130122 the urban opportunity1

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The Urban opportunity

to enable Transformative and Sustainable development

Background paper for the

High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda

Prepared by the co-chairs of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network

Thematic Group on Sustainable Cities: Inclusive, Resilient, and Connected:

Aromar Revi, Director Indian Institute of Human Settlements, Bangalore

Cynthia Rosenzweig, Earth Institute at Columbia University, New York

22 January 2013



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The first half of the 21st

century will host a world that is a fundamentally new one. For the

first time in human history a majority of the world population will live in urban areas. Over

the next 30 years, this transformation will depend not only on policies and practices in the

OECD economies; but increasingly on choices made in the cities of East and South Asia, Latin

America, followed soon by those in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Country aftercountry in every region is in the process of moving from rural and agrarian to urban and

potentially post-industrial landscapes – in a deep transformation of culture, institutions and

identity that has never been experienced since the agricultural revolution over 5,000 years

ago.

This development has profound implications on how societies shape and manage

themselves. It offers an unprecedented opportunity to use the urbanization process as a

catalyst for sustainable economic and social development. At the same time, it also offers a

set of significant challenges to governments, the private sector, civil society andcommunities. They have to collectively ensure that public policy, private enterprise and

collective action is recalibrated to manage this rural-urban transition without significant

economic, social or environmental disruption.

To this end, this note lays out an initial framework of how urban issues underline and link to

larger sustainable development processes.

1. Trends: From now till 2050, the world urban population will grow from 3.5 billion (in 2010)

to 6.2 billion, by when 67 percent of the global population (estimated 9.3 billion) will live in

cities. Of this, over 525 million are expected to live in poverty below the $1 per capita perday and 1.2 billion below $2 per capita per day. By 2025, the GDP of the 600 highest

contributing cities will rise by over 30 trillion or 65% of global growth. Annual urban

infrastructure and building investments are expected to rise from $10 trillion today to more

than $20 trillion by 2025, with urban centres in emerging economies attracting the most of

this investment.

2. Why Cities are Different: The contours of urban economies and societies demand new

forms of governance and policy making in comparison to traditional agrarian or mixed

societies. Higher population densities require concentrated investments in physical, natural

and social infrastructure, careful conservation and management of ecosystem services and

building greater resilience against external shocks. Rapid migration and the growth of trans-

boundary environmental refugee movement will require continuous policy revision and

predictive planning to manage volatile population fluxes. Less stable social systems,

fracturing of community and extended family bonds will require a greater role for state-led

or formal social safety systems. Income and social disparities in dense urban concentrations

will challenge the ability to deliver order and the rule of law and will require specific policies

to encourage inclusion, widen opportunity and, in highly stratified societies, enable social

transformation.



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Food systems for an urban world will require re-orientation towards greater sustainability,

an expansion of urban production to enable universal nutritional coverage and promoting

‘healthy cities’ to reduce the risk of lifestyle-related disease. Related biomass systems like

forests are under threat because of the massive expansion of urban resource consumptionthat often spans continental scale. Cities, unlike agricultural systems are not the largest

consumers of freshwater, but are often most at risk due to pollution, water scarcity and

flooding which is being acerbated by climate change. Addressing this will require a

transformation of both city and urban metabolism and production processes. Industrial

forms of transportation have not only led to unsustainable sprawl but the growth of

resource and carbon intensive forms of urbanization that are a serious threat to the local

and global environment. Finally, the economic core of the city requires constant reinvention

to create sustainable forms of livelihood, end poverty in urban areas, carrying economic

prosperity to peri-urban and rural areas.

All of this has profound implications for natural resource use, land-use dynamics and

biodiversity conservation, and the sustainable metabolism of cities. It will imply the co-

evolution of new technological and governance systems for an emerging urban world, in

which the largest economic entities will be cities or firms and a new set of middle-income

nation states.

3. The Opportunity: If uninterrupted by conflict or global environmental change, this

urbanization-led 100-year post-WWII boom could transform human societies across the

globe. It offers unprecedented leverage to help end multidimensional poverty; dramatically

improve life expectancy, health status and education; help diminish social stratification and

inequality; enable greater economic and political participation; provide the ‘space’ to

deepen the governance of our societies and conserve and heal a badly injured planet and

the ecosystem services that provide the basis for all life to thrive and human societies to

develop. The geographic concentration of urban populations opens up opportunities for

economies of scale and scope in creating productive opportunities, providing health and

educational services, promoting innovation and knowledge creation, diffusion of ideas and

creativity in ways that were never possible before. It allows for much more efficient water,

food, biomass and energy use if managed well, opening up possibilities of building

ecologically sustainable communities.

4. The Challenge: As a globalizing urban society, we will face multi-dimensional challenges in

this transition. By 2030, urban areas in developing countries will range in size from a

hundreds of thousands of 10,000 people towns; to over 500 million+ cities, about 25 mega

(> 10 million) cities and 8 mega urban-regions with populations of over 20 million.

Megacities and mega urban-regions will typically concentrate large proportions of the

economic, environmental, and human resources of their countries - requiring fundamentally



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new modes of governance, technological and environmental management systems to

enable their sustainability. Managing cities with such diversity of size, scope and character

will require resilient and innovative institutions, flexible policies and a cadre of

interdisciplinary professions with a wide range of skills.

A fundamental global shift from an agrarian society and economy to an urban-based one

will require new ways of supporting food and biomass production that is less dependent of

fossil nutrients and ecologically balanced, and yet produces enough for a planet full of over

9 billion people. This will require new forms of ecological production in rural and urban

areas. Increasing pressure on land will require different ways of managing biodiversity,

coastal and forest ecosystems and mitigating desertification while catering to the real needs

of cities. The century-long transition through low-carbon energy systems to renewable will

need to proceed differently across a wide spectrum of cities based on size, economic

structure and transportation system. The velocity of this transition will strongly determinethe pain and disruption that climate variability and change can cause to urban systems

across the world.

Urban epidemiological profiles differ significantly from rural populations and will throw up

new risks for urban health systems to address. Managing the large and continuous influx of

people in cities will create pressures on economic, social and political structures and

supporting ecosystems. Inadequate infrastructure, housing, security, and employment

opportunities can create deep public unrest and social instability in cities much more rapidly

than in rural areas.

The greatest challenge therefore is the creation of a converging set of aspirations and

identities for city after city across the planet, for their diverse institutions and even more

diverse populations so that collectively, we can coalesce around a globally shared vision of

prosperity and inclusive development.

5. Urban priorities for the post-2015 development agenda: Development strategies to reduce

income poverty, improve educational and health outcomes, and manage natural resources

typically cut across the artificial rural and urban divide. Yet, as city-led growth accelerates in

some regions, the specific challenges of developing world growth will not only have regional

influence but impact the global economy, polity and environment. Thus we need a global

framework for engagement with a broad set of urban challenges and mobilize synergies

between them to enable transformative development outcomes over 2015-30:

I. Ending income poverty and feeding our cities: Inclusive urban development especially in

Asia and Africa could help end much of global urban income poverty by 2030 as has been

demonstrated so effectively in China over the last two decades. This in turn could have



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significant impacts on rural poverty via employment expansion and stronger urban-rural

linkages. In the context of declining global food productivity, global and regional food

systems need to integrate urban areas and ensure sustainable and ecologically safe

modes of production and consumption. Goals on nutrition security and access to

affordable food are essential to end food-based poverty.

II. Universal access to urban environmental services and ensuring ecosystem integrity:

The most dramatic reduction in the burden of disease and child mortality since the

industrial revolution has been enabled by universal access to basic environmental

services: potable water, sanitation and solid waste services. As climate variability

increases, drainage networks need to be added to this set of services to respond to

incipient flooding. Reducing indoor and outdoor air pollution has also become an

important challenge in rapidly industrializing cities across the world. An urbanizing world

will need specific goals on ensuring ecosystem integrity and conservation of majorecosystem services along with ensuring access to and conservation of scarce water

resources, especially in ecologically stressed regions of the world. Goals on minimum

standards of urban sanitation services, solid waste management and recycling and air,

water and soil pollution are essential to ensure well being and continuous improvement

in the quality of life, especially of the most vulnerable.

III. Providing access to affordable and safe housing and the ‘right to the city’: Enabling

access to affordable and safe housing for all is a necessary condition for urban

sustainability. This is part of a systemic response to the failure of land and labour markets

in many cities to address questions of equity. Building a progressive entitlement frame

that underwrites the ‘right to the city’ as effectively demonstrated by Brazil will help

address the explosion of informal settlements across the world. This is only a symptom of

the failure to address the linkage between location, work and housing and build a new

participatory planning paradigm. This will enable each citizen access to security of

identity, tenure and livelihoods via a locally determined mix of state, market and

community-led approaches that will lead to an upsurge in collective action for the

common good.

IV. Enabling sustainable energy and transportation services and mitigating climate risk:

The security and productivity of cities depends on universal access to efficient and

sustainable energy services, and well functioning and affordable mobility and

transportation systems that are integrated with economic development, land use

planning and risk reduction measures. Specific relative and absolute goals on the

transition to universal access to efficient low-carbon and renewable-based energy

services will not only enable greater economic and resource efficiency, but help mitigate

impact climate risk. Universal access to affordable active mobility and transportation



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systems that are in consonance with sustainable energy, low-carbon and compact city

goals will enable the development of more inclusive, accessible and efficient cities.

V. Promoting economic and social inclusion and keeping cities safe: The physical proximity

between the elites, the vulnerable and the deprived is a stark contradiction of most 21st

century cities. In a youthful world bursting with aspiration of a better future, media and

information access has brought exclusion to the forefront of the public imagination.

Promoting economic and social inclusion (and in highly stratified cultures enabling social

transformation around gender, ethnicity, age and other forms of exclusion) is a necessary

condition for sustainable development and keeping cities safe from a wide range of

conflicts and predatory interests. Creating social and economic safety nets to support

access to livelihood security and basic nutrition, health, education and environmental

services is a necessary goal for most cities. Security of poor and excluded communities,

women and girl children especially at risk to sexual and other violence will help addresssome of the asymmetries caused by mal-development and iniquitous economic growth.

VI. Developing effective governance systems and deepening participation and resilience:

The governance structures of most cities in the developing world are overwhelmed by a

combination of inadequate urban governance frameworks and political systems,

demographic pressure, resource and institutional constraints and managerial complexity.

As urban systems expand, city governments, citizens, communities, civil society and

private enterprise need more inclusive, transparent, outcome-oriented and effective

systems of political participation, planning and development to address the wide range of

contests and conflicts that will emerge. Urban resilience will emerge through the

interaction between systems of governance, delivery institutions and socio-political

systems that re-orient economic, social and environmental goals towards greater

sustainability.

As the world moves into an urban future, societies across the world have to grapple with

deep challenges of redirection and reorganization to ensure that they manage global public

goods and resources effectively, that they harness the productive potential of urban

societies in ways that enable the expansion of prosperity within the capacities of the planet,and that they develop structures and processes of inclusion and participation that allow

citizens to build a better life for themselves- the central promise and challenge of

transformative development for the 21st

century.

130122 the urban opportunity1

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