Tobacco farming in Uganda has resulted in the loss of trees key to the diets of chimpanzees and baboons, increasing human-primate interactions — and the risk for disease spillover.
Tag: urbanization
Pollution and climate change have prompted some cities to convert into more sustainable and liveable spaces. But these same policies can widen social inequality. How can cities fix this paradox?
The natural disaster in Valencia is the reflection of a great societal failure, the result of the lack of public policies in organizing a sustainable and balanced model of life.
China’s real estate crisis is hitting small, unattractive cities like Shaoguan hard. This city of 3.3 million residents in the far south of the country has a stock of empty apartments that could take 10 years to sell.
Pollution and climate change have prompted some cities to convert into more sustainable and liveable spaces. But these same policies can widen social inequality. How can cities fix this paradox?
A kind of remote working already existed across the European countryside in the early 14th century. Daniele Rizzi considers what the pre-industrial putting-out system can teach both modern workers and modern bosses.
An elephant in the street in India, otters on the beach in Cape Town, wild boars in Rome, big cats in Colombia cities, polar bears in Russian towns: a series of factors, including climate change and urbanization, is creating unlikely encounters between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom.
In an area the size of Singapore, Egypt is building its new capital. Constructed under the close control of the military and the head of state, the city embodies the grand ambitions of an increasingly autocratic president. But will it turn out to be a ghost city?
The pandemic has exposed longstanding inequalities and brought more people into a cycle of hunger and precariousness,
Due to climate change and pollution, entire neighborhoods and cities on the continent are destined to vanish. A new vision of African urbanism is needed to replace the illusion of the “city without limits.”
Demarkated by the British for tax purposes, these villages have since been swallowed by India’s massive capital city, but continue to stand apart in terms of zoning and design.
A deadly flash flood and landslide in southern Colombia is a brutal reminder that people can’t take the environment for granted.
In 2002, the major southern city gave developers a decade to revitalize 138 old villages as part of China’s rapid urbanization. Almost 15 years later, only four have been revamped, and the last holdout residents still refuse to leave.
-Analysis- BEIJING — A recent United Nations report predicted that the year 2017 will be the turning point for China’s demography. After reaching its peak that year, the population will start to drop. And yet at the same time, as a recent survey of China’s State Council showed, each major Chinese city has plans to […]
PARIS — First there was the campus. Next up Facebook city. The size of the “Zee town” project Mark Zuckerberg announced in February surprised many: For an estimated $200 billion, the king of social networks plans to build what will essentialy be an entire town — a 200-acre development in California’s Silicon Valley featuring supermarkets, […]
Bad urban planning, pollution, corruption, the Indian megapolis offers lessons on exactly how not to run your city.
NAIROBI — The sun feels even more scorching under the cap of pollution. Through her binoculars, Patricia Heather-Hayes, nicknamed “Trish,” is scrutinizing a lioness sleeping under an acacia in Kenya“s Nairobi National Park. The energetic 60-something, who works in a legal office when she’s not out here observing wildlife, knows the name of every feline. […]
In Beijing alone, more than 1,000 acres of historical areas have been lost since 1990. As rural Chinese move to cities, the country must figure out how to preserve its heritage.
Employees who toil long hours for low wages at the Chinese factories that assemble the iPhone are part of the dark side of the country’s rush to urbanization.
Protecting the ‘green lung’ of the sprawling, wheezing metropolis is becoming increasingly harder in the face of surging population and hungry real estate developers.
The migration of rural population into Chinese cities is seen by some as the way to ensure a new burst of economic growth. But urbanization-by-state-planning is not the right road.
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China’s Car Market Is Humming Again
BEIJING — China’s automobile market is now expected to see double-digit growth by the end of this year, after two consecutive years’ of relatively low growth. According to data published last week by the China Automobile Association, for the first 10 months of 2013, China’s car sales totaled 17.8 million vehicles, with a growth rate […]
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Is China’s Urban Boom A House Of Cards?
BEIJING — “Better city, better life …” This was the theme of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, a nod to the ancient Greek scholar Aristotle who understood what people expect from urban life: to make their living a better living. But what is the reality in people’s lives right now? During China’s golden week — […]
NEW DELHI — The findings of India’s first linguistic census in a century were unveiled earlier this month. Of the 850 languages identified, 300 had never previously been documented, and nearly 200 are considered at risk of extinction because they have fewer than 10,000 speakers. The Sept. 5 ceremony took place at the Gandhi memorial […]
As the country plans to seize farmers’ land and move them into more populous, resettled areas to drive the economy, it’s clear who the losers will be.
LEIYANG – After working for many years in Foshan, a city in China’s manufacturing heartland of Guangdong, Zi Xiaohu and his wife recently decided to move back to his hometown in the central province of Hunan. The couple’s child, who remained behind in the village while the parents worked, is about to start preschool. The […]
DIE WELT (Germany) Worldcrunch BERLIN – “Tear down this wall!” Ronald Reagan famously implored in Berlin in 1987, challenging Mikhail Gorbachev to bring an end to the Cold War. Now, it appears, this was also the much quieter request of a luxury condominium developer. The longest remaining portion of the Berlin Wall, stretching 1,316 meters […]
BEIJING – The official announcement came from Zhang Ping, head of China’s top economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission: the government would “speed up household registration reform” as part of its drive for urbanization of the rural population. Dubbed hukou, the household registration system dates back to the Mao era, and prevents […]
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Is Africa’s Economic Miracle Just A Mirage?
-Analysis- In the financial press, Africa is now hailed as the “go-to” continent. It seems to be at the cusp of a golden age: its growth and direct foreign investment rates recall those of China at the beginning of the 2000s; South Africa has become one of the booming BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa). The continent also […]
ULAN BATOR – Over the last decade, Mongols have rapidly begun to concentrate here in its capital, as well as other cities. This trend is accelerating and making Ulan Bator an unbearably crowded place, though still relatively small in comparison with most of China’s major cities. Nevertheless, the impact may be more drastic on a […]