Urbanization
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Research at the Earth Institute is organized into nine themes. Urbanization is one of them.
Featured Projects and Centers:
The year 2007 marked the first time in history when over half of the world’s population lived in urban areas. Since urbanization is ongoing, this means that most people will live apart from where their food is grown, and are dependent on vast and complex infrastructures for their livelihoods.
The Earth Institute works to better understand the interdependencies between rural, periurban, suburban and urban landscapes. Urban population centers in particular are under acute stress as their populations expand. This is putting increased pressure on the areas that support their resource needs and creates social, infrastructural and health challenges to the sustainability of cities.
Finding ways to make our cities more sustainable is an important part of the Earth Institute’s work. The following are several research centers and initiatives working on urban issues:
Center for Sustainable Urban Development
The Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CSUD) works to integrate land use and transport planning into processes of urban development. CSUD is doing on the ground urban planning in Kenya where it worked with local partners on the country’s first physical development plan for Ruiru, one of Nairobi’s satellite cities.
CSUD organized The Rockefeller Foundation’s Global Urban Summit in 2007, which addressed issues relating to burgeoning urban growth, especially in developing countries.
Urban Design Lab
The Urban Design Lab for Sustainable Development (UDL) is part of the Earth Institute’s Earth Clinic. It addresses the need for a comprehensive, design-based approach regarding the long-range future of sustainable urbanism. While the core focus of UDL is the physical design of cities, its approach recognizes that a range of expertise is needed to make urban design relevant and sustainable in city environments. New York City and its regional context is seen as a core model for problem-solving related to sustainable urban futures everywhere, including Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Read more about the Urban Design Lab’s work in NYC.
Millennium Cities Initiative
The Millennium Cities Initiative, the urban counterpart to the Millennium Villages Project, is assisting selected mid-sized cities across sub-Saharan Africa in their efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MCI works to strengthen farm-to-market linkages between the Millennium Villages and the nearby regional capitals; to attract increased flows of foreign and domestic investment to the cities and countryside; and, on the basis of careful needs assessments and costings carried out by the MCI, to help urban stakeholders in each municipality devise integrated development strategies designed to reflect and realize their top priorities.
Read more about this comprehensive urban initiative.
