Over half the world’s population now lives in cities, with more and more people moving to them every day. Urbanization is not a new issue – a search on Worldchanging for “transportation” in the “cities” topic area alone returns 277 articles. Yet, despite all that has been written about urbanization, smart planning, and bright green technology, there’s still much more to be documented.

This is especially true when you get into the intersection of policy, technology, environmental science and urban planning. At least, until now. Yesterday, EMBARQ, World Resources Institute’s Center for Sustainable Transport, launched TheCityFix, a blog dedicated to exploring these overlapping issues. (Note: I work at WRI.)

EMBARQ is not a PR firm. It’s a robust, research-oriented organization with centers and partners around the world; it has worked and continues to work in places like Istanbul, Bangalore, Curitiba, Mexico City, Mumbai, Porto Alegre, Shanghai, and Pune. EMBARQ’s staff includes urban planners, transport engineers, policy experts, environmental scientists, geographers and sociologists. TheCityFix is this accomplished group’s effort to weigh in on the issues affecting our cities.

I am a big fan of TheCityFix – and that’s not just because I work with Ethan and Rhys, the brains behind the project. The site dovetails nicely with Worldchanging’s “cities” section, bringing additional resources and intellectual firepower to the urgent topic of urbanization.

Some of the more interesting posts I’ve read are about two wheelers in Vietnam (there’s an amazing video!), the hidden cost of cars, questions about the role of technology in reducing global warming, and asthma in New York City.

I was just at the site today and noticed that Robin Chase, founder and former CEO of Zip Car, has just joined the blog as its newest contributor.

But don’t just take my word for it, check it out for yourself!

THREE WORDS: TRANSIT LANE PRIORITY

If the bus or light rail will get there the fastest, nearly everyone will use it, will get more exercise, will be on time, and will leave the slightly smaller road capacity to those who really need it.

Posted by: Randy Chatterjee on December 20, 2007 11:33 AM

Please note that comments will remain open for only 14 days after the article is posted. While previous comments will remain visible, attempts to post new comments after this period will fail. This helps stop comment spam, so your forebearance is appreciated.

The Worldchanging comments are meant to be used for further exploration and evaluation of the ideas covered in our posts. Please note that, while constructive disagreement is fine, insults and abuse are not, and will result in the comment being deleted and a likely ban from commenting. We will also delete at will and without warning comments we believe are designed to disrupt a conversation rather than contribute to it. In short, we'll kill troll posts.

Finally, please note that comments which simply repost copyrighted works or commercial messages will be summarily deleted.