Re-imagining Cities

The New Cities Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to making cities across the world more inclusive, dynamic and creative. Created in 2010, it seeks to incubate, promote and scale urban innovations through collaborative partnerships between government, business, academia and civil society. Schneider Electric is a Corporate Member of the New Cities Foundation.

The Foundation’s flagship event is the New Cities Summit which in past years has been held in Paris, France (2012) and São Paolo, Brazil (2013). New Cities Summit 2014 was held last month, attracting over 800 participants from 51 countries to Dallas, Texas, USA. This year, the Summit's theme was Re-imagining Cities: Transforming the 21st Century Metropolis, and nearly 100 speakers took part (event press release).

An event E-book (pdf, 7.5 MB) provides summaries of all sessions as well as links to related videos on the New Cities Foundation YouTube page, including these:

• Highlights (4:18)
• Keynote - Future Trends in the Century of Cities (13:44) - by Parag Khanna, Managing Partner Hybrid Reality
• Panel - Beyond the Smart City: Towards a New Paradigm (1:02:19) - panelists include Laurent Vernerey, Executive Vice-President, North America Operations at Schneider Electric

New ISO Standard Addresses City Performance Indicators

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) announced a new standard last week: ISO 37120:2014 – Sustainable development of communities — Indicators for city services and quality of life. The new standard is applicable to any city, municipality or local government desiring to measure its performance in a comparable and verifiable manner, irrespective of size, location, or level of development. The standard covers a number of areas, only some of which are: energy, environment, governance, safety, solid waste, transportation, wastewater, and water and sanitation.

The standard was launched during the Global Cities Summit organized by the University of Toronto's Global City Indicators Facility, one of the organizations involved in its development. Also launched at the Global Cities Summit was the World Council on City Data, a new entity that will build an international platform for open, comparable, and ISO-standardized data for participating cities from around the world.

Infrastructure 2013 Report Released by Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young

Last week, the Urban Land Institute (ULI) held its Spring Meeting in San Diego, California. At the event, Infrastructure 2013: Global Priorities, Global Insights was released, the seventh in a series of global infrastructure reports produced by ULI and Ernst & Young. The 72-page report assesses the state of infrastructure globally and includes research and analyses on the latest trends, challenges, and innovations, along with insights from experts. It includes coverage of the Americas, Europe/Middle East/Africa, and the Asia Pacific regions.

100 Resilient Cities Centennial Challenge Announced by The Rockefeller Foundation

On May 14th, The Rockefeller Foundation announced a $100 million commitment to build urban resilience in cities around the world. The Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities Centennial Challenge will select one hundred cities and, through technical support and resources for developing and implementing plans for urban resilience, help them leverage billions of additional dollars in infrastructure financing.

2013 World Airport Awards by Skytrax

Airports are a critical part of the transportation infrastructure. Last month, the 2013 World Airport Awards were announced by air transport rating organization, Skytrax Research of London, UK. The Airport Survey has operated since 1999, and this year it garnered 12.1 million airline passenger nominations, and included 395 airports worldwide. The survey evaluates 39 airport Service and Product key performance indicators - from check-in, arrivals, transfers, shopping, security and immigration through to departure at the gate. This year, Singapore Changi Airport came out on top as "The World's Best Airport." This is the fourth time the airport has achieved the top prize; it last claimed victory in 2010.

Global Information Technology Report 2013 Released by World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum recently released The Global Information Technology Report 2013, the 12th in the series. The report is one of the most authoritative assessments of the impact of information and communications technology (ICT) on competitiveness of nations and citizen well-being. It analyses the impact and influence of ICT on economic growth and jobs in a hyperconnected world. 

World Urbanization Animation Using UN Data for 1960, 1980, 2011 and 2025

Click on the image for a clear, full-size animation. This was prepared using static UN Urbanization data for 1960, 1980, 2011 and 2025.

 

The increasing % of urban population is shown by increasingly dark country colors. Growth in the number and size of large cities is represented with dots: 

• Small Yellow = 1-5 Million
• Medium Orange = 5-10 Million
• Large Red = Over 10 Million