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Posted: 27 October, 2009 • Category: Featured • Tags: • Comments(0)

The Biocity Studio is a research group dedicated to the development and free publication of open source urban sustainability resources. The Studio has created the URBAN GENOME PROJECT powered by a public wiki to capture the DNA of global cities and their parent nations. Wiki data can be entered by anyone and viewed via the data visualiser tool.

Wiki information is being progressively entered by the growing biocity global community and other research partners. Visitors to the site can create custom graphs to compare the environmental indicators of up to ten cities or nations against one another across twelve major urban systems. The ten highest and lowest performing cities can be displayed with a per capita option to normalise the data. The site also contains research and news on the design and development of low carbon Biocities.

Cities house around 50% of the world’s population and are responsible for nearly 80% of global green house emissions yet they only occupy about 2% of the world’s surface. With the converging challenges of oil depletion and global warming upon us cities need to move rapidly beyond outmoded fossil fuel based planning. By adopting new green infrastructure practices and embracing green technologies they can remain livable and competitive. Green cities that nurture their human and environmental capital will be best positioned to meet the challenges of the future. Biocity Studio promotes the idea that rapid global change in urban sustainability is best driven through informed collective local action. Read More

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