World Habitat Day 2022: Mind the Gap. Leave No One and No Place Behind.

  • World Habitat Day 2022 kickstarts #UrbanOctober on the 3rd of October.
  • This year’s theme is ‘Mind the Gap. Leave No One and No Place Behind.’
  • #WorldHabitatDay addresses growing inequality in human cities and settlements.
  • Habitat inequality is increasing due to COVID-19, conflict and climate.
  • Habitat and urban research are countering the impact of these triple ‘C’ crises.

The first Monday of every October is home to World Habitat Day 2022 and launches #UrbanOctober. This year, it’s on the 3rd of October and addresses rising rates of inequality in urban housing and human settlements. Growing human habitat inequality is driven by the triple ‘C’ crises of climate, conflict and COVID-19. United Nations, the event’s organisers, chose a theme to highlight the disparity of living conditions globally: ‘Mind the Gap. Leave No one and No Place Behind’.

Settle in to #WorldHabitatDay, and make yourself at home with a new approach to urban greenery planning and design sparked by COVID-19. Learn about how diversifying neighbourhoods is important for housing equality, read the development of conflict research, and a way of tackling the climate emergency through an innovative net-positive sustainable design tool.

Complex system thinking approach to urban greenery’s planning and design

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to review our habits, and many citizens have increased their use of urban green spaces. Indeed, not only do green spaces offer nature-based solutions to allow us to socialise in a distanced way, but they have also helped people to keep physically and mentally fit and provided solace in troubled times. But the value of the urban green system extends much further than this.

Diversifying your neighbourhood


Professor Florinel Radu, architect, urban planner and head of the TRANSFORM research institute seeks to reform the current methods used in urban planning. This research comprises a series of projects which have each contributed to the overall aim of developing a new model of neighbourhood planning to increase diversity in housing. Now that prototypes have been established, the model can be tested in different contexts around the world to reduce the segregation often caused by current planning techniques.

Conflict research in the UK: New approaches to a changing landscape

Recent scientific and technological advances have changed irrevocably the social, political and geographical space in which humans operate. Paradigm shifts in the causes, scales and structures of conflict are driving a need for new research. Professor David Galbreath of the University of Bath is coordinating ‘conflict’ research through the UK Research Councils’ Partnership of Conflict, Crime and Security (PaCCS) Programme. Projects are addressing the changing character of conflict, the experiences of communities, and conflict in the information age.

The STARfish app: New sustainable design tool to aid net-positive sustainability outcomes

2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the first UN Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development. Sustainability has since become the buzzword for our times. Yet, in the intervening years, the global population has increased by 50% – and biodiversity has decreased by 50%. Architect, lawyer, and urban planner Dr Janis Birkeland, from the University of Melbourne in Australia, argues it’s time for radical change. The originator of Positive Development Theory has now developed a new sustainable design tool, the STARfish app, to help create urban environments with net-positive sustainability gains.

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