Sustainable Planning

Global freshwater scarcity is projected to be affecting almost half of the world’s population by 2025. Desalination has become a reliable option to provide freshwater, especially with climate change and its direct impact on water resources. The desalination technology transforms some non-traditional water sources either by processing brackish water...

The 2021 High-level Political Forum (HLPF) consolidated the prime role of VLRs (Voluntary Local Reviews) in localizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. A record number of local governments – 17 cites –presented a 2021 VLR by July 2021 according to UN-Habitat. By comparison, 26 VLRs were published in 2020. VLRs have also gained broader...

Fernando Ortiz-Moya, urbanist working at the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), explores the role of VLRs (Voluntary Local Review) in building better cities and what Tokyo is doing to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Japan’s severe population decline is seriously threatening the sustainability of many of the country’s municipalities. In a desperate run for survival, all levels of government have hurried to apply strategies aiming at stopping decay and the development of new infrastructure is met with particularly high expectations for new prosperity. That is...

While shrinkage has been a debated topic in regional studies in the last decade, the shock brought by Covid-19 on the global economy adds further concerns for cities and regions already suffering from depopulation. As a result, a review of existing planning approaches and policies is necessary to inform change and support the future of cities and...

Urban shrinkage contradicts the normative assumption of cities as growth machines. Shrinking cities are stigmatised as outcasts of urban systems, prone to high unemployment rates, low quality of life standards, and urban blight. Compelled by this dominant narrative of loss, planning responses have focused on reversing declining trajectories and...