Weekly Roundup 113 – 22nd April to 28th April

FEATURE REPORT/ ARTICLE OF THE WEEK

‘Are Cities on Track to Achieving SDGs by 2030?’
Authored by Paula Lucci

The United Nations has been committed to driving global development since its inception. With the increasing commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals through the Paris Accords and New Urban Agenda, this piece provides a report card of how cities across the world are performing with respect to the SDGs. The author states that cities would be halfway to achieving at least four targets of child mortality, universal access to secondary education, universal access to energy, and full and productive employment. However, the rate of progress needs to be twice the current pace, not to mention certain developing cities needing to reverse direction of growth. The author recommends improving data sharing and investing in open data platforms to help achieving the SDGs.

Read the whole piece here.

Published by Citiscope.



ONLINE PUBLICATION OF THE WEEK

‘Miami and the state of Low and Middle Income Housing’
Published by Urban Institute

With the new administration in place in the United States, their housing crisis continues unabated, awaiting policy recommendation. This publication looks at the case of Miami low and middle income housing through the lenses of population and housing stock trends. Using stakeholder discussions to further the discourse on affordable housing, the report provides certain community specific policy recommendations that can be extrapolated for the larger debates on housing around the world.

Read the publication here.

VIDEO/PODCAST OF THE WEEK

‘What squatter cities can teach us’
Created by TED Talks

Squatter settlements drive a large section of the urban policy in India. Both academia as well as policy literature try to understand the burgeoning cities as a function and cause of these squatter settlements, including various aspects of legality and legitimacy attached. This very brief talk by Stewart Brand gives a glimpse into how squatter cities are a trend that have far reaching consequences into international urbanization.