Better Cities Now

Curitiba’s ongoing transport evolution

2013-05-21T18:42:19Z

The transformation of Curitiba’s transport system, from car-clogged motorways to a world-leading Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, has long been a leading case study for any city leader wanting inspiration on how to switch thinking on getting from A to B. The city’s success in this domain has been instrumental in developing a low-cost, but heavily used transit system, used by as much as 70% of local commuters.

In fact, it’s been so successful, that it has had to figure out how to move beyond BRT and find a new stage in its transport evolution—by developing its first underground Metro system. The more than $1bn PPP project went to bid during 2012, using an innovative financing scheme that committed the city to only starting to pay for the infrastructure once the first passenger started to use it.

In a marked contrast with other metro projects, the 14km metro line will replace the North-South corridor, converting the previously dedicated bus lane space into a pedestrian and cycle-friendly lane (pictured above, with more info here and here), to further improve the multi-modal transport options of the city. The 6 other core BRT corridors will remain in place (with thanks to @DarrenDavis10 for input on this).

For many other emerging market cities, all this suggests Curitiba may become yet another exemplar to follow, building on its already striking successes in changing perceptions of city transport. Which other cities are you aware of undergoing similar transitions?

Is Copenhagen the greenest capital city?

2013-05-14T09:19:03Z

Back in 2009 Copenhagen, Denmark, was recognised as the top performing city on the Siemens European Green Cities Index. The study was one of the most comprehensive ever to focus on city-level sustainability, and Copenhagen performed extremely well across all eight categories of the index. These included CO2 emissions, energy, buildings, transport, water, waste and land use, air quality and environmental governance.

Far from resting on their laures, policy makers in Copenhagen are forging ahead with even more ambitious plans. These are intended to culminate in 2025, by when the city plans to become the world’s first carbon-neutral capital. Copenhagen will have to meet a range of challenging targets to achieve this but their track record, and well-established green systems and culture, give them a strong chance of getting there. Nevertheless, the list of targets is daunting, for example, in order to get carbon-neutral by 2025 Copenhagen intends to:

Replace coal with bio-mass at all its coal-fired power plants
Add at least 100 wind turbines to the grid while also investing significantly in solar and geothermal power
Reduce commercial building electricity consumption by 20%
Reduce residential building electricity consumption by 10%
Reduce total heat consumption by 20%
Move 20-30% of all cars and small trucks onto electricity, hydrogen, bio-gas, or bio-ethanol
Move 30-40% of all heavy vehicles onto electricity, hydrogen, bio-gas, or bio-ethanol
Complete a new subway project by 2018 which will mean 85% of citizens will be within 600 metres of a metro station.
Ensure 75% of all journeys in the city are made by foot, bike or public transport

To be fair, Copenhagen is fairly small (with just over 550,000 people) and this does make progress easier relative to larger cities. But even among cities of comparable size, as Copenhagen forges ahead, is there anywhere in the world that can match the Danish capital’s sustainability credentials?

Urban farming: Steps to stimulate the new local food movement

2013-05-06T12:18:50Z

Over the past year, a somewhat underground meme has been increasingly shovelled out into the open: there’s enough space in many cities to grow our own food. As any fan of guerrilla gardening would note, all sorts of tillable city spaces have been reclaimed to plant flowers in the quest to beautify our concrete jungles for nearly as long as such spaces have existed. But a range of forces are increasingly pushing the use of under-utilised city spaces as an urban farm—from the tough economy to the rise of so-called food deserts in many cities, especially poorer neighbourhoods.

More recently, evangelists like Ron Finley have helped propel the idea to the frontline, thanks to a popular TED talk which encouraged people to plant gardens in any space, such as the unused roadside LA strip that he got going in himself. As he points out, the city of Los Angeles owns about 26 square miles of vacant lots – about 20 Central Parks – to potentially grow fresh food in.

His efforts are hardly alone. A documentary called Urban Roots showcases how residents of the struggling city of Detroit (pictured here) have created a thriving food oasis amidst the ongoing decline of the city (an issue that we covered back in 2010, in a related post on urban farming). Elsewhere, a new book called Farming the City provides a 240-page guide on how to drive small-scale local solutions in producing food within our cities. These two releases add to a growing body of work highlighting the merits and benefits of urban farming.

The results from such efforts can be both beautiful, as these pictures show, and also healthy for both stomach and wallet. As this infographic highlights, the upsides span a range of issues (more here):

Health (eg, better eating, improved food knowledge, physical activity, etc)
Social (eg, youth development, food security, safer spaces, etc)
Economic (eg, job growth, affordable food, etc)
Ecological (eg, soil improvement, storm water management, conservation, etc)

Get digging?

But as Farming the City highlights, urban farming is an inherently bottom-up process, which spots and exploits opportunities as they emerge—literally the cracks, sidewalks and gaps in our urban lives at many times.

This is part of its appeal, but it is also part of the challenge, in terms of how city leaders might encouraging the scaling up of such efforts, rather than waiting for the next acolyte of Mr Finley to emerge. This is not to suggest nothing can be done, as a range of tools are available to city authorities to encourage this form of growth in their cities.

As a handy starting point, this is our modest list of suggestions for city leaders:

- Don’t harm or block citizens’ efforts. Mr Finley was warned and fined before finally convincing authorities to see his efforts in a more positive light.

- Take the time to better understand the benefits, not only for individuals involved, but also their wider communities. It also cuts crime, beautifies neighbourhoods, improves health and educates kids.

- Consider tweaking the city code to explicitly allow for such alternative use of specific city zones. Some are pushing for specific tax incentives to help develop this further, such as efforts from San Francisco’s Philip Ting.

- Relax any related restrictions, from parking and fencing rules to simplified business licensing and food sales rules. Various cities are doing even more to actively promote and stimulate such efforts.

- Educate and encourage. Even a simple leaflet or online guide for local residents can help inspire new adherents to the cause.

- And what else? Any other good ideas for city leaders that we can share here for other cities?

City Seedlings

2013-04-30T08:54:45Z

Entrepreneurs are good for the economy of a city. They create jobs, boost productivity growth and launch new innovations. These benefits, in fact, were the conclusions of a review of some 57 “high quality” research studies conducted by two Dutch economists a few years ago (van Praag and Versloot 2007). City leaders are well aware of these benefits and many invest ambitiously – sometimes gratuitously – in projects designed to breed, attract and nurture up-and-coming businesses. So what should these projects look like? What should leaders do to fertilise and water a city’s soil to best support seedling enterprises?

One thing they should not do, according Babson, the US College that promotes itself as an entrepreneur creator, is to try to recreate Silicon Valley. Cities across the world have built Valley-inspired economic areas (with varying success) in the hope of sparking a vibrant, hi-tech cluster. According to the director of the Babson Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Project, Daniel Isenberg, cities should actually focus on leveraging the unique features of their own region, not emulating others.

What they should do, as the name of the project suggests, is create an ‘ecosystem’ for their entrepreneurs to grow in. This means engaging and coordinating many discreet systems and organisations within a city. The goal is to create a ‘wrap around’ environment that responds to all the key needs of germinating businesses. An example of this principle in action (within the Ecosystem Project) is from Manizales, Columbia, a city with around 400,000 people. Babson and the city have engaged 11 important but diverse stakeholders, from public authorities to private businesses, not-for-profits and universities. The 11 are researching, planning and creating start-up friendly initiatives that cover a huge range of areas. These include government policy, the labour market, the local economy, funding, infrastructure, networking, education and even the city’s attitudes and customs.

It is fairly rare to see such a comprehensive approach to entrepreneur-building in a city. But in today’s environment, with a global unemployment epidemic in play and highly competitive cities springing up across emerging markets, cities must do everything they can to support entrepreneurs, start-ups and small businesses. If they don’t, with the world also more mobile than ever, the best young talents will simply move their enterprising ideas to cities that offer better soil, water and sunshine for the next big thing.

The rise of Africa’s smart cities?

2013-04-23T15:53:55Z

When people talk about ‘smart cities’ they often mean high-tech urban innovators in North America, Western Europe or East Asia. Places like San Francisco, Helsinki or Yokohama. Unsurprisingly, Africa doesn’t feature in the list. But this is changing. Many African leaders – and increasingly many multinational companies – are beginning to describe a uniquely African smart city, that in its own way, belongs right at the heart of the conversation.

The reality depends to some extent on definitions. Smart cities are not necessarily about being high tech ones, but rather those that efficiently drive sustainable economic growth, competitiveness, prosperity and a better life for their citizens. From traffic management through to service delivery, the component parts of the city are coordinated, interdependent and work together. Better information collection and analysis helps make better decisions, fewer disasters and optimal use of resources. The confusion with technology arises because in today’s age so many of these goals are achieved with sensors, hardware and software, but the core of a smart city is not about being high-tech, just high-functioning.

Many African cities are already well on their way. In Ghana for example, foreign investment and new-found oil and gas reserves are creating rapid growth in the middle income population and consumer spending. Its capital, Accra, is growing so fast it cannot keep up with the surging demand for housing, services and infrastructure. Its key problem is that its success is making it get bigger faster than it is getting smarter. The same story plays out across Nairobi, Lagos and other fast-growing cities in the continent.

The tech sector is picking up on this. IBM recently worked with Accra as part of their ‘Smarter Cities Challenge’. As part of this, a team of key experts visit the target city for three weeks of intensive work with city leaders, aimed at delivering recommendations on how to make the city more effective. Helping one city creates insights that are relevant to others too—and which are also very relevant across the continent.

As one example, Accra could take a giant leap forward simply by using electronic payments instead of cash for all revenue payments to the city. This includes everything from taxi licences, to fines, taxes and duties. This would help stem chronic delays and rampant corruption, while supplying much needed capital to help fund other projects in turn.

While such a switch is challenging, there are unique opportunities for African cities to leapfrog their more developed peers. As one example, many African cities have jumped directly to mobile and wireless services, rather than bothering with fixed line options. Of course, leapfrogging depends on development, but with booming foreign investment into Africa, there is great potential for major leaps forward, bypassing any legacy or intermediate steps.

The optimism around Africa does need some tempering however. Even the best functioning African cities still face so many problems it is hard for administrations to figure out where to start. That may sound trivial but when improvements are needed to so many primary services – i.e. to energy, water, sanitation, refuse, transport, security, planning, education and health – starting in the wrong place can spell disaster.

As IBM’s research highlights, many challenges are deeply interrelated, and not in ways that are immediately obvious. Accra’s flash flooding problems are, in part, due to the transport system. Gridlock is so severe that municipal refuse removal trucks cannot do their job. So what happens? Refuse piles up in gutters and storm drains so that when storms hit the water has nowhere to go – hence the flash flooding problem. In short, solving traffic in Accra can solve a host of other issues too.

Accra and others are working hard to overcome such problems, and embrace the philosophy of smarter cities. While sharing little in common with the likes of Stockholm or Singapore, these African cities nevertheless have enormous potential for outstanding innovations in city life.

Health and wealth: Why China needs cleaner cities

2013-04-15T11:18:46Z

A former colleague from The Economist once summed up the core reasons that people migrate to cities as: sex and money. That is, they come there to find jobs, and partners. And until now, that’s been enough to sustain China’s incredible rate of urbanisation. But will it be enough to maintain this in future? In particular, will high value workers be willing to stay in cities that actively affect their health?

Several headlines this week are helping to highlight a complex issue that is going to increasingly challenge China’s leaders in the decades ahead: how to sustain economic growth, transition the nature of its economy, all while creating cities that actually provide sustainable lives for the people who occupy them.

The warning signs against this are not pretty. The WSJ ran a graphic (shown here) highlighting a few key US and Chinese cities, and their relative levels of air pollution. Beijing looks borderline passable here, just tipping the scales on the 100 unhealthy mark—except that Friday was actually a rare day with blue skies and a good wind blowing fresh air into the city. As the FT’s local correspondent notes, next week the “toxic smog” will return. In January, Beijing’s levels of fine particulate matter reached 35 times the WHO’s recommended standard.

But bad air quality isn’t the only issue. Water pollution is another huge problem. In December in Handan – a city of nearly 10m people that few people would even recognise – toxic water spills from a local factory were bad enough to kill fish in the river and stop local consumption. Bad enough, except that the factory in question first kept the news secret for 5 days, and then local authorities kept schtum too, exacerbating fears over water quality. This wasn’t even as bad, though, as the discovery in March of 6,000 dead pigs in Shanghai’s Huangpu river, which supplies much of that city’s water.

All this leads to worries over food supply. Chinese parents have been sufficiently concerned over this – following past tainted milk scandals – to start importing foreign baby formula from wherever possible. In the UK, this has led to rationing in major retail chains.

These are just some of the recent headlines. The core challenge for Chinese authorities lies in cleaning up their cities, to at least ensure basic public health. But this in itself will not be enough. For China’s cities to develop into truly competitive global ones, they will need to go further—to build environments that are capable of genuinely attracting creative, top-level workers.

Calling creatives?
This is already a problem: as the WSJ reports, concerns over city health have already started to impact expatriate applications for local jobs. “They’ve called and said they no longer had the support of their families,” explained one executive from BMW in the article. Other eager young executives have spent time in China, but have since left to find a healthier city in which to raise their children.

Ultimately, if China is to foster and attract a “creative class” of workers – which academic and city guru Richard Florida argues is essential for the long-term success of a city and the wider economy – China will have to rethink its city development strategy. A clean city is not the only element of this, but without it, will anything really matter that much?

(Picture courtesy of “Set you free news”)

Want a greener, more resilient city? Put it in the code

2013-04-23T15:15:56Z

For mayors wanting to make a huge, long-term impact on the sustainability and resilience of their cities, there are few options that are cheaper and more powerful than a revision to a city’s building code. In London, for example, a study by McKinsey and Siemens highlighted that single biggest measure to reduce a city’s overall carbon emissions would be to target its buildings. From mandating minimum insulation measures, to tweaking its heating and lighting requirements, this is a cheap way to make a big difference. In London, simply installing better insulation in its buildings would cut the city’s annual carbon output by 10% by 2025. (And any costs would more than pay back, in the form of lower energy bills during the period.)

There’s a diverse array of things that can be done here. In LA, for example, outgoing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is pushing the city to adopt cool roofs within its building code, which could save up to $30m in energy each year.

This is not just about energy saving, it’s also relevant to city resilience. As the striking example of the Sendai Mediatheque library in Japan, designed by Toyo Ito, has showcased, setting tougher design rules can make for tougher and safer cities. This can go to extremes, as this story indicates, protecting cities from a wide range of natural risks, including floods, fires, tornadoes, earthquakes and more.

Indeed, as some have argued in Jamaica, a lack of progress on a tougher building code in that country is exposing it to similar risks that faced Haiti, where an earthquake devastated key urban areas in that country. Following Hurricane Sandy, New York Mayor Bloomberg has announced a set of measures – including tweaks to the building code – to help with the rebuilding effort.

Of course, enforcement of the code is another thing. And misaligned incentives always lead to perverse outcomes – witness Peru’s countless unfinished homes, thanks to a poor alignment of the building code with tax law – but for mayors, the building code is one of the quickest, cheapest and most effective ways to build a better city.

Los Angeles: where even angels drive a car

2013-04-02T14:16:34Z

Los Angeles – a city shaped by the car – has launched (probably) the world’s largest ever traffic management system. Every one of the city’s 4,500 traffic lights now shine and blink in a complex symphony conducted by a software program in an underground traffic nexus that crunches data from every corner of the city. Synchronised traffic lights (or ‘traffic signals’ as they call them in the US) mean you can now drive enormous distances on LA’s long roads without catching any red lights. It also means the city can respond dynamically to events, incidents and disasters. Traffic can be diverted, stopped, paused and freed – all in a few automated seconds – taking into account pedestrians, cyclists and the flow of the rest of the network.

It seems to be working too. The LA Transportation Department reports a 16% increase in speeds on the roads and a 12% reduction in delays at major intersections. It’s laudable progress and an impressive system but hardly a revolution for commuters. LA residents still endure hours in their cars every week. There are still limited alternatives to driving and gridlock is still a major headache. But what can a car-centric city like LA really do? It can’t rebuild itself with less sprawl, and gridlock notwithstanding, Californians love their cars. So what is next for LA? How can they keep the cars but lose the gridlock?

Around the world cities try to incorporate, manage, mitigate or combat cars in a number of ways. The Hong Kong solution is to tax cars heavily while offering decent alternatives. Between 40% and 115% ‘first registration tax’ for private cars makes crowded trains and buses rather appealing. However from an urban planning perspective, Hong Kong could not be more different from LA. It’s extreme density means public transport benefits from economies of scale unavailable in LA. Hong Kong’s strategy has made their citizens world’s most publically transported with some 90% of journeys in the city using a bus, train, tram, taxi or ferry. But while LA could just as easily tax cars, the public transport system cannot possibly serve the whole population as it does in Hong Kong. Cars need to be part of the solution in LA.

A congestion charge of some kind would probably help the most congested roads in LA. The city’s first congestion charge (on the 110 Freeway) is in its pilot year but there are many routes that could benefit. As transport expert Jonas Eliasson explains in this TED Talk, a small congestion charge in Stockholm reduced traffic to the CBD there by 20% – enough to eliminate gridlock. His message is that complex systems like city traffic need to be left to self organise under the influence of carefully chosen ‘nudges’ from authorities. Unfortunately he doesn’t mention any other ‘nudges’ apart from congestion charges. Perhaps motor mad cities need to think more laterally.

For example, LA could always follow Bogata, Columbia, and hire mimes to publicly ridicule bad drivers at large intersections. We can’t find any data on the effectiveness of this initiative but it is not as ridiculous as it sounds. In many cities poor etiquette, bad manners and a total disregard for the rules of the road are some of the main causes of traffic problems. From all accounts LA suffers from all these issues, so perhaps the city should focus more on the human side of driving. Then again, human nature and human error (those evil twins) may be the heart of the problem. Perhaps after California passed legislation last September allowing for ‘autonomous vehicles,’ LA will be the first city in the world to ban human drivers on some routes. That would be a revolution for commuters. Unfortunately it may also be a long time coming, so in the meantime we would love to hear your own favourite solutions for the world’s many car crazy cities.

Property value insulated by public transport access

2013-03-26T10:52:22Z

Estate agents and property developers have long been aware of the positive impact a nearby train station – or any transport link – can have on property value. But even the most seasoned real estate guru might be surprised by the extent of this effect, as measured in a recently published study by the American Public Transportation Association and the National Association of Realtors. The study measured property prices in the recessionary period between 2006 and 2011 across five regions: Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Phoenix, and San Francisco. It concluded that property values close to well-connected public transport links outperformed their region by an average of 42%.

A well-serviced transit link can offer better access to jobs, shorter commutes, lower transport costs and an attractive lifestyle. However, the magnitude of out-performance in this study implies that these factors may be even more important than anybody thought. This finding certainly suggests that public transport links might be the most powerful predictor of property value/resilience but there is probably more going on for home buyers than a desire for an easy commute to work. Home buyers also want schools, shops, hospitals, parks, restaurants and a host of other amenities. Those amenities need transport links too, so they are often also placed near transit stations. In effect all the most desirable aspects of an area – especially in large cities – get clustered around transport links. Thinking about it this way, it is perhaps not surprising these transit clusters proved so resilient during the recession.

Celebrating resilience: Toyo Ito

2013-03-18T08:39:06Z

Over recent years, city leaders have been discussing more and more the theme of resilience: how to prepare our urban environments for whatever challenges may lie ahead. Our favourite definition of resilience is the ability to “fail safely” – when disruption hits, being able to cope as best as possible. Although this was not the explicit purpose of this week’s recognition of Japanese architect Toyo Ito (he was awarded the presitigious Pritzker Architecture Prize), it is something that is integral to one of his most celebrated works–the Sendai Mediatheque library (pictured here).

The library’s design is widely regarded, but it is the building’s resilience that is truly noteworthy here. It especially shot to fame during 2011, when a youtube video filmed within the library, as the force 9 earthquake struck, went viral. The building lurches back and forth sickeningly, but no greater harm is done, as the WSJ put it at the time:

Ceiling panels appeared to swing drunkenly overhead. But the Mediatheque did not collapse. It stood firm against the massive seismic forces that were tearing other buildings apart; the basic structure did not fail.

Japan’s architects are already world-leaders when it comes to earthquake resistant design, and their earthquake-tsunami-meltdown of two years ago will no doubt drive them to greater heights. Leading from the front will be architects like Mr Ito. And as the world faces greater natural challenges in the years ahead, it will be designers like this who help provide an additional form of resilience for our cities.