities’ traffic safety is a critical task for ensuring that these growing urban centers become safe, equitable places to live. A key part of achieving this safety? Sustainable urban design.

The connection between safety and justice is a major theme of the upcoming World Urban Forum (WUF7), organized by UN-HABITAT, which this year focuses on “urban equity in development—cities for life.” At the event, EMBARQ experts will host a Cities Safer by Design for All networking session. The event will convene key experts and explore ways that urban design can improve safety—and in turn, justice—in developing cities around the world.
4 Ways Cities Benefit from Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)
by Robin King - December 10, 2013
New research shows that Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) can reduce travel time by millions of hours for commuters worldwide. For instance, BRT users in Istanbul, Turkey, can save 28 days per year by shifting from other transport modes to BRT. Commuters in Johannesburg, South Africa, meanwhile, can save an estimated 73 million hours between 2007 and 2026. That’s the equivalent of more than 9 million eight-hour work-days.

Publications

Surabaya: The Legacy of Participatory Upgrading of Informal Settlements
This case study describes the history of Surabaya, Indonesia’s inclusive housing policy and how the Kampung Improvement Program became a model for in situ slum upgrading efforts both nationwide and internationally. The paper suggests certain actions that the city can take to maintain its legacy of inclusive housing policy, including prioritizing in situ, incremental upgrading of informal settlements; partnering with NGOs and universities to facilitate innovation; and improving the city’s transportation network and limiting high-end development that displaces residents.

by Ashok Das and Robin King - November 2019

publication
Topics: WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities
Geography: Indonesia
Guadalajara: Revisiting Public Space Interventions through the Via RecreActiva
This case study tells the story of the Via RecreActiva, a ciclovía event that closes more than 60km of streets in Guadalajara, Mexico every Sunday for public recreation and entertainment. The paper explains the benefits that can come to a city that invests in car-free space and how these investments can spark broader change towards a safer and more equitable city.

by Carolina S. Sarmiento, Saúl Alveano and Robin King - March 2019

publication
Topics: WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities
Pune: Civil Society Coalitions, Policy Contradictions, and Unsteady Transformation
This case study in the World Resources Report, “Towards a More Equal City,” examines the processes of transformative change and the conditions enabling and inhibiting it in Pune, the second largest city in Maharashtra state, India. Many initiatives across diverse sectors have had a positive, qualitative impact on sustainability and service provision in Pune, particularly in its solid waste and transport sectors. These initiatives reflect important shifts in the local government’s attitudes and systems towards greater sustainability and equity and have had a positive impact on many lives.

by Lalitha Kamath, Robin King, Himanshu Burte and Avinash Madhale - August 2018

publication
Topics: WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities
Geography: Africa, Asia, India
Porto Alegre: Participatory Budgeting and the Challenge of Sustaining Transformative Change
This case study in the World Resources Report, “Towards a More Equal City,” examines transformative urban change in Porto Alegre, Brazil, through the lens of participatory budgeting. The research focuses on whether and how transformative change has taken place in the city between 1990 and the present, as well examining the recent decline and suspension of participatory budgeting in the city of its birth.

by Rebecca Abers, Robin King, Daniely Votto and Igor Brandão - June 2018

publication
Topics: WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities
Geography: Africa, Latin America, South Asia
Confronting the Urban Housing Crisis in the Global South: Adequate, Secure, and Affordable Housing
This paper discusses the challenge of adequate, secure and affordable housing in the global south.

by Robin King, Mariana Orloff, Terra Virsilas and Tejas Pande - July 2017

publication
Topics: WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities
Geography: Africa, Latin America, South Asia
Cities Safer by Design
Urban Design Recommendations for Healthier Cities, Fewer Traffic Fatalities
Many of the world’s cities can become safer, healthier places by changing the design of their streets and communities.
by Ben Welle, Wei Li, Claudia Adriazola-Steil, Robin King, Marta Obelheiro, Claudio Sarmiento and Qingnan Liu - July 2015

publication
Topics: WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities

External Publications

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Robin King

Tackling Inequality in Cities is Essential for Fighting COVID-19

To Fix City Slums, Don't Just Knock Them Down: Involve Residents in Upgrading Efforts

India's Boom Pushed Cities to Their Limits. Here's How Pune Coped.

The Crisis in Affordable Housing Is a Problem for Cities Everywhere

Confronting the Urban Housing Gap

3 Challenges to Safe and Affordable Urban Housing

A Safe City is a Just City

4 Ways Cities Benefit from Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)

Surabaya: The Legacy of Participatory Upgrading of Informal Settlements

Guadalajara: Revisiting Public Space Interventions through the Via RecreActiva

Pune: Civil Society Coalitions, Policy Contradictions, and Unsteady Transformation

Porto Alegre: Participatory Budgeting and the Challenge of Sustaining Transformative Change

Confronting the Urban Housing Crisis in the Global South: Adequate, Secure, and Affordable Housing

Cities Safer by Design

Urban Design Recommendations for Healthier Cities, Fewer Traffic Fatalities

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