Introduction This piece describes my vision for urban health and wellbeing in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) cities. It advocates for two radical changes: Active Mobility and Access to Nature. Each of these brings multiple layers of physical and mental health benefits for the individual and the community. Moreover, they are both essential ingredients for a …
I had the pleasure of visiting Barcelona a few weeks ago as part of an urban planning field trip organised by UCL. That translated into many, many hours of walking around the less-touristy areas of the city, and the opportunity to hear firsthand from local planning experts from academia, government, and civil society. There is so …
A lot, particularly about successful planning of mega projects, argues Roger Allport. Not only did Allport complete a PhD on this topic, but he also published a book on it: Planning Major Projects. Rather than undertake a review of the work, which is well worth reading, I will highlight some of the concepts and quotes which particularly drew my attention and which help …
Note: I am honoured to be a contributor to the The Nature of Cities virtual magazine, and very pleased to shared excerpts from my first essay below. As a start, let us remind ourselves of the figures published by WHO last year: air pollution is responsible for over 7 million deaths a year. Out of those, around …
If you’ve engaged in the thinking around sustainability even from afar, then you’ve probably come across the energy hierarchy, water hierarchy, and waste hierarchy. These are simple models (often illustrated as pyramids or inverted pyramids) which help designers, planners, policymakers, and the rest of us make sensible decisions about managing energy, water, and waste. They do so …