Author Archives: renardteipelke

by | 23/04/2013 · 10:33

Frankfurt at the top; again.

Frankfurt City Skyline (©Renard Teipelke)

by Renard Teipelke

Before I actually start with the topic, I would like to contend: Once a city is at the top of statistical economic rankings, it is in a quite good position to stay there. Just refer to New York, London, and Tokyo in various kinds of rankings…

Frankfurt came out first (again) in this year’s study by the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI) and Berenberg Bank on the locational qualities of Germany’s 30 largest cities (here). The average productivity output of an employee in Frankfurt is 87’000 Euro per year. Two fifths of the city’s workforce can be found in knowledge industries, and employment rates are improving. Those are the prime facts for the economic category of the study as SPIEGEL Online reported recently.

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by | 27/03/2013 · 15:05

Places like, let’s say, highways?!

Thika Highway from Juja to Ruiru (© Renard Teipelke, 2013)by Renard Teipelke

Studying ‘streets as places’ through in-situ research is nothing new to social science. A classic in this regard is Doreen Massey’s work on the global sense of place with the example of Kilburn High Road in London. Other researchers – and most naturally anthropologists – also went to the streets of settlements and studied everyday life, community, and society. But why not take the bus to go from these inner-city streets to the outer rings of urban settlements and study their larger pendants: highways?! Continue reading →

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by | 27/02/2013 · 16:59

Urban Foresight in Times of Meteorites

Still image from video shows the trail of a falling object above a residential apartment block in the Urals city of Chelyabinskby Renard Teipelke

On the 15th February 2013, Chelyabinsk Obast in Russia was hit by the glowing remainders of a meteorite which entered the earth and caused approximately 1’500 people being injured and 3’000 buildings in the region being damaged. It was the first time since 1908 that a meteorite of that size reached the earth and resulted in such a scale and scope of injuries and damages. Following these unforeseen news, it did not take long until experts discussed possible impacts of meteorites on our cities. Not well known to the broader public, this has actually been a concern amongst scientists for much longer, but no political decision maker (with one eye on the budget and the other one on the next elections) seriously wanted to put this ‘national security’ issue on the agenda.

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by | 10/01/2013 · 10:53

We Are Moving beyond Numbers (?)

by Renard Teipelke

Afterwards, everybody always knows better. We were obsessed with numbers. “We” as in “the majority”, “the public”, “the decision-makers”, or “our/the representatives”. It does not matter if you or I were obsessed with numbers. It was the zeitgeist for at least the past two decades. It worked well for most of the time because of the numbers or despite of them. But then a financial implosion triggered a global economic crisis that resulted in a political and – in many places – even society/community crisis of an extent unforeseen by those experts who are throwing out predictions and forecasts every day. Now we have to deal with this mess. And the time of pure number fetishism is also over (at least for now). Continue reading →

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by | 11/12/2012 · 15:37

You Want Another Index? Here We Go with INNOVATION!

By Renard Teipelke

There is probably no index missing in the profession (and obsession) of ranking cities. One index that was recently mentioned in the UN-Habitat State of the World Cities Report 2012/2013 is the Innovation Cities Index.

2thinknow, the company behind this index, advertises it as the “world’s largest city classification and ranking with 331 benchmark cities classified”. Cities are ranked globally and per region and are classified as “nexus”, “hub”, “node”, “influencer”, or “upstart” – basically ascribing to cities a higher to lower degree of importance/relevance with regard to ‘innovation’; with “nexus” cities (such as Boston, Vienna, Munich, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, or Seoul) at the top as being the crucial centers for multiple social and economic innovation sectors, and “upstart” cities (such as Jakarta, Kolkata, Johannesburg, Karachi, Manama, or Lima) at the bottom as having potentially some innovative sectors in the future.

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by | 15/11/2012 · 14:00

The Brand and the Real Thing: Kenya – Shining for Some

by Renard Teipelke

An amazing landscape, wild animals, beautiful sunsets, white beaches, traditional tribe villages, mountains and valleys…one could easily continue the list of things for which Kenya is famous for. This country in East Africa is one of the prime tourist destinations in Africa and equally depends on the revenues from this large economic sector (678 mio. Euro revenue earnings in 2010). The country is well branded internationally and has established very clear pictures as images of Kenya in many people’s minds (see another article on this blog here). Continue reading →

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by | 17/10/2012 · 07:31

Uberlândia – or why we should hear more about second- and third-row cities

By Renard Teipelke

Uberlândia – Uber what? Denmark, The Netherlands, or a city in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings? Far from that! Uberlândia is actually a medium-sized city in Brazil (population: 604’000). On first sight, the city seems to be nothing more than the second-largest city in the state of Minas Gerais. Uberlândia is strategically situated between Brazilian’s coastal urban areas and the hinterland, thus making the city a major logistics hub. But one major project that has been implemented in Uberlândia for the past 20 years exemplifies what we can learn from cities in the second- or, in this case maybe even, third row. It is about going beyond the prime big shining examples we (professionals in academia, the media, politics, and business) are likely to look at most of the time. Continue reading →

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by | 20/09/2012 · 09:52

21st Century Waterfront Redevelopment in Washington, D.C.

by Renard Teipelke

Ideal public transit connection, walkability, mixed-use, brownfield redevelopment, green infrastructure, efficient resource systems, inclusion of the historic urban fabric…what sounds like a planner’s wish list for urban redevelopment is actually the description used for two major projects at Washington D.C.’s southwestern and southeastern waterfronts: The Wharf and The Yards. In case both projects are realized as planned, Washington might be able to present the world what is currently advertized as a 21st century waterfront. Continue reading →

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by | 30/08/2012 · 19:18

Global City Indicators Facility

By Renard Teipelke

“The Global City Indicators Facility provides an established set of city indicators with a globally standardized methodology that allows for global comparability of city performance and knowledge sharing.”

This web-based relational database website, Global City Indicators Facility (GCIF), is based at the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape & Design of the University of Toronto in Canada and has on its executive committees both officials (partly elected politicians) from cities of various size and region and representatives from international organizations such as UN-Habitat or ICLEI.

The indicator themes are organized in two main categories:

  • City services: education, finance, recreation, governance, energy, transportation, wastewater, fire and emergency response, health, safety, solid waste, urban planning, water.
  • Quality of life: civic engagement, economy, shelter, culture, environment, social equity, technology and innovation

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by | 26/07/2012 · 11:00

Coffee, Hamburgers and Downtown Areas in a Globalizing World

Starbucks Cups

By Renard Teipelke

In the past years, we could witness the increasingly strong presence of international corporations in downtown areas. Ranging from telecommunication and fashion to fast food and electronics, major brands have successfully invaded the centers of our cities. This is often discussed, for instance, with respect to McDonalds and (more recently) Starbucks stores popping up seemingly at every corner in the downtown area of (at least larger) cities. In the following article, I would like to address this latter aspect with a focus on the role of ‘international guests’ in global cities.

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