Pictures of the Future    Fall 2006

The Urban Millennium

According to a new report by UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Program, 2007 will mark the first time that more people will be living in cities than in rural areas. What’s more, the proportion is expected to rise by two-thirds by 2050, with most of the increased urbanization predicted for Africa, Asia and Latin America. One billion of the world’s urban dwellers already live in the dilapidated slum areas of cities such as Nairobi, Mumbai and Jakarta. In Mumbai, for example, 42 % of all families occupy no more than 10 m² of living space, and 95 % have no running water.

Many of the world’s megacities—in other words, cities with more than ten million inhabitants—are facing the same challenges: population explosion, widespread poverty, illegal housing, bad environmental conditions, and problems with their public health systems and administration. Those who are responsible for remedying these problems often lack the resources, expertise and cash to tackle the job. One of the major tasks of the 21st century will therefore be to control urban growth in a sustainable way, making it possible for business to flourish, environmental objectives to be met, and social deprivation to be reduced.

These are also the objectives of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were formulated in 2000 by a group of representatives from the UN, the World Bank, the OECD and other organizations. One of the MDG’s aims is to reduce by half the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, and likewise the proportion of those without access to drinking water. The latter objective will require connecting more than 100 million people to water supplies annually.

The Cities Alliance, a global urban coalition, has been involved with a range of programs since 1999, including slum-clearance schemes that help encourage planned growth and prevent the emergence of new slums. Benefiting from one such project are 600,000 inhabitants of the Colombian capital Bogotá. For example, the city has now extended its drinking-water supply by 78 hectares, thus connecting more than 5,000 additional households. Likewise, nearly 3,800 more households are now connected to the sewage system. In addition, numerous walkways, squares, schools, playgrounds, parks and civic centers have been built. In Bangladesh, too, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty—an income less than the equivalent of 1 US-$ a day—has fallen by 15 % since 1995, a period in which the economy has grown by 6 % annually. An important factor here has been the provision of small loans for private individuals and business owners, which has helped them to establish a secure livelihood.

At the same time, local communities are being given greater responsibility and opportunities to help shape urban development—a dialogue that must also involve slum-dwellers. In December 2005, for example, tens of thousands of people, rich and poor, took part in a 72-hour Internet discussion on the topic of sustainable urban development. "We were looking for the kind of urban visions needed to reconcile social development, economic productivity and environmental protection,” explains Daniel Biau, Deputy Executive Director of UN-Habitat. This global chat forum was staged in the run-up to the third meeting of the World Urban Forum in Vancouver in June 2006. The latter brought together 8,000 representatives from government, NGOs and business to discuss how best to improve the quality of life for slum-dwellers, curb urban criminality, and reduce poverty on a permanent basis.

As far as quality of life is concerned, the current ranking produced by Mercer Human Resource Consulting once again puts Zurich at the top of the list, followed by Geneva, Vancouver and Vienna (see table). Baghdad is the city with the lowest quality of life. Each city is rated according to 39 criteria, including political, social, economic and environmental factors as well as personal safety, health, education, transport and other public services, such as power and water supplies.
                                                                                                                    Sylvia Trage