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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Filed under opinions
Tagged as Berlin, Frankfurt, global city, growth, housing, knowledge, livability, metropolitan region, public transport, ranking, RheinMain, urban economy, world city
by Markus Kather
High-tech seems to be tired of suburban business parks and enters the cities. The urban turn that has been taken by most creative industries now hits the epicentre of the world’s high-tech industry, the Silicon Valley. A closer look at the gradual shift. Continue reading →
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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Filed under pick of the day, research
Tagged as city performance, Creative Cities, Global City Indicators Facility, global network, growth, ICLEI, indicator, Place Development, Richard Florida, UN-Habitat, University of Toronto, urban politics, urban space
By Renard Teipelke
Last Thursday, November 17, 2011, gentrification and urban politics experts Andrej Holm and Wolf Wetzel gave a lecture at Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main. The lecture was titled “Squatting is worthwhile – staying, too” and combined the two authors’ research on German cities’ squatting history* and the current development in Berlin as well as Frankfurt. Here is what I got out of their lecture:
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Filed under opinions
Tagged as Andrej Holm, Berlin, crisis, development project, Frankfurt, gentrification, growth, Hamburg, investment, Place Development, Squatting, urban regeneration, urban renewal, urban space
Can He Solve the Problem?
By Caspar Lundsgaard-Hansen
The Economist, a weekly news and international affairs publication from England, published an article on the limits of cities in Latin America. The article states that megacities in Latin America risk becoming a constraint on economic growth. Continue reading →
Filed under pick of the day
Tagged as Curitiba, economic development, growth, Latin America, Lima, McKinsey, Medellín, Megacities, Mexico City, Monterrey, The Economist, urban planning
By Renard Teipelke
For decades, courageous, enthousiastic, and convinced citizens have fought for a better democracy in Germany: more transparent, more direct, more accountable. What these citizens have achieved can hardly be described by any words. They fought the system, they stood up against institutions, they tore down physical and ideological walls. For this life-long determination and dedication, they deserve all the gratitude that is possible!
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Filed under opinions
Tagged as against, chance, crisis, critic, culture, democracy, demonstration, development, economic development, fight, future, growth, no, opportunity, place, Place Development, Place Management, planning, project, protest, risk, skepticism, system, urban planning, urban space, youth
in:polis | urbanism in cooperation with the School of Tourism and Hotel Management (Akdeniz University Antalya) are happy to announce the first edition of the Conference “Destination Management and Branding in the Mediterranean Region” to be held in Antalya in April 2012. Departing from the ongoing economic and political crisis in the region, we will discuss the role of sustainable tourism. Accordingly bearing the title “Sustainable Tourism in Times of Crisis,” the first edition of this conference will aim at a broad understanding of the complexity of tourism, ranging from topics like marketing and management to ecologic and social challenges and conflicts. Also, the conference will enrich the dialogue between various actors from different disciplines and different parts of the Mediterranean region by discussing the role of governance and networks as well as the impacts of tourism on society and culture. The exchange between the participants about best practice examples can result in a common understanding of sustainable tourism that will function as the base for further thoughts about destination management and branding.
Visit our conference website for further information about themes and subthemes here.
Please find the first Call for Papers here. The exact venue and the fees will be announced shortly.
Filed under conferences
Tagged as africa, Balkan, climate, Conference, conflict, country brand, crisis, culture, economic development, ecotourism, governance, Greece, growth, heritage, Institute of Place Management, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, licensing, local community, local product, Mediterranean, Network, place, Place Branding, Place Development, Place Identity, Place Management, Place Marketing, planning, Portugal, Spain, stakeholder, sustainibility, Syria, tourism, turkey, urban planning, urban space
Welcome to the second Nordic Urban workshop, a two-day meeting directed towards PhD students and young researchers studying urban dynamics from a broad range of disciplines.
The workshop features a key lecture and a career strategy discussion, along with parallel sessions to discuss each other´s work. This will provide you with good opportunities to discuss ideas in an informal atmosphere while presenting your work in an international setting and expanding your network.
Keynote Lecture: Cities and Sexualities, by Phil Hubbard Continue reading →
Filed under conferences
Tagged as city, Conference, economic development, growth, Image, nordic, Place Branding, Place Development, Place Identity, Place Management, Place Marketing, planning, sustainibility, urban planning, urban space
By Renard Teipelke
SPIEGEL journalist Alexander Smoltczyk has done something that was long overdue: unveiling the Gulf Emirates’ strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of an urbanist. The German article is about post-petrol economies, their skyrocketing progress during the past 50 years, their existence in one of the world’s most barren land, and about their (constantly changing, nevertheless long-term) strategy for a fruitful development.
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Filed under pick of the day
Tagged as Arab, city tourism, Der Spiegel, economic development, expats, growth, Gulf, oil, Place Branding, Place Development, Place Identity, sustainibility, urban planning, urban space
<<< Read Part I
<<< Read Part II
by Renard Teipelke
Part III
The dilemma between growth and sustainability was supposed to be ‘solved’ by the last panel on which Professor Meyer (University of Osnabrück) underscored that all the well-intentioned objectives of a ecologically and socially more friendly development needs to be made the central element of the current political agenda. Oddly enough for economists, Professor Meyer and Professor Burda (Humboldt University Berlin) saw the state as the sole capable actor to force market players into the right direction (a.k.a. ‘offer the right incentives’ – since any notion of socialist methods is to be avoided).
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