Following my recent post about the largest cities in the world (from 100 to 2015 CE), a number of you rightly pointed out that the data looked questionable. Where, for example, is Shanghai in this latest list of largest cities? So I think it’s important… Read More
All posts tagged “united nations”
The world’s cities by 2030
This UN report (2018) on urbanization trends is a fascinating way to understand how our world is growing and changing. So today’s post is about some of my takeaways. If you have others, feel free to add them to the comment section below. But first,… Read More
Canada delimits its continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean
Last week the Government of Canada filed a 2,100-page submission with the United Nation’s Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. Under UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCOLS), states with coastal territory have the exclusive rights to about 370 kilometers beyond… Read More
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite index that ranks countries based on four key indicators (3 dimensions): Life expectancy in years (health) Expected years of schooling (education) Mean years of schooling (education) Gross national income per capita (standard of living) Equal weighting (1/3)… Read More
The challenges of the metropolis beyond Habitat III
This morning I woke up to an email from the Urban Ecology Agency of Barcelona. They are a public consortium dedicated to urban sustainability and made up of the City Council of Barcelona, the Municipal Council and Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, and the Barcelona Provincial… Read More
Current state of renewable energy
The United Nations and Bloomberg New Energy Finance recently published a report covering global trends in the renewable energy space for 2017. Here are some of their key findings: – 2016 was a record year in terms of renewable power capacity installed worldwide. This includes… Read More
Mapping of global migration
Max Galka has created an incredible visualization of country-to-country net migration (from 2010 to 2015) on his blog, Metrocosm. Here’s a screenshot: But you really need to view the full screen interactive version. In that version, you can hover over a country to see the… Read More
The world in 2050
The United Nations recently released its 2015 version of World Population Prospects. It looks as if they put out and revise this report every 5 years. The Economist then took some of their data and assembled it into the following charts: It’s obviously extremely difficult… Read More
The top 10 mega-cities by 2030
One of the reasons I’m so fascinated by cities is that it’s becoming increasingly more important to get them right. From about 1831 to 1925, London was the largest city in the world. Its population went from somewhere around 1.5 to 2 million people to… Read More