Vancouver Metro Vancouver's urban planning considerations need to prioritize urban economics, says renowned planner. Daily Hive Kenneth Chan Nov 1 2023  When it comes to how cities should be planned, it all comes down to urban economics. That was the core message internationally renowned urban planner Alain Bertaud had to share when he recently visited Vancouver upon being invited by former mayor Sam Sullivan. Throughout his career, Bertaud, the principal urban planner of The World Bank for two decades and a senior fellow at the Marron Institute of Urban Management for New York University for the past decade, has essentially served the globe-trotting role of the “doctor of cities” in identifying the problems and potential solutions for fixing the urban condition. “Strangely enough, a lot of planners, whether they’re in the United States or I’m sure in Canada, too, have very little understanding of economics, and therefore they like to design a city but they don’t understand that a city designs itself. You only need to provide the infrastructure to support the activities of all the people living and working in the city,” Bertaud told Daily Hive Urbanized. He brought up the vicious cycle pattern of the labour market, with people moving to a specific city for its great job opportunities, and companies choosing to open up in a specific city for both the quantity and quality of people who live there to find their ideal workers with the necessary talent and skills. “You cannot design a city if you don’t understand the economics of the city. A city is economics first. If you come to a city, it’s because there are good jobs there or people you want to work with,” he said. 

Trump Says Chicago 'Probably Next' for National Guard Invasion. "If Trump wants to take his ego trip on tour, he picked the wrong city," said one senior Illinois official. "Chicago doesn't bow down to kings or roll out the red carpet for dictators." Common Dreams  Brett Wilkins Aug 23, 2025 US President Donald Trump said Friday that Chicago is the next city in his crosshairs for the kind of federal invasion and occupation currently underway in Washington, DC—a threat that sparked defiant pushback from officials in the Windy City and beyond. "After we do this, we'll go to another location, and we'll make it safe also," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, referring to his federalization of Washington's Metropolitan Police Department and deployment of National Guard troops from the district and five Republican-controlled states."We're going to make our cities very, very safe. Chicago's a mess. You have an incompetent mayor. Grossly incompetent and we'll straighten that one out probably next," the president said, referring to progressive Brandon Johnson. "That will be our next one after this. And it won't even be tough." On August 11, Trump dubiously declared a public safety emergency in Washington, DC, despite violent crime being down 26% from a year ago, when it was at its second-lowest level since 1966, according to official statistics. Critics have noted that Trump's crackdown isn't just targeting criminals, but also unhoused and mentally ill people, who have had their homes destroyed and property taken.

On Friday, Trump threatened to completely take over Washington and oust Mayor Muriel Bowser if she does not stop pointing out that crime has decreased in the city, which the president called a "crime-infested rat hole." In addition to Chicago, Trump has threatened to send federal forces into cities including Baltimore, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, and San Francisco. Violent crime is trending downward in all of those cities—with some registering historically low levels. Unlike in Washington, DC, where home rule laws allow the federal government to take control of local police, Trump would face greater obstacles to intervention in other cities. "President Trump can't seize control of the Chicago police or any other local department outside of DC," Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) noted on social media Friday. "The military cannot and will not patrol the streets of Chicago, and I will work with state and local officials to ensure that doesn't happen."

Mayor Johnson said in a statement that "the problem with the president's approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound." "If the Trump administration is serious about driving down violence in Chicago, or anywhere else in America, then he should not have taken over $800 million away from violence prevention," he added. Other elected officials in Illinois also expressed anger and alarm at the prospect of a Trump intervention in Chicago.....read on   https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-national-guard-chicago?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=f45b1f35a1-Weekend+Edition%3A+Sun.+8%2F24%2F25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-c56d0ea580-600564251   

Climate change is a global phenomenon that largely impacts urban life. UNEP Rising global temperatures causes sea levels to rise, increases the number of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and storms, and increases the spread of tropical diseases. All these have costly impacts on cities' basic services, infrastructure, housing, human livelihoods and health. At the same time, cities are a key contributor to climate change, as urban activities are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Estimates suggest that urban areas are responsible for 70 percent of global CO2 emissions, with transport and buildings being among the largest contributors (IPCC, 2022).

Only with a coordinated approach and action at the global, regional, national and local levels, can success be achieved. It is essential, therefore, to make cities an integral part of the solution in fighting climate change. Many cities are already doing a lot by using renewable energy sources, cleaner production techniques and regulations or incentives to limit industrial emissions. Cutting emissions will also reduce local pollution from industries and transport, thus improving urban air quality and the health of city dwellers.

In cooperation with partners, UNEP assists national and local governments by raising awareness, organizing workshops and trainings, developing evaluation tools and involving cities in international meetings on climate change. One of these collaborations is a Joint Work Programme between UNEP, the World Bank, UN-Habitat, under the facilitating role of Cities Alliance to address cities and climate change. With a focus on developing countries, this partnership aims to support local and national governments in urban adaptation and mitigation processes. One of the main outputs of this cooperation is an online knowledge centre which provides information on cities and climate change.

As a member of the Climate Neutral Network which brings together 19 partner cities and numerous organizations, UNEP provides its expertise on environmental issues. The network's objective is to make the shift to a low-emissions and eventually climate neutral society. Also, the Environment and Climate Change Outlook (ECCO) project conducted by UNEP's Division of Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA) provides a global methodology which enables sub-regional and national level authorities to conduct vulnerability and impact assessments for adaptation to climate change. 

The Global Initiative for Resource Efficient Cities (GI-REC)

The Global Initiative for Resource Efficient Cities  is a UNEP-led initiative launched in June 2012 at the Rio+20 Summit. The initiative currently works with different stakeholders to promote energy efficient buildings, efficient water use, sustainable waste management and other activities. UNEP and its partners aim to assist cities in combining greater productivity and innovation with lower costs and reduced environmental impact.

Integrated Environmental Planning.....Unplanned rapid urban growth leads to overexploitation of natural resources and destruction of fragile ecosystems in the city and beyond. The urban poor are the most vulnerable to such environmental degradation. Yet in many cities the environmental dimension is not considered in urban planning processes. Therefore, UNEP, with support of the Cities Alliance, is developing a practical methodology for better integrating environmental concerns in strategic planning at the city level.

Cities & Climate Change......Flooding, heat waves, tornados: for many communities around the world, climate change is already a reality. About 75 percent of global CO2 emissions originate from cities, with transport and buildings being among the largest contributors. In addition to efforts at the global and national level, local authorities are already leading the way in finding local solutions to these challenges. UNEP together with its partners supports cities in accounting and reducing their emissions and assessing their climate vulnerability. Learn more

Linking Global Agenda to Local Action........UNEP is working closely with UN-Habitat on sustainable urban planning and management. Since 2007 a joint Partnership Framework is in place. Concrete joint activities between the two international organizations are laid out in biennial Implementation Plans. Activities include joint work on Climate Change assessments, ecosystem based adaptation in coastal cities as well as cooperation in related urban sectors such as transport, buildings and construction.

Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative (SBCI)......SBCI was launched in 2006 as a partnership between the UN and the building sector. It promotes and supports sustainable building practices on a global scale with a focus on energy efficiency and GHG emission reduction. It brings together stakeholders involved in the sector on the local, national and international level. Furthermore, the initiative develops tools and strategies to better evaluate and implement sustainable building practices, such as the Common Carbon Metric.

Sustainable Social Housing Initiative (SUSHI)........UNEP’s Sustainable Social Housing Initiative promotes sustainability in social housing programmes. In Bangkok and São Paulo SUSHI assessed the status of social housing programmes, policies, market initiatives and voluntary actions and identified barriers for the implementation of sustainable building practices. A guideline with tools and strategies to overcome these constraints is being finalized. A follow-up phase for SUSHI is currently underway.

Sustainable Buildings Policies in Developing Countries (SPoD).......The SPoD project aims to assist governments at national and local levels to develop policy tools in support of mainstreaming sustainable construction and building approaches, resulting in reduced carbon footprints from buildings. SPoD provides a Quick-Scan Tool for governments to evaluate relevant policy measures according to existing barriers and opportunities at national and local level. This approach is being tested and verified in two pilot locations.

Urban Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)......One of the outcomes of UNEP’s cooperating with the City of Gwangju (Republic of Korea) is to explore the feasibility of developing a methodology for a Clean Development Mechanism at city-wide level. The study has identified barriers and opportunities for cities and CDM and provides a list of recommendations for reforms to the CDM for better uptake and application at the city level.  https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/resource-efficiency/what-we-do/cities/city-activities

How Old Dubai's historic streets beat extreme heat.BBC Soumya Gayatri 7-16-2025Long before our reliance on air-conditioning, Dubai's old town kept people's homes cool using a combination of clever techniques to lower the temperature. The same techniques are being revived again today. There's no heat like the heat of a Dubai afternoon. It is relentless – and often reaches deadly temperatures. But there's a little-known part of the city where you can cool down, and do so the old-fashioned way, without air conditioning. As I step out of the heat and into the narrow lanes of the Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood, part of Old Dubai, I find refuge from the midday Sun. The shaded alleys here, with their high walls, seem to conjure a cool breeze from nowhere. A kind of merciful magic. Desert winds cooled and somehow tamed. The people who built this place really knew what they were doing. Above me, I see four storey-tall wind towers rising against the sky – ingenious structures that once cooled dwellings below. Today here in Dubai, they are home to pigeons. In this calm, more modest part of the city, luxury gives way to creativity and functionality. In the architecture of the streets, you can read the environmental wisdom of a people who worked out how to survive the desert. Parts of the Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood date to the 1700s. But the passively cooled, heatwave-resistant designs of buildings here are only becoming more relevant today. They are inspiring contemporary architecture – and even entire cities. Urban planners are turning to places like Old Dubai for inspiration as they rush to respond to climate change and the threat of rising global temperatures.  And no wonder. If clever architecture can keep people in Dubai cool, could it help keep the rest of us cool too?