People have lived in and around the Una Hydrographic Basin for as long as the city of Belém itself. Belém is the largest urban center in the Amazon River Delta, with a population that exceeds 2 million people in its metropolitan region. Beginning at Guajará Bay, the Una Basin comprises about 60 percent of Belém’s urban space and 30 percent...

With an area of just 316 Km2and a population of more than 475,000, Malta is the smallest member country of the European Union (EU). This island state has been moulded through human action since the first recorded human settlement more than 7000 years ago. Today, more than 30 percent of land cover consists of built-up areas and more than 50...

Urban populations—and the associated concentration of livelihoods and assets in cities—continue to increase worldwide, thereby increasing exposure to hazards. Coupled with aging infrastructure and housing stock, this trend leads to an increase in vulnerability. And this...

[The Right to the City is] the right to change ourselves, by changing the city. —David Harvey, 2008  The cities we have The cities we have in the world today are far from being places of justice. Whether in the South, the North, the West or the East, the cities we are living in are a clear expression of the...

How has Singapore created itself as a “city in a garden”? I’m from Manila, and have recently returned from a week-long educational trip hosted by the Young South East Asian Leadership Initiative (YSEALI). The workshop was entitled Urban Planning and Smart Growth. It brought together sixty young leaders across the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to learn from...

Jane Jacobs titled her sixth book The Nature of Economies (Random House, 2000). In the Foreword she makes explicit her intent: “The theme running through this exposition — indeed, the basic premise on which the book is constructed — is that human beings exist wholly within nature as a legitimate part of natural order in every respect. To accept this unity seems...