Urban Pages
A review of the best magazines and portals on the city and urban
development
Paolo Brianzi
The Next American City
The most ingenious plan for changing the world: this is how the New York Times defined the project behind The Next American City, a quarterly magazine launched in March 2003. The initiative was founded by three recent Yale graduates, who aim to make it the premier US magazine dealing with city development policies. The idea is to interface with urban planners, local politicians, investors, and those who work in the social aspects of urban development. Topics include: The future of smart growth, religion and cities, the urban/rural edge.
Urban Age
This quarterly magazine is published by UrbanAge Institute, an independent non-profit organization, which aims to stimulate dialogue and research on issues which influence the quality of life in the city and address the gaps in the knowledge of urban leaders. Urban Age was launched in the early nineties by the World Bank and has seen local editions in Peking, Moscow, Quito and Cairo. The magazine aims to explore the widest possible spectrum of solutions to the problems facing cities, without a political or ideological bias, and share experience and information with decision-makers operating on a local level. The Mayor of Pristina, capital of Kosovo, defined Urban Age, “a necessary tool to help us learn from the errors and experience of other cities destroyed by war”.
The Development Gateway
The UrbanAge Institute also runs the Development Gateway portal, another World Bank project, which lets users search among 1,455 development initiatives listed by topic and location (May 2005).
UrbanCity and City Matters
UrbanCity – for local government and urban development is a portal backed by the BLP programme (Best Practices and Local Leadership) run by the United Nations agency Habitat, and works in collaboration with the Development Gateway. The website urbanicity.org promotes City Matters, a monthly publication which is the most popular online magazine dedicated to urban and sustainable development.
Urban City offers the widest collection of links – over 23,000 – to the websites of cities and local government authorities around the globe, and issues a newsletter featuring the contents of the magazine which is read by over 100,000 people every month.
Best Practices Database
www.unchs.org/programmes
This product is also part of the BLP programme and contains more than 2,000 case studies of local economic development policies, urban poverty strategies and environmental action successfully implemented in over 140 countries. The database can be used to explore issues, participate in a network of other people and institutions and above all gain insight into innovative solutions which worked in practical situations.
