World Cities: Where to Put Their Oncoming Billions?

kristySustainability News

“Welcome to Citiwire.net! Will (must) the world’s cities grow dramatically in land form in the years ahead? It’s no longer very likely in the U.S. and Europe, but represents the all-but-inevitable scenario in the developing world as hundreds of millions of rural residents continue to pour into cities. A Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Report — ‘A Planet of Cities’ — takes up the issue, suggesting ‘generous’ metropolitan boundaries and scarcely any limits. My column’s a ‘yes, but’ response, with concern for climate change impacts and sound urban form. … Water’s another key issue for regions in this century. MarySue Barrett, Citistates Group Ass ociate and president of the Chicago areas Metropolitan Planning Councils, highlights (in a column coauthored by her colleague Josh Ellis) the Chicago area’s challenge and possible cures.” — Neal Peirce

World Cities: Where to Put Their Oncoming Billions?
By Neal Peirce

For Release Sunday, February 13, 2011
© 2011 Washington Post Writers Group

The cities of the world are on a great growth tear, gobbling up land as a dizzying rate.

The expansion has ground to a crawl in recession-impacted America and Europe. But just check what’s happening across the developing world.

Most attention gets focused on “megacities” of 10 million-plus people, such as Mexico City, Cairo, Mumbai, Karachi, Calcutta, Dhaka and Shanghai — and all have grown, with huge suburban peripheries.

But cumulatively, the unfolding land consumption will be the most extreme in cities above 100,000 and below the 10 million mark. There are 3,646 of these in the world. And many tell amazing growth tales.

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Water, Water, Everywhere — But Enough? A Mega-Regional Challenge

By MarySue Barrett

WITH JOSH ELLIS

For Release Sunday, February 13, 2011
Citiwire.net

When it comes to water policy, most cities and regions face one or more of four critical problems: scarcity, quality, flooding, and system performance.

For notoriously thirsty places such as Atlanta and Las Vegas, water is never too far from the front pages. In other regions, quality concerns rear their head when a surprise contaminant emerges, or when flooding rolls in and out with the weather.

And then there is the interminable drip, drip, drip of our nation’s massive and aging water infrastructure system. Perhaps because most of that system is underground and the repair costs are staggering, most people would prefer to put it off until tomorrow — or at least until the next catastrophic water main break.

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Our mission… to reflect a new narrative for 21st century cities and regions. Leaving behind the 20th century pattern of cheap energy, endless automobility, burgeoning suburbs, threatened inner cities. To a challenge-packed 21st century: energy prices headed north, perilous carbon emissions, deepening have-have not divisions. The weekly release includes Neal Peirce’s column for the Washington Post Writers Group, as well as a guest column by one of the seasoned urban professionals in the Citistates Group.