IGLUS Quarterly (2015-2022) 

VOL 8, ISSUE 4

A spotlight on Italian cities: urban change, governance and planning

In this last and concluding issue of IGLUS Quarterly, we had chance to visit Italy thanks to the great efforts of well-known urban scholars from Italian Cities. We sincerely believe that you will enjoy the articles in this issue. We also invite you to join the discussion at iglus. org.

VOL 8, ISSUE 3

Integrating green and blue infrastructures,
for the socio-ecological transition of urban systems

This IGLUS Quarterly deals with green and blue infrastructures. It has three main articles, plus four illustrative inserts. Each of the articles highlights one of the three main points we think are essential when talking about urban green infrastructures.

VOL 8, ISSUE 2

Housing Challenges in African Cities

According to the report of the World Bank, rapid urbanization and an increasing number of slum dwellers have created a severe housing issue in African cities. Capacity, policy and governance weaknesses coupled with a lack of interorganizational collaboration for development solutions are halting progress in urban settings. In order to tackle these issues, new and focused approaches to affordable housing are required. Therefore, there is a need to re-examine current processes and policies to enable short-term and long-term solutions to informal urban housing in African cities. By considering this, in this issue of IGLUS Quarterly having four unique articles, we will discuss the growing concern of providing equitable and accessible options for youth housing by also reviewing the current approaches, best practices and case studies currently being utilized with a focus in African cities within the urban realm. The perspectives shared in the articles will add value to what is currently published; very little published written by youth living in the global south.

VOL 8, ISSUE 1

Urban Air Mobility

The urban landscape has gained a new dimension with the introduction of Urban Air Mobility. Soon we may start seeing novel VTOL vehicles and similar aircraft put in service to commute or transport goods in urban airspace. But this will come with many challenges in terms of urban planning and infrastructure. This issue of the IGLUS Quarterly explores the potential benefits and obstacles related to UAM and discusses the need for the governance of the urban airspace.

VOL 7, ISSUE 4

Planning for Sustainability:
A View from the Global South

The ideal of sustainable development has become increasingly prominent in global development discourse over the last half-century and is now firmly being embedded within global agreements such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda. This prominence is also reflected in the recent UN-Habitat World Cities Report 2020 aptly titled ‘The value of sustainable urbanization’ and reaffirmed that sustainable urbanization remains central to the goal of overall sustainable development by creating social, economic, and environmental value in pursuance of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development goals. However, despite considerable progress in many dimensions, continued and rapid urbanization poses a particular challenge for urban planning in pursuit of sustainable development, especially in urban contexts in the Global South. The series of articles in this issue reflect on some of the challenges in planning for sustainability and provide some case studies of how cities in the South have responded to these challenges.

VOL 7, ISSUE 3

Population and Public Management in
South African Cities

South Africa, as developing country is still in an urbanization stage with less than 65 per cent being urbanized. This puts significant strain on the existing management and future planning of towns and cities, who according to the country’s constitution, is responsible for all housing and land use matters. Although local and metropolitan municipalities are responsible for the aforementioned, they are also legally obliged to integrate principles of public participation, sustainability and urban integration in spatial planning matters. Regarding these, we focused on the population and public management in South African cities in this issue of IGLUS Quarterly.

VOL 7, ISSUE 2

Smart Almaty City
Special Issue

Almaty is the largest metropolis, scientific and educational, cultural and historical, economic and financial, banking and industrial center of Kazakhstan. The city is also considered as the economic center of the Central Asia region. Since October 2020, Almaty City Government has initiated a 5-year Smart City strategy in collaboration with Innovative Governance of Large Urban Systems (IGLUS) action-research program. Almaty Smart City aims to create a technological architecture covering all the information systems and Information Technology (IT) infrastructure on the city level with the description of service, data and infrastructure layers. In this issue of IGLUS Quarterly, we will further investigate this technological architecture with the articles of the experts from Almaty City.

VOL 7, ISSUE 1

Urban Waste

In this issue, we discussed the problems associated with urban waste with articles from experts from different parts of the world. We will try to understand what the previous mistakes were, what we must do to deal with the huge amount of wastes in cities, and what the current efforts of city governments are.

VOL 6, ISSUE 4

Public Health and COVID-19 in Cities

2020 has been one of the most difficult years for us all, with the rapid spread of the unfortunate COVID-19 pandemic. All of our schedules have changed, and most of our businesses and international travels have stopped. Cities that already experienced previous pandemics/epidemics, such as MERS and SARS, have already been aware of the importance of public health, and managed the current pandemic with less severe out- comes, while it had more tragic results for cities and countries with a weaker public health system and lack of treatment facilities. As IGLUS, we are aware of how important the public health system is for cities to deal with this pandemic. Therefore, through this IGLUS Quarterly issue, we would like to touch upon the spread of COVID-19, and the successes and failures of public health systems in cities.

VOL 6, ISSUE 3

Redefining Urban Players

The rise of the smart city expression in the early 2010’s had a dramatic impact on the representation of the city as a global market. Consultancy firms played a key role in turning this market horizon in a ready-to-hand business opportunity, announcing through market forecasts that smart city market segment weighted up to trillion US dollars.

VOL 6, ISSUE 2

African Cities

African cities currently host 548 million inhabitants. By 2050, the urban population will have tripled, to reach 1.5 billion. These bewildering figures emphasize the magnitude of the challenges ahead in urban areas. It questions their capacity to accommodate these new inhabitants and offer them decent living conditions. Based on our inspiring encounters in Nairobi in February 2020, this issue explores various perspectives to reinvent approaches to city-making on the African continent.

VOL 6, ISSUE 1

Transforming Urban Landscape

Exploring urban transformations is at the core of IGLUS’ raison d’etre. Our program travels from cities to cities to understand how they are planned, governed, regenerated; to understand a phenomenon called by Henri Lefebvre as the production of space. He argues that space is socially produced, through interactions and power relations between different groups within a society to create a space that answers the priorities and needs of local social, economic and institutional structures; and incorporates the values, the functions and the creative potential to transform it over time.

VOL 5, ISSUE 2-3

Climate Change and Cities

Our planet is warming under dramatic environmental pressure and its climate is changing. The impacts of climate change are becoming more costly and more damaging day by day. Unfortunately, cities are main culprits. According to UN Habitat, cities consume 78 percent of the world’s energy by producing the majority of greenhouse gas emissions. By considering the consequences created by the cities, we have prepared this IGLUS Quarterly issue with key articles written by experts from cities around the world. We hope that we can bring new perspectives to readers and bring awareness about climate change to the citizens of the Earth.

VOL 5, ISSUE 1

Water Economy and Governance
in the Age of Urbanization

Due to the severe effects of global warming, the earth is confronting various issues, including endangerment of lives. Most importantly, scarcity of water is one those issues confronted. It is not that the world does not have enough water – 70 percent of the planet is covered with water − but as we continue to fail to use available fresh water sources efficiently, we will not be even able to satisfy our survival needs. Water treatment and desalination technologies are coming to the fore, which has also made us consider water economy and the water−energy nexus. This nexus becomes especially crucial when megacities and urban areas are considered. In this issue of IGLUS Quarterly, we have tried to bring new perspectives for the water problem of urban areas and megacities by considering the water−energy nexus.

VOL. 4, ISSUE 4

Complexities of Megacity The Case of Seoul

The twenty-first century will be the century of the Megacities. More than half of the world’s population now live in urbanized areas and this number continues to rise. Another 2.5 billion people will accumulate in urban areas by 2050. Today, according to the 14th edition of Demographia, there are already 37 megacities in the world (that is, cities with a population of over 10 million), and the number of cities with over 5 million population is also rising (84 in 2017 and 86 in 2018).

VOL. 4, ISSUE 3

digitalisation technologies
Urban Mobility Services

Digital technologies now affect almost every aspect of life. This alteration is already ingrained in mobility services in the form of information and communication technologies (ICT), which allows access to a copious amount of data for transport operators and users, and Mobility as a Service (MaaS), which delivers innovative solutions in mobility options, digital transport platforms and business models.

VOL. 4, ISSUE 2

A developing city’s path
Kampala Special Edition

Although Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the least urbanised regions in the globe, it has some of the highest urbanisation rates, coupled with all the complexity and challenges this represents. Urban centers play an essential part managing the rapid upsurge and in sustaining economic growth, they are incubators of polarising connotations, where innovative socioeconomic breakthroughs can emerge, as well as deteriorating social and economic recession.

VOL. 4, ISSUE 1

Critical and practical views of the
Smart City Concept

Together with the unprecedented rate of urbanisation, new practices and trends have sought to manage the complex challenges of urban systems. A prominent example is the “smart city” concept, which is present and widely discussed in literature and international policies.

VOL. 3, ISSUE 2

Local Governance:
Successes and Opportunities

For decades now, globalization and rapid urbanization have been at the forefront of city building processes culminating in increasingly complex urban environments that defy pre-existent jurisdictional boundaries and hierarchal public management structures. In response, a new form of urban management, termed New Public Governance, has emerged and favors network-based governance systems that emphasize collaboration over management.

VOL. 3, ISSUE 1

Sustainability in the Urban Context:
A multi-disciplinary concept

The IGLUS platform promotes innovative governance practices that can contribute to improve the efficiency, resilience and sustainability in cities. The definition and quantification of each of these performance dimensions presents an important challenge, but it seems that in recent years, sustainable policy, sustainable development and plain-old sustainability have become especially important buzzwords in the urban context.

VOL. 2, ISSUE 3

Urban traffic congestion:
Alternatives to the private motor
vehicle from around the world

Around the world, as urban populations are growing, so too are rates of private car ownership, which in turn leads to complex challenges in the urban governance sphere. With private vehicle ownership rapidly outpacing the growth of our road infrastructures, issues of traffic congestion, road and parking infrastructure maintenance and construction are at the forefront of cities’ agendas.

VOL. 2, ISSUE 2

Dortmund Special Edition:
Insights from the Rhine-Ruhr Area

In this issue we travel to the Ruhr region of Germany for the Dortmund Special Edition. This edition features a series of three articles written by our IGLUS partners in Dortmund, focusing on three cases that each discuss a different dimension of the governance of large urban systems in the Ruhr region and beyond.large urban systems in the Ruhr region and beyond.

VOL. 2, ISSUE 1

Multi-level Governance
in the Urban Context

In this issue, we will be travelling to three different continents in order to explore the ever-pertinent topic of integrated planning in different urban infrastructures. Integrated infrastructure planning is one of the top priorities city authorities have when dealing with complex urban challenges. But successfully implementing such planning is a significant challenge that cannot be taken for granted, and throughout this process, governance plays a significant role.

VOL. 1, ISSUE 1

Tackling Urban Challenges:
Who should take the Lead?

You are about to read the 1st issue of the IGLUS Quarterly. IGLUS Quarterly is dedicated to the analysis of Governance, Innovation and Performance in Cities. IGLUS Quarterly is an online quarterly publication aimed at knowledge and experience sharing among scholars and practitioners who are interested in improving the performance of cities, in terms of quality of services, sustainability, resilience and livability.