The World Health Organisation has launched an international campaign to promote urban health. The campaign ‘1000 Cities 1000 Lives’ aims to gather 1000 cities around the world to closing off parts of their streets to traffic during the week of April 7-11 2010 for healthy activities such as biking and walking.

For most of those which were great once were small today; And those that used to be small were great in my own time. Knowing, therefore, that human prosperity never abides in the same place, I shall pay attention to both alike–Herodotus, Fifth Century B.C.If the great Greek chronicler and “father of history” Herodotus were [...]

Despite being hit hard by the credit crunch, London and New York are likely to retain their global status in the future because they offer their inhabitants such a unique combination of attractions that some of the emerging Asian financial centres like Dubai may struggle to match.
There are many ranking surveys, but our new World [...]

Commuters on public transit want to know two fundamental things: when can I expect the bus or train to pick me up? And when will it drop me off at my destination?
Nowadays, they may also be wondering whether their local transit agency is willing to share that data with others to put it into new [...]

There’s something that most iPhone owners who are having problems with their service have in common: they tend to live in large cities.
via Big City, Big Troubles – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com.

Sometimes, it’s nice to be small. The City of Nanaimo has been pushing the envelope on open data and open government for a number of years now.
Recently, I was directed to their new Council Agendas and Minutes webpage. I recommend you check it out.
Here’s why.
At first blush the site seems normal. There is the standard [...]

Johannesburg, host of major football matches in 2010, is 100th city added to the product
CHICAGO, Sept. 2 /PRNewswire/ — NAVTEQ, the leading global provider of digital map, traffic and location data for in-vehicle, portable, wireless and enterprise solutions, today reached a major pedestrian milestone, adding Johannesburg, South Africa as the 100th city to NAVTEQ Discover [...]

That is, what method of payment do we wish to use when it comes to living in a functioning metropolis? If we find ourselves paying no tax at all, for instance – no income tax, no sales tax, no property tax – would we be happy to pay parking tickets that hit upper limits of, [...]

It’s a daunting task, but we’ve got to improve transportation both in and between cities.
When discussing increasing spending on high-speed rail, questions of how funds should be prioritized frequently arise. Is it appropriate to spend tens of billions of dollars on new intercity rail lines when our inner-city transit systems are so deprived? Shouldn’t we [...]