Exploring city and infrastructure systems through research, policy, and community building.

Distributed, renewable electricity options are providing new opportunities to address lacking electricity access in many developing countries. Local groups – or intermediaries – provide necessary knowledge, key social connections, and ownership models to facilitate solar access in hard-to-reach places.

This October’s inaugural U20 Summit offers cities the opportunity to raise the profile of urban policy issues just in advance of the G20. For the U20 to be successful, city leaders must be intentional about finding policy solutions that span scales and levels of government, include a dedicated urban focus, coordinate among cities globally on key issues, and remain context-specific.

Small-scale interventions with strong urban vision have the potential to transform obsolete spaces into active destinations. George Town, the UNESCO-recognized historic core in Penang, Malaysia, could transform its inner-block voids, making them part of a lively urban system.

Maimunah Mohd Sharif, the first Asian woman to serve as Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat), sat down with Gus Greenstein to discuss her work and her views on urban planning.

On 15 May 2018, Ms. Mainmunah Mohd Sharif, the first Asian woman to serve as Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Program, engaged in a roundtable discussion with students, faculty, and practitioners at the University of Oxford. She emphasized the value of inclusivity and interdisciplinary collaboration in urban planning. 

On Tuesday 29 May 2018, the Oxford Urbanists and Cities that Work, an initiative of the International Growth Centre, hosted a panel event titled “Can Special Economic Zones (SEZs) Drive Growth in Developing Cities?” to discuss evidence for improved policy.

Diego Sánchez Ancochea, Associate Professor of the Political Economy of Latin America at the University of Oxford, sat down with Luciano Mateo Rodriguez Carrington to discuss challenges for social policy and cities in Latin America.

Singapore is a resource-poor city-state with one of the highest population densities in the world. Yet it has turned its challenges into strengths and increasingly branded itself as a global hub of expertise and ‘best practices’ for urban development. How might we understand the processes driving Singapore’s burgeoning influence on international city development? What are some challenges that come with this influence?

The ‘smart city’ concept is no paradigm shift. But with the potential for real-time data to both transform governance and perpetuate social inequalities, the technology-centred projects associated with it warrant critical examination.