April 30, 2022
AnalysisThe Whole Field
Markets, planning, and coordinating the green transformation
In recent years, an intense debate has unfolded over the policy and politics of the green transition. Politically, the tide appears to be receding: As the Biden agenda has lost momentum and rising inflation moves center stage, the near-term prospects…
March 23, 2022
AnalysisA New Public Housing Model
Addis Ababa's Urban Transformation
In 2006, the government of Ethiopia embarked on a mission to construct half a million condominium apartments over a twenty-year period in its capital of Addis Ababa—a city of only five million. Now, sixteen years later, the initiative has transformed the…
March 19, 2022
Sources In December 1973, Richard Nixon announced the Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act as a response to the oil crisis, arguing that making the time change permanent would reduce energy usage with "only a minimum of inconvenience." Nearly fifty years…
March 12, 2022
Sources Among the cities experiencing pronounced ripple effects from the Russian sanctions is London, whose financial institutions and luxury property market have long attracted Russian investment.
January 22, 2022
Sources Earlier this month, a wave of protests spread across Kazakhstan. Though prompted by rising gas prices, the demonstrations soon came to target the country's decades long trajectory of corruption and resource privatization. A 2001 article by ERIKA WEINTHAL and PAULINE JONES LUONG…
December 18, 2021
AnalysisHomeownership & the Student Debt Crisis
Rising student debt burdens in the past decade have contributed to a decline in homeownership for young adults.
The benefits of owning a home in the United States cannot be overstated. The housing market in the United States both reflects and causes widening cleavages in American society; owning a home is a functional prerequisite for financial security. The…
November 12, 2021
AnalysisGrowth Towns
The Evergrande crisis, “common prosperity,” and the transformation of the Chinese growth model
The ongoing crisis for Chinese property developer Evergrande has made the giant company the focal point of global concern. Creditors, investors, contractors, customers, and employees of Evergrande within and outside China have watched anxiously to see whether the Chinese government would…
November 2, 2021
AnalysisThe Diverging Gap
The history of the global infrastructure gap
On June 11, leaders at the G7 summit signed the Build Back Better World (B3W) Partnership, an agreement which commits signatories to meet the infrastructure needs of low- and middle-income countries. The deal is an explicit response to China’s Belt…
August 21, 2021
Sources Observers in the past decades have commented on increased urbanization in India, which has led to new challenges for development, housing, and labor. But the majority of India's population, and thus electoral power, remains in rural regions.
June 19, 2021
Sources Earlier this week, global leaders at the G7 summit signed a "green belt and road initiative," which offers funds to low income countries for sustainable investment.
May 13, 2021
AnalysisInvestment and Decarbonization: Rating Green Finance
A proposal for a public ratings agency for green finance
The Biden administration has committed the United States to cutting its carbon emissions in half by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
May 4, 2021
Phenomenal WorksPhenomenal Works: Laleh Khalili
On Winona LaDuke and Deborah Cowen's argument for decolonizing infrastructure.
“What if infrastructure is designed, financed and adopted into the habits of everyday lives of its users in such a way that it is not a harbinger of apocalypse?” In a recent essay, Laleh Khalili notes a key dilemma of…
April 3, 2021
Sources Earlier this week, the blockage of the Suez Canal by the giant Ever Given container ship prompted renewed discussions on the weakness of our supply chain infrastructure, the future of globalization, and the region's colonial past.
February 13, 2021
Sources The proposed Covid-19 stimulus package in the US has reignited debate around inflation. Much contemporary concern and discussion on the topic still bears the mark of the 1970s, the Volcker disinflation, and the past consensus around the relationship between unemployment…
July 27, 2020
AnalysisEssential Infrastructures
The case for sovereign investment in telecommunications infrastructure
How should the fabric of social life, especially as it is rewoven by the pandemic, relate to the private ownership of telecommunications?
November 22, 2019
AnalysisDevelopment and Displacement
The effects of big development initiatives
Infrastructure lies at the heart of development. From transportation and telecommunication networks to electrical grids and water pipelines, large-scale infrastructure projects play a pivotal role in the global development landscape.