While Germany’s death rate exceeds its birth rate, its population continues to grow because of net migration. Pyramids in which the proportions of the population are fairly evenly distributed among all age groups are representative of many highly industrialized societies. Germany’s old population reflects an extended period of low birth and death rates. While fewer children have been born, most of those born survive through to old age. Public transport is a major issue, which makes accessibility of functions, interactions, commuting and thus urban life easier. As the size of the agglomeration increases the risk on congestion, high quality public transport services are the more important, the larger the urban agglomerations are.

The Great Transformation towards a sustainable society requires a cross-generational orientation framework to ensure harmonious coexistence among nearly 9 billion people. The WBGU speaks in this context of a ‘new global social contract for a low-carbon and sustainable global economic system’. In such an imagined agreement, individuals and civil-society groups, governments and the international community, businesses and academia pledge to jointly take on responsibility for the transition to a sustainable economic and social order. Against this background it is possible to define the idea of a global social contract more precisely, and to formulate it in detail as a ‘social contract for the urban transformation’. The social contract itself would be virtual in the sense of a societal agreement on the urban transformation. However, it should be mirrored worldwide and at different levels of governance in the form of fully formulated charters.

It is ultimately self-defeating for a company or country to create “captive” suppliers who are totally dependent on the domestic industry and prevented from serving foreign competitors. By the same token, a nation need not be competitive in all supplier industries for its companies to gain competitive advantage. Companies can readily source from abroad materials, components, or technologies without a major effect on innovation or performance of the industry’s products.

For example, country capitals such as Beijing, London, Mexico City, Moscow, Nairobi, New Delhi, Paris, Rome, Athens, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C. Some historic capitals, such as Kyoto and Xi’an, maintain their reflection of cultural identity even without modern capital status. Religious holy sites offer another example of capital status within a religion, Jerusalem, Mecca, Varanasi, Ayodhya, Haridwar ff mobius job rankings and Allahabad each hold significance. The European Territorial Cooperation Program is currently gathering and mapping all responses to the pandemic in European cities404. Several National URBACT Points are actively engaging their cities in gathering more information about this topic and feeding this page. Measures pertaining to supporting local businesses is a notable concern for cities in most OECD Member States.

The transport authority has also banned entering or exiting through the front doors that are closest to the driver. The city created a public hot line to attend questions related to COVID-19 and created a solution for psychological support to citizens in partnership with the School of Health Sciences of University of Minho. The municipality supported the University of Minho to the creation of a rear centre in the University Residence for people who are in nursery homes and similar facilities affected by cases of COVID-19. Vienna seeks to help young people who were one of those severely affected by the corona crisis. It invests EUR 17 million to help out the more than 16,000 young people currently without a job.

Two examples are the Wenchuan and Qingchuan districts of Sichuan Province, severely damaged by the 2008 earthquake, which are now in the reconstruction process. Japan is also actively developing sustainable “eco” cities, of which a particularly interesting example is the Kitakyushu Eco-Town project . Like the Swedish examples, its development is a response to the decline in highly polluting heavy industry, which contaminated the local, land, sea and air in the 1960s. The target is to reverse this environmental damage by creating a sustainable community through a partnership of the government, commercial organisations and citizens. Furthermore, all Eco-Town companies must allow their facilities to be inspected by citizens in order to eliminate public distrust and anxiety concerning potential pollution. Inspiring from the above given successful examples, each city should develop its own strategic future vision for realizing the basic concepts, with the aim of maximizing an integrated total of environmental, social and economic values.

For the city government the investment in infrastructure and social housing is essential in the recovery strategy due to the multiplier effect and the indirect jobs in may create. The strategy also use resources to mobility projects that had already been announced before the crisis such as a new BRT line and two ‘cablebuses’ lines. In many parts of the world, cities are making sure people remain connected to basic services, such as water supply, even in situations where supply is not continuative for structural and contingent reasons. Many cities and utilities have agreed to suspend utility shutoffs for residents who are unable to afford their bills, as local leaders scramble to tackle the complex public health threats posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is especially important considering the main and most important preventative measure to combat the spread of the virus is handwashing and overall general hygiene. In Detroit , water services are to be temporarily restored to thousands of households previously disconnected due to unpaid bills amid a public health outcry273.

In industries like wool cloth, ceramic tiles, and lighting equipment, Italian industry associations invest in market information, process technology, and common infrastructure. Companies can also speed innovation by putting their headquarters and other key operations where there are concentrations of sophisticated buyers, important suppliers, or specialized factor-creating mechanisms, such as universities or laboratories. Either, followed to its logical outcome, would lead to the permanent erosion of a country’s competitive capabilities. On one hand, advocates of government help for industry frequently propose policies that would actually hurt companies in the long run and only create the demand for more helping. On the other hand, advocates of a diminished government presence ignore the legitimate role that government plays in shaping the context and institutional structure surrounding companies and in creating an environment that stimulates companies to gain competitive advantage. In the continuing debate over the competitiveness of nations, no topic engenders more argument or creates less understanding than the role of the government.

Moreover, reduction in demand is possibly due to loss of customer or buyer flow. These results imply that most of the MSMEs are vulnerable to financial, supply chain disruptions, and demand constraints aside from other issues. One indication of the relative weakness of the state is the size of the informal economy. While some may argue that this serves as an economic dynamism, it also means that the state has a difficult time taxing much of the economic activity and also fails to protect workers. The enforcement of contracts is also a problem, as confidence in the courts remains low.