Global Urban Development Update
(July 26, 2008)
It has been six years
since Global Urban Development was officially incorporated on December 3, 2001.
On April 28, 2006, we received our official permanent designation from the
United States Department of the Treasury (Internal Revenue Service) as a
tax-exempt non-profit “public charity” organization, which is vital for
receiving grants and donations. During November 2002, Global Urban Development
was featured in a major article in National Geographic on “Megacities”
that brought us a great deal of worldwide publicity. Since then, the Global Urban Development
website has received more than one million visitors.
Our first full-scale
Board of Directors meeting was held in Washington,
DC on December 12, 2002. The December 12 Board meeting was followed in
the evening by a wonderfully festive reception attended by more than 60 people,
including many members of the Global Urban Development Advisory Board. This reception was our first anniversary and
birthday party. We also held a strategic
planning meeting of the Board of Directors in Washington,
DC on October 5, 2002, and a special meeting
of the Board of Directors in Washington,
DC on April 21, 2003. We held another reception in Washington,
DC for the Board of Directors, Advisory Board,
and staff on April 24, 2003, and eight receptions in Prague, on May 30, June 13, October 3,
October 9, and November 28, 2003, and on March 24, March 26, and April 15,
2004. We held a Board of Directors meeting
in Prague on December 12, 2003, followed by a
reception, and we held two Board of Directors meetings in Washington, DC,
one on February 3, 2004, and another on May 20, 2004. We held a Board of
Directors and Advisory Board meeting in Barcelona
on September 18, 2004, and we held a Board of Directors meeting and Advisory
Board reception in Washington,
DC, on February 10, 2005. We held a Board of Directors meeting in Washington, DC,
on July 27, 2005. We held a reception in Prague
on September 22, 2005, and Board of Directors meetings in Washington, DC,
on October 21, 2005, April 3, 2006, and May 5, 2006. We held a Board of Directors and Advisory
Board meeting in Vancouver, Canada on June 23, 2006, a Board of Directors
meeting in Rehoboth, Delaware
on December 15, 2006, and a Board of Directors meeting in Rehoboth, Delaware
on December 10, 2007. We will hold a
Board of Directors and Advisory Board meeting in Nanjing, China
on November 7, 2008.
Global Urban Development is
fundamentally a worldwide network of expert thinkers and practitioners,
organized into seven major program committees: Building Gender Equality in
Urban Life, chaired by Monika Jaeckel, Paola Jiron, and Wandia Seaforth; Treating People and Communities as Assets,
chaired by Lance Buhl, Marlene Fernandes, and Patrick
Wakely; Facing the Environmental Challenge, chaired
by Habiba Al Marashi, Mary
Jane Ortega, and Tom Roper; Celebrating Our Urban Heritage, chaired by Luigi
Fusco Girard, Donovan Rypkema, and Belinda Yuen;
Global Urban Development, chaired by Elizabeth Autumn, Claudia Laub, and Nancy Sedmak-Weiss; Improving Public Health,
chaired by Vivian Lin, David Wilmoth, and Robert Zdenek; and Metropolitan Economic Strategy, chaired by
Peter Hall, Neal Peirce, and Marc Weiss.
As of July 26, 250 members of our Global Urban Development network
belong to one or more GUD program committees.
Every member of the Advisory Board is welcome to join any program
committee. There are also three
managerial committees of the Board of Directors: Executive, Program Management, and Budget,
Finance, and Audit.
We have a significant track record of accomplishment. To date the Global Urban Development has
completed 21 projects, has another three projects that have already been
launched, and five projects that are actively under development. The 20 projects that have been completed are:
(1) a report published by the United Nations Human Settlements Program
(UN-Habitat) entitled “Productive Cities and Metropolitan Economic Strategy”
based on a keynote speech and theme paper by Dr. Marc Weiss presented to the UN
International Forum on Urban Poverty in Marrakech, Morocco during October 2001;
(2) National Governors Association
(NGA) in the U.S. on “State Policy Approaches to Promote Metropolitan Economic
Strategy” (the full report is available on the NGA website); (3) a
report published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) in Paris, France, on “Leveraging Private Financing for Community
Development” (the full report is available on the OECD website); (4) a
four-day “think tank” educational workshop and training session on Metropolitan
Economic Strategy in Cape Town, South Africa, along with a report on
Metropolitan Economic Strategy for the South African Cities Network (SACN), the
national Department of Trade and Industry, and the national Department of
Provincial and Local Government (the full report is available on the United
Nations-Habitat Best Practices and Policies website). The South Africa project on Metropolitan
Economic Strategy was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID); (5) a report for the Center for National Policy in Washington,
DC on “National Housing Policy in the U.S. for the 21st Century”; (6)
a report on “Rebuilding Post-War Iraq with Livable Communities and Democratic
Local Governance” by Craig Raborn, a member of the
GUD Advisory Board and former American Planning Association Congressional
Fellow who recently worked for U.S. Congressman Earl Blumenauer. Congressman Blumenauer is Co-Chair of the
Livable Communities Task Force in the U.S. House of Representatives, and a
founding member of the GUD Advisory Board; (7) a report by Peter Hall,
GUD Vice Chairman, on “The World’s Urban Systems: A European Perspective” (the
report is available on our website).
This report was prepared as part of the GUD’s contribution to a European
Union-funded urban policy research consortium, ESPON (European Spatial Planning
Observation Network), and Peter Hall presented his findings at a major public
lecture in Prague
on June 13, 2003. GUD served as a
partner from 2002-2006 with Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden
on an ESPON-funded research project. 1.1.3, entitled “Enlargement of the
European Union and the Wider European Perspective as regards its Polycentric
Spatial Structure.” This report, along
33 other reports, produced by more than 600 researchers throughout Europe,
served as the basis for the ESPON Synthesis Report entitled “Territory Matters
for Competitiveness and Cohesion: Facets of Regional Diversity and Potentials
in Europe” published on the ESPON website (www.espon.eu)
in October 2006; (8) two reports published by the Metropolitan Strategic
Plan Association of Barcelona, one on “Metropolitan Regions are Dynamic Engines
of Global Prosperity and Quality of Life for Everyone” and the other on
“Metropolitan Governance and Strategic Planning in the U.S.” (the report on Metropolitan Governance is available on our
website); (9) an international conference on “Redefining Europe:
Federalism and the Union of European Democracies,” which was held in Prague during March 26-30,
2004. This conference was funded by the
Association to Unite the Democracies (AUD).
On May 1, 2004, 10 countries in Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe,
including the Czech
Republic, formally
entered the European Union (EU), joining the 15 nations that already were full
EU members. Global Urban Development
co-sponsored this conference together with AUD and the British Council. Joseph Drew, Global Urban Development
Advisory Board member, coordinated this effort; (10) an international
conference on “Redefining Europe: European Union Enlargement One Year After,”
which was held in Prague
April 29-May 2, 2005. Global Urban
Development co-sponsored this conference together with the Ashburn Institute
and the Prague campus of the University of Northern
Virginia.
Joseph Drew served as the conference coordinator; (11) a report
by Dr. Marc Weiss on “Metropolitan Economic Strategy and Quality of Life” for
the World Life-Culture Forum sponsored by the KDI School of Public Policy and
Management in Seoul, Korea during December, 2003; (12) a report by Dr.
Marc Weiss on “Teamwork: Why Metropolitan Economic Strategy is the Key to
Generating Sustainable Prosperity and Quality of Life for the World” for the
Global Cities Program at the Munk Centre for
International Studies of the University of Toronto, Canada; (13) publication in May 2005 of the
inaugural issue of Global Urban
Development Magazine, followed by
publication of the second issue in March
2006, a special issue focusing on the UN Millennium Development Goals,
with numerous articles from the UN Millennium Project. Global Urban Development Magazine is
published annually. The November 2007
issue is a special issue on Urban Land Policies for Poverty Reduction, with
articles originally produced for the 2005 World Bank International Urban
Research Symposium held in Brasilia,
Brazil,
co-sponsored by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA) and the
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Mila Freire, Bruce Ferguson, Ricardo Lima, Dean Cira, and Christine Kessides
served as guest editors, and Peter Hall wrote an introductory article for this
special issue of GUD Magazine. Marc Weiss serves as the Executive Editor and
Nancy Sedmak-Weiss serves as the Managing Editor of Global Urban Development Magazine.
During 2008, GUD Magazine will publish two special issues: during August GUD will publish a special issue
on the theme of “Celebrating Our Urban Heritage” and in November GUD will
publish a special issue in partnership with Ashoka on
the theme of empowering grassroots private market-based social entrepreneurship
and supply chain initiatives for economic and community development,
environmental sustainability, affordable housing and public health in
developing country cities; (14) an
international conference on Metropolitan Economic Strategy for urban regions in
Asia, entitled “Investing in Asia’s Urban Future”, sponsored by the Asian
Development Bank with funding provided by the German Federal Ministry for
Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), held in Metro Manila, Philippines
during February 5-6, 2007. The conference was coordinated by GUD Board member Emiel Wegelin and GUD Advisory
Board member Michael Lindfield, with advice and
assistance from members of GUD’s Metropolitan Economic Strategy Committee; (15) producing a global, long-term
research strategy for the World Future Council, written by Marc Weiss; (16) the “Future Scan” project involved
interviewing key community leaders and working with major local institutions in
planning for the future of the City of Lewes and its surrounding area in Sussex
County, Delaware, located in the mid-Atlantic region of the US. “Future Scan” was funded by the Greater Lewes
Foundation, and GUD Secretary-Treasurer Nancy Sedmak-Weiss served as the
Project Director. A key focus of the work on this project is building support
for a very large offshore wind energy project to be built in the Atlantic Ocean
nearly 12 miles off the coast of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
This project will supply nearly 15 percent of the state’s electricity
and will drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help prevent global
warming; (17) GUD produced a research strategy for the newly formed World
Future Council located in Hamburg, Germany and London, U.K. Marc Weiss worked with GUD Board member
Bianca Jagger and GUD Advisory Board member Herbert Girardet
on this project; (18) funded by the
Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, this research project
identified, described, and analyzed national policies, initiatives, and
programs that are explicitly pro-metropolitan, promoting goals such as economic
competitiveness, environmental sustainability, and social equity. These types of public policies are now being
formulated and implemented in many countries throughout the world. Marc Weiss coordinated this research project
with the assistance of members of GUD’s Metropolitan Economic Strategy
Committee. (19) funded by the Mistra
Foundation (the Government of Sweden’s
Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research), this project identified the
key issues, challenges, institutional capacity, innovative policies, best practices,
and other major trends related to successfully improving the future of
Sustainable Urban Development throughout the world, including climate change
and many other vital environmental concerns.
Henrik Nolmark
served as the overall project coordinator, Marc Weiss and Nola-Kate Seymoar as the coordinators for the US and Canada,
Belinda Yuen as the coordinator for Asia, and Wendy Sarkissian
is the coordinator for Australia,
New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands.
Other members of GUD’s program committee on Facing the Environmental
Challenge also were involved in supporting this project on the global future of
sustainable urban development; (20) this
project was a spin-off from the Mistra Foundation research, and involved
working with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to organize a meeting on “The
Economic Benefits of Climate Action” held at Pocantico
Hills, NY during November 26-28, 2007.
This meeting brought together US leaders from state and local
government, economic development professionals, business executives,
environmental leaders, and scholars to discuss connecting actions to prevent
climate change and promote urban environmental sustainability directly to
strategies for generating economic prosperity and enhancing quality of life.
Marc Weiss helped organize this event together with Michael Northrop of the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Karl Ulrich of the University of Pennsylvania;
and (21) Marc Weiss wrote a GUD
report for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and
the Government of Wales, describing and analyzing Washington, DC’s successful
North of Massachusetts Avenue (‘NoMa’) sustainable
economic and community development initiative, including the innovative
public-private partnership financing and construction of the New York Avenue
Metrorail Station, which has generated thousands of new jobs and billions of
dollars in new investment and rising property values over the past decade. Marc Weiss helped coordinate this initiative,
during 1997-99 for the city government, and from 1999 to 2005 as Chairman of
the private sector New York Avenue Metro Station Corporation.
Three other projects are already
underway. The first is the 3-year Climate Prosperity Project supported by the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Environmental Defense Fund. This project is a direct outgrowth of the Pocantico Hills meeting on The Economic Benefits of Climate
Action. It will include publication in
October by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) of the Climate
Prosperity Guidebook, to be co-authored by Shari Garmise,
Phillip Singerman, and Marc Weiss. In addition, seven places will be launching
Climate Prosperity Strategies in 2008:
San Jose/Silicon Valley; Seattle/King County; Metropolitan Denver;
Minneapolis-St. Paul; Metropolitan St. Louis; Metropolitan Cleveland; and the
State of Maryland. Many more places will be launching Climate
Prosperity Strategies during 2009-10. Marc Weiss is
serving as the project coordinator, and several GUD staff members, including
Nancy Sedmak-Weiss, Richard Allan, Elizabeth Autumn, David Engel, Lin Hawkins,
Louise Rubacky, Ivy Simmons, and Jessica Star, are
working on this important project.
The
second project is an edited collection of articles on urban heritage to be
published in 2008 as a special issue of Global
Urban Development Magazine. This
project was initiated by the GUD program committee on Celebrating Our Urban
Heritage, and the four editors are the committee’s three Co-Chairs, Luigi Fusco
Girard, Donovan Rypkema, and Belinda Yuen, together
with Marc Weiss. Many members of GUD’s
committee on Celebrating Our Urban Heritage are contributing articles to this
state-of-the-art publication. Funding is provided by Heritage Strategies
International.
The third project is
an international conference on Best Practices and the UN Millennium Development
Goals, co-sponsored by the United Nations-Habitat Best Practices and Local
Leadership Program and the Dubai Municipality in the United
Arab Emirates, to be held in Dubai.
This global conference was preceded by an Expert Group Meeting at
UN-Habitat in Nairobi, Kenya during July 26-29, 2004, followed by two Dialogues
at the UN-Habitat World Urban Forum in Barcelona, Spain, September 13-17, 2004,
a BLP Steering Committee meeting in Dubai during January 29-31, 2005, and a BLP
Steering Committee meeting and International Conference on the Transfer of Best
Practices held in Medellin, Colombia on November 28-30, 2006. These meetings focused on the next stage of
the UN-Habitat Dubai Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living
Environment. Marc Weiss, GUD Chairman,
helped to plan these meetings together with Wandia Seaforth, Acting Chief of the UN-Habitat Best Practices and
Policies Section, and Nicholas You, Special Advisor for Strategic Planning to
the Executive Director of UN-Habitat.
Both Wandia Seaforth
and Nicholas You are members of Global Urban Development’s Board of
Directors. Global Urban Development is
an official partner of the UN-Habitat Best Practices and Local Leadership
Program (BLP), and Marc Weiss co-chairs the Working Group on Good Urban
Policies and Enabling Legislation for the UN-Habitat BLP Steering Committee.
Projects that are
currently under development include: (1) the Community Productivity
Project for urban low-income communities in the developing and the developed
world. Global Urban Development is partnering with Shack/Slum Dwellers
International (SDI), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the
United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat), to do the project in Cape Town, South Africa;
Mumbai (Bombay), India;
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil;
and London, U.K. The CPP is part of the
implementation and monitoring of the UN Millennium Development Goals (an
overview of the CPP is available on our website); (2) a Ph.D. program in Global Urban Development, in conjunction
with several major universities around the world; (3) Urban Heritage as
an Economic Asset, another worldwide project in formation with the Swedish
International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA); (4) a global project on “Sustainable Cities Plus” led by the
International Center for Sustainable Cities and funded by the Government of
Canada; (5) Global Urban Development Perspectives will be an ongoing series of
brief articles on key issues written by members of our global network, and
distributed via email by United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and
Metropolis to thousands of local elected officials throughout the world. In developing GUD projects, we are working
with a wide variety of partners, including the United Nations, World Bank,
Asian Development Bank, Shack/Slum Dwellers International, Clinton Global
Initiative, International Housing Coalition (GUD is an IHC Member), Metropolis
(GUD is an Associate Member of Metropolis and Marc Weiss serves on the Metropolis
Commission on Financing Urban Services and Infrastructure), United Cities and
Local Governments (UCLG), ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, and
numerous other organizations.
Descriptions of the various Global Urban Development projects are available
on our website.
We currently have
seven offices. In Barcelona,
there is Miguel Sodupe, Senior Fellow. In Beijing, there is Jiang Mingjun, Honorary President; Shan Fengping,
Senior Fellow; and Sun Younian, Senior Fellow. In
London, there is Margaret Caust, Senior Fellow. In Prague, there is Ludek Sykora, Senior Fellow; and
Eva Dneboska, Fellow. In Singapore there is Belinda Yuen,
Senior Fellow; and Kwok Leong Kong, Fellow. In Sydney, there is Edward Blakely, Senior
Fellow. In Washington, DC, there is Marc Weiss, Chairman and CEO; Nancy
Sedmak-Weiss, Secretary-Treasurer; Richard Allan, Senior Fellow; Elizabeth
Autumn, Senior Fellow; David Engel, Senior Fellow; Lin Hawkins, Senior Fellow;
Pamela Hollie, Senior Fellow; Louise Rubacky, Senior Fellow; Ivy Simmons, Fellow; Jessica Star,
Fellow; and Martin Tull, Fellow. In Barcelona
we share offices with Metropolis at 15
Avinyo Street in the
center of the city, the same building as the world headquarters of the United Cities
and Local Governments (UCLG). In Beijing we are located at Villa 18 in the Beautiful Asian
Garden, 8 Xinglongxijie
Street, Taipingzhuang, in the Chaoyang District. In London
we are located at the Young Foundation, 18 Victoria Park Square, E2, near the Bethnal Green underground station on the Central Line. In Prague we
are located in the Faculty of Science at Charles University,
Albertov 6, Praha 2. In Singapore we are located at 32 Springleaf
Crescent.
In Sydney we are located in the Faculty
of Architecture, Wilkinson Building, at the Camperdown
Campus of the University
of Sydney. In Washington
we share offices with New Economy Strategies at 1250 24th Street, N.W., Suite 300,
conveniently located near the World Bank and Cities Alliance headquarters.
At the Prague office, we
organized a seminar series on global urban development issues. Senior Fellow Ludek
Sykora worked with Marc Weiss on this project, which
involved many members of the Global Urban Development Board of Directors,
Advisory Board, and staff. At the first
seminar, held on May 30, 2003, Dr. Emiel Wegelin, Global Urban Development Vice Chairman and
Director of UrbAct in Rotterdam, Netherlands, spoke
about a major project he is working on to provide good and stable housing for
thousands of refugees in the recently war-torn countries of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro.
At the seminar on October 3, 2003, John McIlwain
discussed “A Global Perspective on Urban Housing Policy.” The following week, on October 9, 2003, Peter
Calthorpe gave a public lecture on “A Global
Perspective on the New Urbanism.” On November 28, 2003, Cornelia Poczka gave a seminar on "The Unification of
Post-Communist Berlin: Strategic Urban Development, Community Planning, and
Citizen Participation." On March 24, 2004, William Stafford presented a
seminar on "A Global Mutual Learning Network for Urban Regions." On
July 22, 2004, Mary del Carmen Diaz Amador presented a seminar on “Microfinance
and Microenterprise in Mexico.”
On September 29, 2004, Margaret Caust presented a
seminar on “Creating the City of Ideas in Adelaide, Australia.”
On September 30, 2004, Arthur Alderson presented a seminar on “The Impacts of
Globalization on the World City System in the 21st Century.” On
October 12, 2004, Christopher Leinberger presented a
seminar on “Back to the Future: Progressive Development Returns to America and the Lessons for Europe.”
Peter Calthorpe and Margaret Caust
are members of Global Urban Development’s Board of Directors. Arthur Alderson,
Mary del Carmen Diaz Amador, Christopher Leinberger,
John McIlwain, Cornelia Poczka,
and William Stafford are members of the Global Urban Development Advisory
Board. All of the lectures and seminars were followed by a reception.
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