Urban Transformations: World Cities Day

Photo: steps-centre.org

Leading Urban Transformations is the theme for World Cities Day on 31 October 2014.

Urbanisation and economic growth go hand-in-hand. How to balance rapid economic growth with sustainable management of ecosystem services and enhanced social justice are crucial issues to the health and livelihoods of the world’s citizens. Our work encourages the rethinking of urban planning initiatives through a sustainability lens.

We have been working with academics, NGOS, policy makers and practitioners around the world to research mainstream development interventions aiming to address environmental and resource management challenges in rapidly urbanising transitional spaces.In  India we work closely with partners including several schools at Jawaharlal Nahru University, Toxics Link and Sarai in New Delhi.

By exploring the hidden impacts such interventions have on the wellbeing of urban and peri-urban citizens and the environment we are highlighting alternative pathways to sustainability based on an enhanced understanding of complex, diverse and risk-prone urban and peri-urban situations.

This page features highlights from our work on how citizens, science, policy and politics interact in this area. It includes selected projects, events and peer-reviewed articles.

Brochure: Sustainable cities: research in rapidly urbanising India (PDF)

Read more: http://steps-centre.org/about/hot-topics/urbanisation/