Showing 1 - 10 of 11
Authoritarians' brave new cities
Oped, Robert Muggah & Carlo Ratti, Published on 23/09/2025
» Few policy ideas are as radical -- or as misleadingly packaged -- as "freedom cities". Championed by Silicon Valley's techno-libertarian elite and recently embraced by right-wing politicians like Donald Trump, the idea is to create digitally powered, master-planned enclaves of deregulated innovation.
Climate change: the August deadline
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/08/2024
» When you spend four years writing a book on climate change, you get to know most of the leading players. I have never seen them so dismayed.
Justice at stake
Oped, Postbag, Published on 29/05/2024
» Re: "Yingluck upbeat on democracy", (BP, May 23).
Where is World Expo 2020 host Dubai leading us?
Oped, Carlo Ratti, Published on 18/03/2022
» 'Connecting minds, creating the future", the slogan of World Expo 2020, is everywhere in Dubai. The ongoing event, which opened a year late in October 2021, is the first of its kind since the beginning of the pandemic. Few other places in the world are as future-oriented as Dubai. But what kind of future does Dubai want? The city has established itself as a model for the emerging urban centres of Asia and the Middle East, so its choices today could have far-reaching consequences in the future.
World cities and the climate-data collection gap
Oped, Robert Muggah & Carlo Ratti, Published on 21/01/2022
» With cities facing disastrous climate stresses and shocks in the coming years, one would think they would be rushing to implement mitigation and adaptation strategies. Yet most urban residents are only dimly aware of the risks, because their cities' mayors, managers, and councils are not collecting or analysing the right kinds of information.
The recipe for reforming pensions
Oped, Elsa Fornero, Published on 07/01/2022
» Pension reform is a thankless but necessary task. Pensions are a difficult and emotional subject that affects every citizen, and changing how they are calculated or when workers can retire involves negotiating a complex web of rules, habits, and entitlements that neat academic models do not capture.
Signs of integration with the freedom of the veil
Oped, Diego Gambetta & Ozan Aksoy, Published on 23/12/2021
» The latest controversy over the hijab, the headscarf worn by Muslim women, erupted at the end of October. Ironically, the trigger was an anti-discrimination campaign launched by the Council of Europe.
How Melbourne rescheduled its entire future
Oped, Carlo Ratti, Published on 01/12/2021
» Melbourne is not the most distinctive of Australia's cities. It does not have Sydney's sandy beaches or Brisbane's rugged, Crocodile Dundee appeal. Lying on a flat plain, crossed by a meandering river, it is an urban agglomeration of some 10,000 square kilometres -- six times the size of London -- consisting of a dense urban core surrounded by sprawling suburbs.
Helsinki rises to climate crisis challenge
Oped, Carlo Ratti, Published on 22/10/2021
» Among the many misleading beliefs about climate change, one in particular has too often gone unchallenged. This is the idea that temperature increases will negatively affect only warmer regions, while making polar climates milder and more pleasant. In fact, extreme weather and rising sea levels in colder countries will far outweigh the benefits of warmer winters.
Singapore is a laboratory for urban mobility
Oped, Carlo Ratti, Published on 13/08/2021
» Tiziano Terzani was no fan of Singapore. The Florentine writer and journalist explored every corner of Asia. He had witnessed the fall of Saigon to the People's Army of Vietnam, and the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge. When he visited Singapore, he concluded all it had to offer was its airport: "The concentration of everything Singapore has to show: its efficiency, its cleanliness, its order." Otherwise, the wealthy city-state was nothing more to him than "the largest supermarket of consumer goods, futility, and prissiness in Asia".