Dubai Design District: city builds its own Shoreditch from scratch in the desert | Cities. One of the most grating trappings of social change in London has to be gentrifying entrepreneurs who treat their arrival as year zero. Suffering from an inversion of Sixth Sense Syndrome (they can’t see local people), new arrivals sometimes insist that before they moved to Hackney/Peckham/wherever, there was “nothing there”. The city of Dubai has, perhaps inadvertently, found a way around this trope. They’re effectively building their own Shoreditch – entirely from scratch, on the edge of the desert. The Dubai Design District – shortened to D3 (of course) – is a new neighbourhood that will mix office space, major brand outposts and small boutiques with galleries, workshops and artists’ studios. For once, the assertion that this creative district is starting off from tabula rasa is actually accurate. But is it really possible to foster a genuinely vibrant district with a creative tag by decree?
“For me, building a quarter from scratch sounds a bit clinical,” he says. Why are city mayors back on agenda? 23 June 2014Last updated at 08:28 ET By Mike Sergeant Local government correspondent, BBC News The new plan for an elected mayors is for larger areas, such as Greater Manchester Two years ago, the dream of having elected mayors running all of England's biggest cities suffered an abrupt and, some might say, devastating setback.
Voters in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle were among those to give the idea a decisive thumbs-down in referendums in May 2012. The people, it seemed, had spoken, and the electorate had shown itself deeply suspicious of the idea of introducing a new gang of elected politicians on comfortable salaries. But on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, the chancellor put elected mayors right back at the heart of the government's plans for rebalancing the economy and devolving power. George Osborne said: "You need to see strong city leadership. "A true powerhouse requires true power," says Chancellor George Osborne. Smart City Benchmark. City Magnets II: Benchmarking the Attractiveness of 50 Canadian Cities.
Benchmarking the Walkability of Global Cities. This post is also available in: German We live in a world that is urbanising at an astonishing rate: 100 years ago only 20% of people lived in a city, by 2010 more than half the worlds population was living in an urban area and by 2050 we expect that figure to rise to 70%.
As these mega-cities become increasingly dense and over-populated, the transport systems that support them are struggling to cope with the sheer numbers of people trying to move around. Many cities around the world are starting to wake up to the fact that they will have to become walkable and bikeable, just in order to function in the future. As each country takes a slightly different approach to creating walking-friendly cities, one global organisation is working to connect and empower urban governments, citizens and communities to achieve a walkable future.
Walk21 is a non-profit with the vision to “create a world where people choose and are able to walk as a way to travel, to be healthy and to relax”. European smart cities - Benchmarking. Interactive city benchmarking sites | The Programmable City. Over the past few years there have been a proliferation of city benchmarking indexes and data tools that enable the comparison of different phenomenon across cities.
A recent Jones Lang LaSalle report details 150 of them. Such indexes are composed of composites of key indicators and are proported to give an indication of city performance vis-a-vis other locales and to judge how city administrations and policies are fairing. Below are some links to some interactive city benchmarking sites that allow the comparison of selected cities. Our interests in such benchmarking is in the politics of indicator selection and the formulation of indices, and how the data are employed, a topic that we’ve just started to examine on the ProgCity project.
NYC Global Innovation Exchange: OPENCities Monitor: Siemens Green City Index: Dublin City Indicators and Benchmarking | Creative Dublin Alliance. If you require access to our indicator and benchmarking data or would like to discuss our research please contact us on research@dublincity.ie Background Dublin city council has invested resources in the development of city indicators and benchmarking. Such research builds up our evidence base informing policy and is also used to identify and implement best practice.
These indicators are being used to measure and monitor city performance in the national and international context. As part of this initiative we have collaborated with a number of international organisations to help better understand Dublin’s position in global benchmarking rankings and research including: Regional Collaborations include: Full details of all our research papers, presentations and workshops are available if you scroll down to end of page. Dublin’s performance in selected International Metrics: Selected reports and workshops: Upcoming research projects: Contact research@dublincity.ie for further details.
Innovation Cities Global Index 2014 from 2thinknow : City Rankings List » Innovation Cities Program & Index: City Innovation for USA, Canada, Australia/NZ, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Mid-East. < Back to Index Home City innovation economy classifications and rankings, 2014. World’s largest city classification and global ranking with 445 benchmark cities classified, and all cities analyst ranked this year. Measuring each cities potential as an innovation economy at the current time, since 2007. Based on 2thinknow analyst interpretation of 162 city indicators from 2thinknow City Benchmarking Data set. Index Resources: 2014 Overview | FAQ | Media Release Innovation Cities Index 2014 : Global 2014 Indexes: Global | Top 100By Region: Americas | Europe | Asia | Emerging | Subregions Want to reproduce this list? Download basic Index in Excel Index Resources: 2014 Overview | FAQ | Media Release Reproducing this list.
The indexes and supporting materials are copyright and used under license by 2thinknow. Source: 2thinknow Innovation Cities™ Index 2014: www.innovation-cities.com [or just link to the page you are referencing] Utah Benchmarking Project - Utah League of Cities and Towns. The purpose of the Utah Benchmarking Project is to provide local governments with a management tool that supports their decision-making process in strategic planning, performance improvement, and service delivery efficiency.
Utah City Data is a collaborative effort between Utah City Managers Association (UCMA), Utah League of Cities and Towns (ULCT), the University of Utah’s Center for Public Policy & Administration, Utah State University, and Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management. The benchmarking project includes four pieces: Data collection and general project management by the University of Utah.An on-line system that member cities accessed by member cities use to input data.
The system is also used by member cities to pull data to do their own data analysis. The data collection for FY2012 (FY 7/1/2011 to 6/30/2012) will begin in late November. Once the data upload is completed, the city reviews the data you enter and the data we collect. The Urbanophile. Strong Towns Blog - Strong Towns. I’ve been trying to find some time this week to finish the next draft of MoneyHall. That has been hit and miss, not only because of stuff here at Strong Towns but because my daughter, who is now nine, is suddenly in a softball league where they take practice seriously.
I’ve been helping out and it seems like we are at the park now every night. Lots of fun and she is getting better, but crimps my writing time (not to mention that dad is a little more tired at night after running around in the sun for two hours). I’m close – should have an announcement in the next week or two. In the meantime, I’m going to do a speed version of the FND so I can get back at it. Enjoy this week’s news.
Kristen Jeffers, the Black Urbanist, now has a podcast. If your development can’t support the cost of full infrastructure, that’s a powerful market signal that it’s not viable. You have heard me talk funding transit through value capture but maybe are a little unclear of what that means. Rust Wire. Project for Public Spaces | Placemaking for Communities. GIFC_toolkit_2013.pdf. A Cycle of Positive Development Posted by Olivia Bailey on March 10, 2014 | Colleges and universities have recognized their potential to be the heart of their respective cities and to serve a greater purpose than mere education. More Zimpher’s Work Earns Presidential Praise Posted by Olivia Bailey on February 13, 2014 | Nancy Zimpher, Chancellor of the State University of New York and immediate past Board Chair for CEOs for Cities, was called “Obama’s favorite college leader” in an article published last week.
More City Valentines Posted by Tara Sturm on February 13, 2014 | If cities gave out Valentines, what would they say? More A New Name / A New Look Posted by Lee Fisher on February 13, 2014 | Our newsletter has a new name and a new look that better reflects who we are and what we do. More Homeless for the Holidays Posted by admin on December 11, 2013 | Guest Bloggers Most Americans will enjoy Thanksgiving dinner in the comfort of their own home. Authored by Andre Shashaty. More More More.
Resilient. London tops PwC Cities of Opportunity Index. London positions itself as finance and tech leader London has finished top of PwC’s Cities of Opportunity index for the first time. The index analyses the top 30 capitals of finance, commerce and culture and is in its sixth year. London finished top of several indicators covered by the index, including world university rankings, software development and multimedia design’ and relocation attractiveness. Leader in Tech According to the report: The British Capital finishes first in technology readiness, economic clout and city gateway – all measures of its stature as a thriving centre of the world economy. The title of economic powerhouse is nothing new to London, but its leading position in tech shows just how far London has come.
Tied with Seoul for top spot in tech, London finishes ahead of Stockholm in third, New York in fifth and San Francisco in sixth. Technology readiness and economic clout in London go increasingly hand in hand. Nobody’s perfect London does not get 10s across the board. The best city blogs around the world – an interactive guide | Cities. Turn autoplay off Edition: <span><a href=" Sign in Beta About us Today's paper Subscribe Custom Search The best city blogs around the world – an interactive guide To get a better view of what's really happening across the world, we're getting to know the local urban voices who cover their home cities most insightfully. . © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Send to a friend Your IP address will be logged Share Short link for this page: Contact us Report errors or inaccuracies: userhelp@theguardian.com Letters for publication should be sent to: letters@theguardian.com Close.
Cities and Ambition. May 2008 Great cities attract ambitious people. You can sense it when you walk around one. In a hundred subtle ways, the city sends you a message: you could do more; you should try harder. The surprising thing is how different these messages can be. New York tells you, above all: you should make more money. There are other messages too, of course. You should be hipper. What I like about Boston (or rather Cambridge) is that the message there is: you should be smarter. When you ask what message a city sends, you sometimes get surprising answers. That's not quite the same message New York sends. How much does it matter what message a city sends? You can see how powerful cities are from something I wrote about earlier: the case of the Milanese Leonardo.
If even someone with the same natural ability as Leonardo couldn't beat the force of environment, do you suppose you can? I don't. I'd always imagined Berkeley would be the ideal place—that it would basically be Cambridge with good weather. Cities_Outlook_2014.pdf.
MIscellaneous. Slow stuff. Europe. Street Art. China. Tomorrow / Smart / Future. USA.