As the digital revolution enables initiatives like smart cities and e-governance, safeguarding methods of democratic influence is a core strategic mandate for city governments wishing to politically legitimize technology. Pursuant to this issue, civic tech…
Residents of urban and rural areas must be equally invested in systemic reform and sustainability. Influential thinkers in academia and practice should welcome a discussion about how to flatten the global urban hierarchy and mobilise…
China’s rise in AI and other technologies will have global economic, social, and diplomatic implications that will resonate for decades. The U.S. and other Western nations must strengthen their ambition to remain competitive. https://thediplomat.com/2018/07/chinas-artificial-intelligence-revolution-a-sputnik-moment-for-the-west/ “China’s…
China’s cities are at the precipice of an economic boom, should they identify how their unique traits catalyze innovation. The outdated approach of blunt-instrument government intervention stifles the flexibility and serendipity that stimulates innovation. Infrastructure…
As the United States and the European Union retreat from their foreign-aid commitments, only one country has the resources and the interest to assume the mantle of global development leadership. The world will have to…
Natural disasters are having increasingly disruptive effects on social, environmental and economic systems. Wildfires, floods and similarly recurrent challenges have relatively clear policy interventions. By contrast, earthquakes are largely unpredictable, and there is no certain…
ASEAN’s 21st century call-to-action should be the pursuit of higher development standards and their normalisation across rural and urban areas – on issues like personal security, health, education, housing, and basic services. A robustly financed commitment…
With deepening links between technology and urban management, the means to innovate, scale-up, and implement “smart city” initiatives reside primarily with governments and corporations. The individual citizen is outside the conversation, as in the bygone…
For Trump, business and politics are a universe of “winners” and “losers,” “weak” and “tough.” According to this market-based worldview, players have only themselves to blame for losing; competition rewards the tough and punishes the…
When costs to the environment and public health are found to outweigh the benefits of growth, will governments embrace smarter infrastructure or ignore environmental and social welfare? So far, economic expediency continues to drive the…
