Urban Planning

Climate change is set to exacerbate existing inequalities across regions and negatively impact already-vulnerable populations: the urban poor will be hit the hardest by the unevenly balanced climate change impacts. More than 1 billion members of the global population are slum-dwellers: they are the poorest and most vulnerable to climate risks due to overcrowding, substandard housing and living conditions, and lack of housing rights, physical infrastructure, and access to services.
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Kenya is experiencing rapid urbanization. In 2016, about 14 million people (25 percent of the country’s population) were living in urban areas, but by 2030 that number is expected to increase to over 22 million, and by 2050 to 40 million—over 50 percent of the population (World Bank 2016). A lack of inclusive growth in Kenya’s cities has led to the proliferation of informal settlements and unequal access to services.
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Evidence is mounting that secure property rights have positive effects for poor people in general and women in particular. The aim of this report is to review what is known about women's access to and control over land and real property in urban settings, identifying approaches to strengthening property rights that enhance women s agency, and sharing key lessons.
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Urban planning and design quite literally shape the environment around us — and that environment, in turn, shapes how we live, work, play, move, and rest.
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One important way for urban leaders to rise to today’s challenges is to bring biodiversity and nature into urban design through urban ecological planning. Such planning recognizes that cities depend on biodiversity and that biodiversity depends on cities. Ecological planning not only illuminates the linkages between urbanization and biodiversity, but also helps integrate this understanding into urban planning, strategy, and investment.
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The Integrated Approach Pilot (IAP) program on Sustainable Cities aims to promote sustainable urban development through integrated models of urban design, planning, and implementation.
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This study summarizes the findings of a non-lending analytical activity carried out by the World Bank in 2004 and 2005. The work was driven by concern over the quality of the urban environment, and undertaken in a context of uncertainty on the suitability and effectiveness of Bank investment in this area, particularly in regard to components that generate little or no direct revenue, like waste disposal and sewage treatment.
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Human activities create waste, and the ways that waste is handled, stored, collected, and disposed of can pose risks to the environment and to public health. Solid waste management (SWM) includes all activities that seek to minimize health, environmental, and aesthetic impacts of solid waste. In urban areas, especially in the rapidly urbanizing cities of the developing world, problems and issues of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) are of immediate importance. This book addresses the problem by focusing on India.
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The Kitakyushu Model is a methodology developed in Kitakyushu City, Japan to provide appropriate solutions for environmental challenges to pursue sustainable urban development. It strives to be a methodology that allows cities to easily apply sustainability more broadly and in a holistic fashion, beyond isolated projects and individual advice.
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Towns and cities are economic and social microcosms in which large numbers of people and firms interact. These interactions largely shape how a city looks, how it functions, and how it grows. But how exactly does this many-sided relationship work? What are the specific drivers of urban economic and spatial development? Pancakes to Pyramids brings us closer to answering these questions, beginning with an idealized contrast between two patterns of urban spatial growth. Pancakes are cities that grow outward and remain relatively low-built.
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