Investment in urban infrastructure such as new roads, public utilities or parks invariably increases real-estate prices. In Pakistan, stories of riches earned overnight due to new highways passing through agricultural lands are common.
(CNN) More than 700 people are believed to have been killed in massive floods and landslides that have rocked Bangladesh, India and Nepal this month, aid workers say.
It is the worst flooding that some parts of South Asia have seen in decades, with about 24 million people affected, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said.
NEW DELHI, Aug 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Upgrading slums and giving tenancy rights to residents is key to climate change adaptation and disaster mitigation in India's cities, an analyst said, as the country braces for extreme weather events of greater frequency and intensity.
With 1.3 billion people and densely populated cities, India is particularly vulnerable to damage wrought by drought, cyclones, floods and extreme heat.
“Us guys, we bust our butts. It’s dangerous work doing what we do, but I love it out here. There’s nothing like it.” So stated Tony Gale, a veteran logger from rural New York, in an interview with Huffington Post. The digital media company recently published a comprehensive piece on the intersection between suburban development and rural communities, and Gale is representative of many in America’s rural workforce who are challenged by the changing dynamics brought about by urban sprawl.
The President of Ghana Institutions of Surveyors (GhIS), Mr. Edwin Addo-Tawiah has said, it is time surveyors take strategic decisions for the development of the country, considering the United Nations Development Goal (UNDG) which has been estimated that, 60% of Africans would be living in the urban areas by 2020.
According to him, there is therefore, the need for land professionals to equip themselves in terms of decision making in developmental projects.
"We think it's a crisis when one-in-three households - one-in-three citizens that live in cities - don't have adequate, secure or affordable housing"
TEPIC, Mexico, July 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Booming cities in developing nations should upgrade slums, build on underused land and promote rental choice to tackle a fast-growing crisis caused by a shortage of affordable housing, researchers said on Wednesday.
MUMBAI, June 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - All her life, home for Robab Nallwalla has been a one-room flat in central Mumbai, a space she shares with her parents and her brother - and more recently, her brother's wife.
The single room, similar to nine others on the dingy floor with no lift, was cramped and noisy, not a place she could invite friends to.
These innovations did not exist in 2010 when heavy flooding devastated the area, destroying crops, ecosystems and more than 20,000 homes.
The town of El Torno, in Colombia's northern province of Sucre, was seriously affected by flooding, which destroyed crops and homes, but today the community of 600 residents is an example of resilience and sustainable adaptation to climate change.
"I would come back to live here if I could," said Altair Guimarães, plucking a guava from a fruit tree that survived the re-development of Rio de Janeiro's once-thriving Vila Autodromo community, all but razed by the 2016 Olympics project.
Guimarães, 61, was evicted from his home two years ago and today the trees, a church and two rows of small white houses are all that remain of the neighbourhood on Rio's western fringe.
Together with ICLEI President Park Wonsoon (Mayor of Seoul), ICLEI First Vice President James Nxumalo (Mayor of Durban) and ICLEI Secretary General Gino Van Begin, 100 mayors from around the world were onstage at today´s ICLEI World Congress 2015 Opening Plenary to adopt the Seoul Declaration.
