by Walther Ploos van Amstel
Space is the most contested resource in the modern city. Residential buildings, shops, cycling infrastructure, public green space. They all compete for the same finite stock of urban land. Logistics, which keeps it all functioning, has historically lost that competition and been pushed to the periphery. But a growing body of practice across European cities …
The rapid rise of e-commerce, on-demand services, and shared mobility has transformed public space into a critical logistics and mobility infrastructure. Curbs, sidewalks, and small urban plots—once peripheral in transport policy—are now contested sites for parcel lockers, micro- and mobility hubs, and charging stations. Policy debates and research increasingly frame the curb as a scarce …
Many cities around the world are missing out on significant development opportunities by ignoring, underutilizing, or mismanaging their public-space assets. Yet there is enormous potential to use these spaces more strategically and to unlock the hidden value they generate for communities, neighborhoods, and cities as a whole. The World Bank’s report, The Hidden Wealth of …