Urbanisation | 21st Century Challenges What’s the challenge? Humans are rapidly becoming an urban species, with millions of people migrating to cities each year. Over half of the world’s population live in urban areas and this is likely to reach 70% of the population by 2050. How will urban centres across the world keep pace with predicted continuing growth? What are the visions of tomorrow’s cities? FactsIn 2008 for the first time in history more people lived in cities than in rural areas.Slums are the world’s fastest growing habitat. Rural to urban migration Much of global urbanisation is due to rural-urban migration. The global proportion of urban population rose dramatically during the twentieth century: 1900 13% (220 million) 1950 29% (732 million) 2005 49% (3.2 billion) By 2030 this figure is estimated by the United Nations to be 60% (4.9 billion) Source: The UN World Urbanization Prospects (2009) Cities Slums Slums can also be a source of inspiration and highlight the ingenuity and resourcefulness of populations. Panel discussion
47 per cent of London is green space: Is it time for our capital to become a national park? | Environment | The Independent High up on a grassy hillock alive with wild flowers, a man wearing a beard and sturdy shoes addresses more than 100 young explorers. The sun strikes their faces and the surrounding landscape. It would be a scene of bucolic wonder were it not for the bottle tops and fag ends at their feet, the concrete and glass blocks that dominate the skyline, and the rumble of flight paths, railways and the frantic Mile End road. Yet former geography teacher Daniel Raven-Ellison, who has to shout to be heard, has come to an oasis of green in what feels like East London’s grey desert to present a radical vision for the capital. He believes passionately that the eight million people inside the city – and everyone outside it – should change the way they see it. As part of an unlikely but rapidly growing new campaign that is as simple as it is ambitious, he is trying to turn London into Britain’s newest national park. The first-year students, who are mostly strangers to each other, are quiet. Reuse content
Photos panoramiques Vosges, Alsace, Lorraine - 360° plein écran Le Forlet (lac des truites) Cirque de Frankenthal-Misshemle recueil photographique (21x30 - 48 pages) consacré au thème de l'eau dans le massif des Vosges Grotte des poilus (14-18) la Chapelotte Galeries de mines de 1914 (Forêt de La Chapelotte) Roches du Bihay (Saint-Dié) Massif de la Madeleine - St-dié crevasse en corniche - Wormspel Le Hohneck / la Martinswand Col des Feignes sous Vologne Cascade Charlemagne Hiver Le haut Gazon (le Collet -Balveurche) Les blanches roches (Bipierre) Hêtraie des crêtes (trois fours) Le Donon (visite virtuelle) Crêtes du Lac Blanc (visite virtuelle) Fôret primaire des Vosges Lunéville -Escalier à vis château des Lumières La Haute-Pierre - Moyenmoutier Massif de la Madeleine (saint-dié) Tête de Bipierre (Col de Prayé) Cascade d'Heidenbad (Kruth) Panoramic photographies of the East of France – to discover these full-screen moving panoramics, click on the picture you select and guide the mouse into the direction you want. La chaise du Roi (Saint-Dié)
The 100 million city: is 21st century urbanisation out of control? | Cities The 1960 street map of Lagos, Nigeria, shows a small western-style coastal city surrounded by a few semi-rural African villages. Paved roads quickly turn to dirt, and fields to forest. There are few buildings over six floors high and not many cars. No one foresaw what happened next. But new research suggests that the changes Lagos has seen in the last 60 years may be nothing to what might take place in the next 60. Hundreds of far smaller cities across Asia and Africa could also grow exponentially, say the Canadian demographers Daniel Hoornweg and Kevin Pope at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. Under the researchers’ extreme scenario – where countries are unable to control fertility rates and urbanisation continues apace – within 35 years more than 100 cities will have populations larger than 5.5 million people. What happens to those cities over the next 30 years will determine the global environment and the quality of life of the world’s projected 11 billion people.
The Observer view on London’s wealth gap | Opinion The cliche of London as a tale of two cities is well-worn. But new research published by the Trust for London shows it is deservedly so. Striking new figures show that the proportion of households classified as either poor or wealthy has grown across the country in recent decades, leaving a shrinking middle. London is now a city of contradictions. It is also by far the most culturally diverse part of the country, a melting pot of ethnicities, languages, faiths and traditions, more liberal and tolerant than the rest of Britain. In this city of contradictions Londoners of different means live utterly separate lives. The contrast with the lives of poor Londoners could not be starker. The supposed trickle-down from the City doesn’t even reach the capital’s middle-income households. These contrasts betray the danger in drawing simplistic conclusions about wealth distribution winners based just on region or age. London has had some successes in closing the gap.
::. Visites virtuelles - Nature et paysages en photographie panoramique 360 degrés Acropole des Draveurs aux Hautes-Gorges de la Rivière Malbaie Automne Québécois aux chutes de Ste Ursule Arc-en-ciel au village des Escoumins en Haute-Côte-Nord du Québec La Malbaie vue de Cap-à-l'Aigle dans la région de Charlevoix en panorama Observation des baleines à Cap-de-Bon-Désir aux Escoumins Baie de Tadoussac et sa chapelle indienne en réalité virtuelle Panorama au lever de soleil au lac Memphremagog en Estrie Vue aérienne du lac glaciaire Jökulsárlón en Islande et visite interactive
'Forest cities': the radical plan to save China from air pollution | Cities When Stefano Boeri imagines the future of urban China he sees green, and lots of it. Office blocks, homes and hotels decked from top to toe in a verdant blaze of shrubbery and plant life; a breath of fresh air for metropolises that are choking on a toxic diet of fumes and dust. Last week, the Italian architect, famed for his tree-clad Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) skyscraper complex in Milan, unveiled plans for a similar project in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing. The Chinese equivalent – Boeri’s first in Asia – will be composed of two neighbouring towers coated with 23 species of tree and more than 2,500 cascading shrubs. But Boeri now has even bolder plans for China: to create entire “forest cities” in a country that has become synonymous with environmental degradation and smog. Boeri described his “vertical forest” concept as the architectural equivalent of a skin graft, a targeted intervention designed to bring new life to a small corner of China’s polluted urban sprawl.
À New York, un projet de ville entière contenue dans un gratte-ciel géant L’un des projets du concours eVolo propose de construire un gratte-ciel géant à Times Square contenant un stade et une forêt artificielle. Dans le cadre du concours eVolo 2015, mettant en compétition différents projets de gratte-ciels originaux et innovants, celui d’un immense skyscraper futuriste à New York a été présenté. Il intègre des magasins, restaurants et immeubles, ainsi que des musées, un stade, une forêt ainsi qu’une plage artificielle. Cette esquisse s’inscrit d’ailleurs dans la droite lignée des nombreux projets urbanistes et architecturaux sans âme qui ont essaimé aux États-Unis. Le skyscraper présenté pour le eVolo 2015 présente quant à lui une vision du Times Square de l’an 3015 – qui a peu à voir avec l’original. Cependant, si cette idée semble être une pure fantaisie, elle pourrait avoir le mérite d’inspirer un jour un écrivain voire un scénariste en mal d’inspiration.