New WRI research shows that cities in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are expanding outward rather than vertically. As these places grow in population, continuing their unwieldy expansion outward could push them into economic, environmental and social crises.
urban development
Upward and Outward Growth: Managing Urban Expansion for More Equitable Cities in the Global South
Urban areas are expected to triple in size between 2000 and 2030. Unmanaged urban expansion increases the costs of service provision, deepens spatial inequities, and imposes heavy economic and environmental burdens. New analysis on 499 cities’ urban expansion confirm the challenge of rapid...
Upward and Outward Growth: Managing Urban Expansion for More Equitable Cities in the Global South
January 31, 2019
Johannesburg: Confronting Spatial Inequality
This case study in the World Resources Report, “Towards a More Equal City,” examines transformative urban change in Johannesburg, South Africa, through transit-oriented development (TOD). The paper reviews the evidence on whether Johannesburg’s TOD strategy...
Towards Smarter Service Provision for Smart Cities: Accounting for the Social Costs of Urban Service Provision
India is one of the fastest growing countries in the world and urbanisation is both a challenge and an opportunity for India with huge implications for the rest of the world. One critical concern for India’s urbanising future is the provision of basic urban services for all its citizens. Using...
Cities in Brazil, India and Indonesia are using the new Urban Community Resilience Assessment tool to prepare for a warmer world.
Prepared Communities
Implementing the Urban Community Resilience Assessment in Vulnerable Neighborhoods of Three Cities
Climate change affects poor and marginalized communities first and hardest. Particularly in cities, a lack of access to basic services, a long history of unsustainable urban development, and political exclusion render the urban poor one of the most vulnerable groups to climate induced natural...
From a waste-pickers’ cooperative in India to a cable-car system in Colombia's slums, we're beginning to see what innovative urbanization can look like.
Nearly 70 percent of us will call cities home by 2050. To ensure that cities reap the economic benefits of this population boom, though, research shows they need to grow up, not out.
An unprecedented gathering of global leaders today launched the new Global Commission on Adaptation to catalyze a global movement to bring scale and speed to climate adaptation solutions.