Urban Planning for City Leaders - Cities Alliance

Urban planning for city leadersGHG Greenhouse gas: According to theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,greenhouse gases are those gaseousconstituents of the atmosphere, both naturaland anthropogenic (produced by humanactivities), that absorb and emit radiation atspecific wavelengths within the spectrum ofinfrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface,the atmosphere and clouds. This propertycauses the greenhouse effect. Water vapour(H 2O), carbon dioxide (CO 2), nitrous oxide (N 2O),methane (CH 4) and ozone (O 3) are the primarygreenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution,the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to theincrease in carbon dioxide.Impact investing is based on the practiceof assessing not only the financial returnon investment, but also the social andenvironmental impacts of the investment thathappen in the course of the operations of thebusiness.Informal settlements and slums: The termsare frequently interchangeable. A slum is asettlement made up of households that lackone or more of the following five conditions:access to potable water, access to hygienicsanitation facilities, sufficient living area perperson (not more than three people sharing thesame room), structural quality and durabilityof dwellings and security of tenure. The term“slum” originates from affordable housingschemes that were planned and built to specificstandards but which, over time, have becomephysically deteriorated, overcrowded andinhabited by lowest income groups only. 1There is no single definition of the term“informal settlement”. It generally refers tounplanned squatter areas that lack street gridsand basic infrastructure, with precarious shackserected on unsanctioned subdivisions of landor without the consent of the land owner. Aninformal settlement may be referred to as ashanty or squatter settlement. 2Infrastructure costs:• Capital costs are the initial total costsassociated with installing an infrastructureasset.• Operating costs are associated withmaintaining and repairing an asset.• Replacement costs are the costs of entirelyreplacing an asset at the end of its usefullife.Modernist urban planning: A planningapproach prevalent in the decades after theSecond World War and characterized bysingle-use zoning and low density suburbandevelopment that relied on inexpensivefossil energy, cars and public investment ininfrastructure.4