Better Access to Urban Opportunities

A major new Coalition for Urban Transitions guide offers specific recommendations for COVID-19 recovery, climate emergency response, and poverty reduction through policies that make cities more accessible, sustainable, and inclusive.

1 minute read

December 28, 2021, 9:00 AM PST

By Todd Litman


Chicago ADA Access

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The cover of the "Better Access to Urban Opportunities: Accessibility policy for cities in the 2020s" report shows the title over a background of a walkable, green urban environment."The pandemic has created opportunities to rethink urban spaces and improve people’s ability to move around cities and thrive. As places to connect people with opportunities, resources, goods, and services, cities can be used to define the pathway to a successful recovery and move away from business-as-usual urban development. National governments have a window of opportunity to put an inclusive, compact, connected, and clean urban vision into national recovery strategies and make cities more resilient to future shocks."

 

"This new report by researchers at LSE Cities and the OECD and produced for the Coalition for Urban Transitions, analyses COVID-19 recovery spending across nine countries – China, Colombia, Germany, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States – and makes recommendations to national governments to boost recovery and accelerate progress towards low-carbon, accessible and inclusive cities."

The paper sets out six priorities for national governments:

  1. Realign national transport policies and budgets
  2. Reform housing and land use policy
  3. Support the trend towards hyper-localisation and the 15-minute neighbourhood
  4. Facilitate the growth of new urban mobility options and last-mile connectivity
  5. Encourage cities to reallocate road space and engage in tactical urbanism
  6. Provide new finance for metropolitan-wide transport systems.
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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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