World Bank blogs
Dan Hoornweg worked for the World Bank on city infrastructure development for over 20 years. In that time, he worked in hundreds of cities in dozens of countries. In his last several years at the bank, Dan shared his experience through a blog about urban resilience and adaptation, including on topics like climate change mitigation, waste management and sustainable infrastructure.
Read Dan’s blog posts for Ontario Tech University here.
Lorne Turner: Remembering a city worker who made a difference
September 9, 2015
People wandering through the labyrinth of booths of yet another UN urban conference in Nanjing (2008) or Rio de Janeiro (2010) may have stumbled across a friendly, unassuming man, looking somewhat out of place at the Global Cities Institute – Cities Alliance stand. These types of conferences were not the typical work venue for Lorne Turner, Toronto’s manager of city performance.
Peak Waste and Poverty – A Powerful Paradox
November 4, 2013
Urbanization is the most powerful force shaping the planet today. This can be good news as urbanization is the best bet we have to meet our global poverty reduction targets. Cities generate our wealth, our culture, and our innovation. This is also bad news since cities generate the lion’s share of the world’s GHG emissions, and cities are responsible for most of the planet’s current decline in biodiversity. Cities also generate solid waste; lots of it and the amount is growing fast.
What Does the Fox Say? Top Ten Ideas From City Fox
September 18, 2013
Chances are by now you’ve seen the video ‘What Does the Fox Say?’ The Ylvis brothers developed a catchy music video starting in Norway and spreading like a wild fire across the planet, jumping from city to city. In less than a week 15 million people watched the fox dance and try to make his case.
Many of us may think of the more urban mammals like a cow or two, raccoons, squirrels, rats, feral dogs and cats, but when it comes to cities, the fox has a lot to say. Here are a few of his likely comments on cities…
Why a City’s Not a Duck
August 27, 2013
Up north on the lake, every year near our cabin, we see a pair of nesting ducks. We call her Mrs. Merganser as she leads her 8 to 16 ducklings around the lake. There’s a Mr. Merganser too, but truth be told, he seems a bit of a slacker in the childcare department.
The ducks make an annual migration of a few thousand kilometers, splitting their time between the northern lake, southern retreat, and a couple months on the road. The birds are transient.
While pursuing ‘world class’ status or trying to attract the latest knowledge workers, a city might walk like a duck and quack like a duck. But a city is not a duck. A city is anchored — immobile.
The Old Man is Snoring
July 19, 2013
‘It’s raining, it’s pouring. The old man is snoring.’ Truth be told, I apparently snore, and I suppose I’m not that young anymore. But hard to believe, I’m sure this nursery rhyme is not about me. And despite the recent Noah-like floods in Europe, Bangkok, Calgary, Dhaka, Jakarta, New York and Toronto, it’s not really about any one city, or any one country, or even any one continent. But, ‘went to bed and bumped his head. And won’t get up in the morning,’ aptly describes our current political paralysis.
Why Running a City is Like Paddling a Canoe
June 18, 2013
Canadians are supposed to be good in a few things: skating, painting trees and rocks, welcoming newcomers, writing engaging stories that surely must have a meaning in there somewhere, and paddling a canoe. The canoe—a bit like the moose—holds an almost mythic place in the Canadian psyche. Anything and everything can be compared to canoeing. This metaphor is apt when applied to city administration.
Urban Careers and the Twenty Ninth Day
April 30, 2013
A helpful way for young math students to grasp the concept of exponential growth is to look at water lilies growing on a pond. They grow exponentially and double in area each day. If they will fully cover the pond by the 30th day, on what day is the lake half covered? The twenty-ninth day.
This year I had the honor of teaching 4th year energy systems students who will graduate later this month (their blogs on energy issues will be presented on this site over the summer). These graduates are particularly essential. During their careers they will be part of the world’s largest ever city-building spree. Their task will be to again double the world’s cities.
The Buzz of Cities
April 11, 2013
For bees, bigger hives are better. Last week researchers at the University of Arizona published their findings: bees of bigger hives have more information and forage better. With improved communications, bees from the bigger hives sent new foragers to known resources up to four hours earlier than bees from smaller hives. This better communications also seems to work in bigger cities.
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish*
Feburary 13, 2013
‘From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere!’
That one blue fish cost a million plus, that one blue fish and all the fuss.
In cities here and cities there, you’d think by now we’d be aware.
That we’d take some care for what is rare. But here’s another to make you stare:
Soup can come with a shark’s fin; yes, so strange a fin that’s mixed right in.
So much money is being spent, just how far can we go, and to what extent?
Hey Cities, Slow Down
February 6, 2013
‘Lord give me patience, but please hurry.’ Everyone working with cities has probably felt this sentiment. We see the new buildings, read the reports, and know that the hurly burley rush to urbanize across the world is picking up speed – we are about to repeat the amount of city-building we did in the last 200 years, but this time we will do it in just 40 years. Surely we have no time to slow down.
Controvery Continues to Hound Groundhog Day Celebrations
February 4, 2013
Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania: Saturday around 7:00 am, Punxsutawney Phil (PA, USA) emerged from his burrow, did not see his shadow and predicted an early end to winter. A few minutes later and a few hundred miles north, Wiarton Willie (ON, Canada) surfaced, didn’t see his (or is it her) shadow and also predicted an early spring.
Once again, like last year, immediately after the groundhogs issued their prognostications, the Houston and Calgary based ‘Committee for Climate Certainty’ rebutted the groundhogs’ findings, claiming the science was uncertain.
Snakes and Dragons in the Year of the Mayor
January 18, 2013
First the good news: Earlier this month, Mayor Iñaki Azkuna of Bilbao, Spain was awarded the prestigious World Mayor Prize for 2012. Mayor Azkuna was in good company. Other finalists included the mayors of: Perth, Australia; Surakarta, Indonesia; El Paso, USA; Changwon City, Korea; Auckland, NZ; Angeles City, Philippines; Zeralda, Algeria; Matamoras, Mexico; and somewhat surprisingly, Mayor Regis Lebeaume of Quebec City, Canada.
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave
January 7, 2013
As of January 1st, I’m officially ‘retired’ from the World Bank. This is a dozen years before I had to retire, but I wanted to move back to Ontario for love and opportunity. However, I’ve already come to the conclusion that if you care about sustainable development and cities, you can never fully leave the World Bank.
Cities: The Gift that Keeps on Giving
January 2, 2013
Jesus and Muhammad traveled to the wilderness to develop their teachings. Even Gautama Buddha is said to have sat quietly beneath the rural Bohdi tree while he waited for enlightenment. But once they knew what needed to be said, all three men travelled to the closest city to convey the message.
Cities Now on the Third Wave
December 17, 2012
Cities grew at a modest pace until about 1800 when the Industrial Revolution took off in the UK and cities developed at staggering rates. Manchester, for example experienced a six-fold population increase from 1771 to 1831. London went from about one-fifth of Britain’s population at the start of the 19th Century to about half the country’s population in 1851. This rate of urbanization has not let up for the last two hundred years; in fact it is still accelerating. The growth of cities seen over the last two hundred years will now be repeated, but this time in just forty years.
Blog post archive
2012
Why a City’s Not a Country
November 28, 2012
Cities and Their Underwear
November 21, 2012
The Utility of Cities
November 12, 2012
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
October 18, 2012
Boys and Their Toys – Building Better Cities
October 10, 2012
A Crystal Clear Business Case for Cities
October 2, 2012
The End of Men: And the Peril of Cities
September 24, 2012
Our Cities Will Define Our Future
September 14, 2012
Cities and International Negotiations
September 10, 2012
Three Wise Women Designed the Perfect City
August 24, 2012
Summerlicious and the Resilience of Cities
July 25, 2012
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – Call Me Maybe
July 23, 2012
A New York Minute
July 11, 2012
Social Tectonics and the Trust of Cities
July 3, 2012
Rio+20 and Its Shade of Grey
June 25, 2012
Cities Act as Talks Go On
June 20, 2012
What a waste in a changing climate
June 12, 2012
What a Waste: Time to Pick It Up
June 5, 2012
Mining the City: A Proposal to Move the World
May 31, 2012
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Cities
May 24, 2012
Earth Day: Bah Humbug
April 20, 2012
Top Ten New Urban Jobs
April 9, 2012
A Top Ten of New Urban Business
April 4, 2012
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
March 29, 2012
Washington’s Cherry Blossoms: The Gift that Keeps Giving
March 26, 2012
A Tale of Too Many Cities: Happy Birthday Charles Dickens
March 15, 2012
Urbanization: The Half-Time Score
February 27, 2012
Love and the City: Happy Valentine’s Day
February 14, 2012
My Father’s Ford – A Model for New Cities
February 9, 2012
Big Mac Dan and the Conversation of Cities
January 18, 2012
2011
Amsterdam Smart City
December 24, 2011
d’Urban: Cities leading at COP17
December 12, 2011
Smart Cities for Dummies
November 30, 2011
Cities and the Human Spirit
November 3, 2011
A League of Their Own: Cities Working Together for a Better World
September 22, 2011
Engineering Civility: A Lesson in Civics
August 10, 2011
A tale of three men and 40 cities
June 2, 2011
Masdar: Mirage and Green-City
April 28, 2011
Cities get the call in Cancun
January 18, 2011
2010
African cities: Moving beyond concern
November 12, 2010
Contact: Jacquie Hoornweg
TORONTO
Querencia Partners respectfully acknowledges that we are on the traditional territory of the Anishnabeg, the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Wendat peoples, the Chippewa, as well as the new homes of many additional Indigenous Peoples from across Turtle Island.
PARRY SOUND
In Parry Sound, Querencia Partners resides on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabek (Ojibwe, Pottowattami, and Odawa). Mohawk people from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy also reside in the area. Parry Sound area is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples. We are fortunate to be located near the Wasauksing First Nation community and benefit from their cultural contributions to our community.
At Querencia Partners, we are committed to reconciliation and reaffirm our commitment to our relationship with these communities and deepening our understanding of Indigenous cultures.