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In This Update:
Are Cities at Risk of a Digital Dystopia?
Nairobi Slum Turns to Eco-Friendly Waterless Toilets
Fighting Sexual Harassment on Public Transit in Cities Around the World
Dubai's Flying Taxis
Saudi Arabia Will Open its First Mass Transit System in Riyadh Next Year
Nobel Prize Awarded to Economists for their Work in Poverty Alleviation
In the News and Around the Web
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Are Cities at Risk of a Digital Dystopia?
At Place, Rina Chandran reports on discussions over the negative effects of smart city technologies at the seventh Asia Pacific Urban Forum in Penang, Malaysia this week. U.N. Special Rapporteur on Poverty and Human Rights Philip Alston warned that when data and technology drive systems of social assistance, t
here is "a grave risk of stumbling zombie-like into a digital welfare dystopia." Lim Teng Leng of Singaporean Center for Livable Cities said that governments must build citizen trust as they employ frontier technologies. He explained:
"People have to believe that all this data will improve their lives, make their cities better and safer. The government must build trust by being upfront about what data they are collecting, what it is for, and admit when there are mistakes."
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Nairobi Slum Turns to Eco-Friendly Waterless Toilets
Environmental organization Sanergy is facilitating better waste management in the East Nairobi slum Mukuru by installing eco-friendly waterless toilets. Experts estimate the Mukuru population numbers somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million, yet the settlement has only one public latrine for every 547 households and few of those latrines are connected to sewers. Sanergy Managing Director Michael Lwoyelo says this is because the rate of population growth in slums frequently surpasses the rate in which the government is able to lay sewage lines, build toilets, or develop systems. Sanergy has installed a number of eco-friendly waterless toilets, which Lwoyelo explains that their product is "reducing the burden on the government to be able to provide sanitation
. Sanergy expects 1 million Nairobians will use their toilets by 2022.
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Will Public Transport Be Next Frontier of the #MeToo Movement?
Public transport may be the next frontier of the #MeToo movement, says Emily May, co-founder of "Holla Back," an organization that fights sexual harassment on public transit by encouraging victims to take photos of their harassers. May's comments to
The Guardian
align with the emergence of similar initiatives created by ordinary people to fight sexual harassment in city transport from Vancouver to Bangkok, and Casablanca. But, while grassroots campaigns effect change, public policy must reinforce anti-harassment initiatives, says Plan International CEO Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen: "If we truly want to achieve gender parity in our urban environments, we can make a start by changing the culture of design and planning industries [and] by ensuring transport services take gender-sensitive approaches so that they reflect the needs of young women using them."
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Since 2005, Dubai has invested $27 billion in infrastructure including metro, tram, and bus. Now the United Arab Emirates metropolis is experimenting with drone taxis and driverless transport pods to encourage people to use public transport. Dubai is among the top ten countries with the highest per capita carbon footprint, largely attributed to its car usage.
Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority aims to make ΒΌ of daily transport self-driven by 2030 which will reduce traffic, emissions, and the need for new parking space. But Karim Elgendy, at a London-based engineering consultancy firm notes that cities like Dubai may struggle to decrease car usage because historically, it did not plan for public transport infrastructure. According to
Elgendy: "Once you build a city, it is very hard to change it. It's very hard to create new pathways, new mobility networks, because where are you going to put them?"
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Saudi Arabia Will Open its First Mass Transit System in Riyadh Next Year
Riyadh is one of the largest cities in the world without a mass transit system. The city will change that next year when it opens the world's largest driverless metro system, six years after breaking ground. In Riyadh, 80% of the ten million trips taken daily are by car, and only 2% of those trips are taken by public transport. The six line metro system is the largest single rail transit construction project outside of China and is projected to carry 1.4 million passengers per day. In addition to reducing car use, some think that the ability of Saudi women to travel without a male companion will improve. The metros will include three types of cars: first, family, and single. Unaccompanied women will be able to travel in the family class cars, different from typical restrictions on their ability to move about public space.
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Nobel Prize Awarded to Economists for their Work in Poverty Alleviation
This week the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics to development economists Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer. The award recognizes that the researchers transformed development economics from a field that studied the causes of global poverty and how to combat it into "a blossoming, largely experimental field." At
VoxDev
, Tavneet Suri and Nidhi Parekh explain Banerjee, Duflo, and Kremer "helped bridge the gap between development research and policy," noting that less than 25 years ago, development research was frequently "removed from local contexts and issues." But, thanks to their work, development economics now emphasizes finding context-specific answers and connecting those different contexts from around the globe to recognize broad themes of how to alleviate global poverty.
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In the News and Around the Web
- Baltimore Purchases $20 Million in Cyber Insurance: Baltimore approved an $835,000 insurance package to protect it from future cyberattacks like the one that occurred last May
- Do Not Follow Google Maps in Sardinia: The Italian town Baunei in Sardinia banned Google Maps for the frequency with which it confuses driving tourists subsequently requiring emergency town services to extract them from small roads and pathways.
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Extinction Rebellion Protesters Target Major Cities:
Radical environmentalists clash with London commuters as they disrupt city transportation.
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A man walks by an autonomous pod in Dubai (Photo Credit:
Reuters)
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