Secondary Cities, Primary Opportunities – A Podcast By Urban C:lab
Secondary Cities, Primary Opportunities - A Podcast By Urban C:lab
Podcast Description
This limited 5 episode podcast series delves into the often-overlooked yet crucial role of secondary cities in global economic development.
Despite housing the majority of the world’s population and generating a significant portion of global GDP, these cities face unique challenges such as population decline, lack of investment and inadequate infrastructure. Our series aims to shed light on these issues and explore innovative solutions to help secondary cities thrive.
We spoke to a diverse range of experts from around the world, from urban development practitioners and architects to academic researchers and humanitarian aid workers. Each episode features their insights, offering a comprehensive look at the multifaceted challenges and opportunities these cities encounter. Join us as we investigate how secondary cities can navigate demographic, economic and environmental hurdles to achieve sustainable growth and improved quality of life.
This podcast series is part of Urban C:lab, Buro Happold’s space for exploring big questions and emerging challenges in the built environment. C:lab brings together people from across the practice to think differently, work across disciplines, challenge ideas and explore topics that don’t always get the attention they deserve. It’s deliberately collaborative, open-ended and focused on action as much as ideas.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast covers themes such as climate resilience, migration, cultural regeneration, and urban shrinkage, providing insights on topics like adaptation measures for secondary cities in Sub-Saharan Africa, the complexities of migration narratives, cultural initiatives for urban revitalization, and innovative strategies for managing population decline, with discussions rooted in real-world examples and expert insights.
This limited 5 episode podcast series delves into the often-overlooked yet crucial role of secondary cities in global economic development.
Despite housing the majority of the world’s population and generating a significant portion of global GDP, these cities face unique challenges such as population decline, lack of investment and inadequate infrastructure. Our series aims to shed light on these issues and explore innovative solutions to help secondary cities thrive.
We spoke to a diverse range of experts from around the world, from urban development practitioners and architects to academic researchers and humanitarian aid workers. Each episode features their insights, offering a comprehensive look at the multifaceted challenges and opportunities these cities encounter. Join us as we investigate how secondary cities can navigate demographic, economic and environmental hurdles to achieve sustainable growth and improved quality of life.
This podcast series is part of Urban C:lab, Buro Happold’s space for exploring big questions and emerging challenges in the built environment. C:lab brings together people from across the practice to think differently, work across disciplines, challenge ideas and explore topics that don’t always get the attention they deserve. It’s deliberately collaborative, open-ended and focused on action as much as ideas.
This episode discusses the challenges and opportunities of implementing climate resilience and adaptation measures in secondary cities. These cities often operate under limited resources and with financial constraints.
The focus of the episode is on Sub-Saharan Africa and India. Cities in the region are fast growing and face severe consequences resulting from climate change and extreme weather events. Many of these climate-related risks are even more acute in secondary cities, which are often overlooked on the national and global scale. Here poor planning and underinvestment intersect with lower incomes to reduce resilience.
In the episode we explore how secondary cities can balance the need for rapid climate action with the need to ensure social equity and economic development in their policy implementation. We also explore the importance of city-to-city partnerships and the opportunities arising from programmes such the Global Covenant of Mayors which support capacity building in secondary cities, especially in terms of access to climate finance and infrastructure development.
Please note, the views expressed by the guests in this podcast are personal only.
Disclaimer
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