GLOBAL POLITICS: Financial Express (India): The 14th non-aligned movement (NAM) summit of 116 nations to meet in Havana this month will defend an action plan to guide its determination to transform the present world order. The work of the movement must be based on an action plan, as agreed at the 13th summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in February 2003, according to the draft. Read more... NAM Members NAM website

GLOBAL ECONOMY: Financial Express (India): The International Monetary Fund will give China and other emerging economies a larger voice to match their increasing size, in an effort to win greater acceptance of the fund’s recommendations on currencies and government finances. Greater freedom to emerging economies could augur well for India. South Korea, Mexico and Turkey also would get more voting power under a proposal approved by the fund’s executive board in Washington, managing director Rodrigo de Rato said. Read more...

Comment: Part of the Post-Cold-War reordering of the global economy and the rise of Asia as an economic and political powerhouse.

ENERGY: News.com.au: Adelaide would become Australia's first solar city with initiatives to save residents up to $200 a year on their power bills, Prime Minster John Howard said today. Mr Howard said the Federal Government would provide $15 million for the trial project which would involve installing solar panels and smart electricity metres in about 1700 homes in Adelaide's northern suburbs. Read more...

Comment: Nice to see such an environmentally aware move by a Government. Then again, most governments are aware that energy costs are becoming more expensive, and that further efforts to use carbon-based or nuclear fuels to expand generating capacity are a political quagmire. While the Green left may take credit for this move, it is more likely a result of hard economic realities as concern increases over our reliance on expensive oil from unreliable sources and the political and economic costs of using even more carbon-based fuels to meet our increasing need for electrical energy.

INFRASTRUCTURE: International Herald Tribune: The biggest question mark hanging over the rise of manufacturing in India lies in whether the country has enough roads, ports and power plants to move huge quantities of goods and to power the factories that manufacture them. Read more...

Comment: India seems to be addressing some of its more pressing urban problems at the national level rather effectively. Implementation will tell. It seems likely in this context that a significant national effort to boost its inter-city infrastructure will be dealt with in the same way.

CLIMATE CHANGE: The Australian: The world's top climate scientists have cut their worst-case forecast for global warming over the next 100 years. A draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained exclusively by The Weekend Australian, offers a more certain projection of climate change than the body's forecasts five years ago. Read more...

Comment: This assertion is based on an average of climate models developed in recent years. I would like to know what “normal” climatic changes are happening around us, as part of the planet's normal pattern of climatic change, and I would like to know where the tipping point is. Still little research on these essential parts of the climatic equation, that does not appear to be addressed by any of these models.

Dubai, UAE

Comment: Nice to see local consultants being sought for a dynamic growth area. The South Australian planning system works very well, by international standards, and provides a solid and robust foundation to guide urban growth, even in extreme cases. However the SA system is supported by decades of strategic planning and innovative thinking on the future of the Adelaide. Planners in the UAE would be wise to keep this in mind, and underpin Adelaide's lessons with rigorous thinking on what they need to achieve, how they want to achieve it, and what they are prepared to sacrifice/forego to create a working city through coming decades.

URBANIZATION: Al Jazeera: Thousands of Polish workers at the ailing Gdansk shipyard,  where the Solidarity movement was formed that brought down communism, have pinned their hopes on a government plan aimed at saving their workplace. Read more...

Comment: More signs of trying times as the Second World adjusts to a market economy, a long and difficult process. Also an indicator of some of the difficult times facing the EU as it integrates with these former communist countries into an economic alliance capable of standing against Asia and North America.

Shocking the Suburbs

Jago Dodson and Neil Sipe, Griffith University

Download the Report here: Shocking the Suburbs: Urban Location, Housing Debt and Oil Vulnerability in the Australian City

One of the most publicly discussed economic phenomena since early 2005 has been the dramatic rise in the global price of oil. The rising global oil price has been translated into rising domestic fuel costs. Given the heavy dependence of Australian cities on cheap fuel for urban transport the increasing oil price raises questions about their economic impact on urban households. In a previous paper (Dodson and Sipe 2005) we examined the sociospatial distribution of ‘oil vulnerability’ in Australian cities. That paper received much attention from scholars, policy makers and the media. The earlier paper established a basic method for assessing oil vulnerability via a spatial index that measured a combination of car dependence and socio-economic status at the level of the Census Collection District. We termed our original index the ‘vulnerability index for petroleum expense rises’ (VIPER). A version of this paper is to be published in an international journal. Many questions still remain, however, about the impact of rising oil prices on cities.

The paper is structured in four parts. The first outlines recent oil price patterns and the way commentators and politicians have comprehended the current financial and economic environment. The next section examines underlying spatial patterns of vulnerability in the Australian city, in terms of the spatial distribution of income, mortgage tenure, car dependence and public transport services. Section Three introduces the VAMPIRE index, the methodology underlying the analysis and the results for Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. The final section contains the conclusions arising from the analysis and the policy implications for ongoing oil price and interest rate uncertainty.

Designing Sustainable Cities in the Developing World

Roger Zetter and Georgia Butina Watson

Can conservation of the built heritage be reconciled with the speed of urban change in cities of the developing world? What are the tools of sustainable design and how can communities participate in the design of the environments in which they live and work?

These are some of the questions explored within this innovative and richly illustrated book. A wealth of examples drawn from Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India and Myanmar demonstrate how rapid physical and social change has swept away historic urban quarters and the cultural heritage they represent.

Written in an accessible style the rich mix of concepts, research methods, analysis and practice-based tools is designed for academics and professionals alike. Leading academics Zetter and Watson have produced a fascinating book that is amongst the first to explore the concept of urban sustainability within the context of urban design in the developing world.

COMMUNITY BUILDING: Guardian Unlimited: When George Cadbury created the now famous Bournville village, a leafy suburb of Birmingham located close to the chocolate factory, he was a century ahead of his time. Built on a clear understanding of the enduring strength of community spirit combined with more than a little philanthropy, Bournville was probably one of the first sustainable communities ever created and remains a hugely popular location for home owners and tenants today. Read more...

Comment: Are today's communities based on the same factors as they were 100 years ago?