Planning Sustainable Cities: Global Report on Human Settlements 2009 - Just Released

The 2009 Global Report on Human Settlements, focused on Planning Sustainable Cities, was released this week by UN Habitat. Information is available online. Various background studies prepared for the report will be made available from this link. A blurb and contents list are shown below.


Planning Sustainable Cities — Global Report on Human Settlements 2009


Planning Sustainable Cities reviews recent urban planning practices and approaches, discusses constraints and conflicts therein, and identifies innovative approaches that are more responsive to current challenges of urbanization. It notes that traditional approaches to urban planning (particularly in developing countries) have largely failed to promote equitable, efficient and sustainable human settlements and to address twenty-first century challenges, including rapid urbanization, shrinking cities and ageing, climate change and related disasters, urban sprawl and unplanned peri-urbanization, as well as urbanization of poverty and informality. It concludes that new approaches to planning can only be meaningful, and have a greater chance of succeeding, if they effectively address all of these challenges, are participatory and inclusive, as well as linked to contextual socio-political processes.



Planning Sustainable Cities will be released in October 2009.



GRHS 2009



Chapters

Foreword, Introduction, etc.



Part I. Challenges and Context

Chapter 1. Urban challenges and the need to revisit urban planning

Chapter 2. Understanding the diversity of the urban context

Chapter 3. The emergence and spread of contemporary urban planning



Part II. Global Trends: The Urban Planning Process

Chapter 4. The institutional and regulatory framework for planning

Chapter 5. Planning, participation and politics



Part III. Global Trends: The Content of Urban Planning

Chapter 6. Bridging the green and brown agendas

Chapter 7. Planning and informality

Chapter 8. Planning, spatial structure of cities and provision of infrastructure



Part IV. Global Trends: Monitoring, Evaluation and Education

Chapter 9. The monitoring and evaluation of urban plans

Chapter 10. Planning education



Part V. Global Trends: Future Policy Directions

Chapter 11. Towards a new role for urban planning



Part VI. Statistical Annex

Slum Improvement Requires More Focus on Water and Sanitation - 4th World Water Forum

The 4th World Water Forum (WUF4) is a gathering of urban specialist, ministers, mayors, parliamentarians, civil society, private sectors and other interest groups. The Forum, which held in Nanjing, China 3 - 6 November, 2008, was attended by 7,900 participants.

Ahead of the forum a colleague from WaterAid published a short report calling on city authorities, governments and donors to pay more attention to water and sanitation as an imperative to slum improvement. They point out a few surprising pieces of information , such as the fact that aid funding for water and sanitation has been declining since the 1990s relative to other sectors, and that the poorest countries and regions are not getting the bulk of aid funding for water and sanitation!

Here is the full Turning Slums Around report. Below are links to two articles about it:

BBC report

EDIE Network

Video - "Lagos La Vida Loca"

A good friend recently forwarded a link to a video that's been on the web for a while. If you want a good feel for what it would be like to walk around the streets of Lagos for a few days, check out this short (14 minute) 2007 video shot on location in Lagos, Nigeria with journalist Mariana Van Zeller. It took me down memory lane in a way and Van Zeller does a really good job of getting "man on the street" interviews and shots. It would have been nice to get a little more "woman on the street" but you have to give it up to her journalism skills--the best part was probably the last, when she spent an evening with neighborhood vigilantes--self and community provision of security (like water, electricity, and most other basic services). Also check out the other videos on Van Zeller's site -- she travels around the world to uncover tough stories about every day people, amplifying voice in the process.