Karl Dickinson

Sustainable urban mobility is about so much more than halting climate change. Cities are rife with societal and economic challenges; finding better ways to move offers chances to level the playing field. We spoke to a former Young Leader and expert in the field, Jamie Wylie, about the practical...

With so many properties failing to meet contemporary energy efficiency standards, much needs to be done to save occupants from needless discomfort and expense. There are plenty of mainstream retrofit concepts, but what about something different? CityChangers.org takes a sideways look at how you can innovate retrofitting to heat,...

Vancouver has undergone a blue-green infrastructure revolution. Its Rain City Strategy integrated nature making the city more resilient to fluctuations in rainfall. Behind it all is Melina Scholefield, a CityChanger with an impressive portfolio and knack for getting things done! She tells us all about Van City’s multidisciplinary approach...

CityChangers.org has introduced this series of editorials as a chance for our writing team and guests to air personal opinions on the problems, solutions, and lived experiences in our urban spaces. In this first piece, we suggest that it’s important to hear and respond to contradictory voices and invite...

While people go hungry, there’s no justification for food waste – itself a massive contributor to destructive climate change emissions. What began as a one-woman mission to redistribute unwanted food has become a global phenomenon. We speak to Ronni Kahn AO, CEO of OzHarvest, about how sometimes we can...

Few firms have the level of recognition that Arup enjoys. This has given Vincent Lee the chance to work on an impressive array of projects since joining the New York office in 2006. He shares what he has learnt from using green infrastructure in urban water management projects around...

Public participation matters. It brings democracy and diverse perspectives to city design. But it can be difficult to get right. Smart technology hands us new opportunities for engagement. Today we learn about one of the pioneering tools in this field – Maptionnaire – and get pointers from the experts...

Day Zero: the moment a city’s water dries up completely. For Cape Town, this deadly scenario came too close, but it was averted thanks to collective action and decisive leadership. This story serves as a get-started guide to conservation for any city wishing to turn the tides on water...

São Paulo is a tale of two cities. A broken relationship with water has created a litany of challenges, which hit the sprawling favelas harder than the wealthy centre. The Secretary of Urbanism is showing how intelligent and integrated plans for water-sensitive cities can shift inequities in water supply,...

What water is available to cities is unevenly distributed and increasingly stressed due to population growth. Human activity backed by poor policy safeguards increases volumes of wastewater, reduces that of potable quality, and triggers erratic drought-and-flood conditions by way of climate change. Effective urban water management is only possible...

Indianapolis saw an opportunity. They had plans for a cultural trail, bringing arts, pride, and improved mobility options to the downtown area. This also handed the city a chance to deal with the amount and quality of stormwater returning to nature. The solution was bioswales. Indianapolis Cultural Trail Kären Sullivan Haley...

Matt Stewart enjoys nothing more than taking a plunge. A native Aussie, he’s the outdoors type and in 2015 began a campaign to make Melbourne’s Yarra River swimmable again. We caught up with this former Young Leader, who told us that appealing to the humans behind complex city structures...

Concerned with how to kick off a better water culture in your city? Whether your region is blighted by too much or too little, our guides are packed full of ideas to get you started. And the best part is, everyone can do something, from children to municipal decision-makers...

With water flowing in from beyond the city boundaries, how can we realistically keep it in check? The International Water Association’s 17 principles for water-wise cities may hold the answer. In this article, we take you through the basics of urban water resilience and management. It’s an ideal starting...

Water touches on almost every aspect of our lives and cities. Initially, it appears to be a large and unwieldy beast. Maybe to create sustainable urban systems, we need to break down the components: consumption, sanitation, pollution, waste, biodiversity, runoff, scarcity and stress, flooding, power generation, leisure, cooling, etc....

Water impacts on everything we do, so the problems that mount from handling it poorly are many and varied. To help contextualise the importance of H20 to populous places, we bring you some of the choicest water facts and stats about its many uses and the challenges that accrue...

The more we build, the more we disrupt natural water systems, calling into question whether we’ll have enough to sustain growing city populations. Prioritising water management and blue infrastructure will enable urban environments to prosper in the face of unpredictable weather conditions. We take a sweeping look at how...

Being heard makes us feel valued and identifies priorities for change, but municipalities struggle to do it well. CityChanger and creative Sophie Mirpourian tells us how her idea to use a portable townhall - the Tiny Rathaus - opened a productive dialogue between administration and citizens, and why sometimes...