World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
Concept Note
Harmonious Urbanization
Coordinator: Eduardo Moreno
UN-HABITAT Team :
Background
Cities are both order and chaos. In them reside beauty and ugliness, virtue and vice.
They bring out the best and the worst in humankind. Cities are the materialization of
humanity’s noblest ideas, ambitions and aspirations but also the repository of society’s
ills. They are the physical manifestation of history and culture and incubators of
innovation, industry, technology and creativity. They can also be the breeding grounds
for crime, poverty and pollution.
Cities are perhaps one of humanity’s most intriguing creations, never finished, never
definitive. They are like a journey that never ends. Their evolution is determined by their
ascent into greatness or their descent into decline. They are the past, the present and the
future.
How can one harmonize and synthesize the various interests, diverse opinions and
inherent contradictions within cities? Half of humanity now lives in cities, and within the
next two decades, nearly 60 per cent of the world’s people will be city dwellers. How can
one create harmony between the physical, environmental and cultural aspects of a city
and the human beings that inhabit it?
A harmonious city is one that promotes unity within diversity. Reconciling contradictory
and complementary elements is critical to creating harmony within cities. Harmony within
cities hinges not only on economic growth and vitality and its attendant benefits, but on
three pillars that make harmony possible: equity, good governance and sustainability.
Harmony is both an ancient social ideal as well as a modern notion. In ancient Chinese
philosophy, harmony implied moderation and balance in all things. Today, the concept of
harmony encapsulates more modern concepts, such as environmental sustainability,
equity, gender parity, pro-poor growth and participatory governance. While the concept
of sustainability focuses on ethical and ecological considerations and is focused
primarily on protecting the Earth’s environmental and natural assets, the concept of
harmony also entails the synchronization and integration of all of the Earth’s assets,
whether they be physical, environmental, cultural, historical, social or human. In this
sense, harmony is a broad concept that relies on distinctly human capabilities, such as
mutual support, solidarity, integrity, conscientiousness and happiness. Harmony has now
become the theoretical foundation for deepening the social, economic, political and
environmental fabric of cities in order to create a more balanced society. Harmony is
therefore both a journey and a destination.
World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
The World Urban Forum / State of the
World’s Cities Report 2008/9
The State of the World’s Cities 2008/9 report adopts the concept of
Harmonious Urbanization as a theoretical framework in order to
understand today’s urban world, and also as an operational tool to
confront the most important challenges facing the urbanization
and development processes. The concept promotes the birth of
new things and thoughts about the city. It features tolerance,
fairness, social justice and governance, all of which are interrelated. This integration seeks to promote a more harmonious
c o e x i s t e n c e
a t
t h e
c i t y
l e v e l .
This report addresses national concerns by searching for
solutions at the city level. For that purpose it focuses on three key
areas: spatial or regional harmony; socio-economic harmony and
environmental harmony. The report also assesses the various
intangible assets within cities that contribute to harmony, such as
cultural heritage, places, memories and the complex set of social
and symbolic relationships that give cities meaning. These
intangible assets represent the soul of the city and are as
i m p o r t a n t a s i t s t a n g i b l e a s s e t s .
World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
Dialogue: 1
Title: Socially Harmonious Cities
Coordinator: Mohamed-El-Sioufi
UN-HABITAT Team:Claudio Acioly, Ulrik Westman, Szilard Friscka,
Michael Mutter, Christian Schlosser, Edlam Yemeru, Rasmus Precht, Helen
Andreasson (internal focal point)
Background
In many cities, wealth and poverty coexist in close proximity: rich, well-serviced neighbourhoods
and gated residential communities live next to dense inner-city or peri-urban slum communities
that lack even the most basic of services. Today some one billion people –nearly one-third of the
world’s urban population– live in slum conditions. Slum dwellers experience multiple deprivations
that are direct expressions of poverty: many of their houses are unfit for habitation and they often
lack adequate food, education, health and basic services that the better-off take for granted.
Frequently, their neighbourhoods are not recognized by local and central authorities; however, in
many parts of the world these “invisible” or informal parts of cities are growing faster than formal
parts of the city.
In its State of the World’s Cities 2006/7 report, UN-HABITAT showed a new urban reality where
slum dwellers die earlier, experience more hunger, have less education, have fewer chances of
employment in the formal sector and suffer from more ill-health than the rest of the urban
population. However, inequalities and levels of deprivation have wide variations in different regions
and countries. The analysis of socio-economic disparities by city-size, as presented in the State of
the World’s Cities 2008/9 report, challenges some general assumptions: capital and large cities do
not host the worst-off slum neighborhoods, as conventional wisdom dictates, and not all
secondary cities are more deprived than large cities, as recent studies have suggested. In general,
the poorest regions of the world tend to host the largest slum populations who suffer from multiple
shelter deprivations. These differentiated levels of social inequality and exclusion can adversely
affect cities and regions’ social and economic development.
The report also presents preliminary findings of a first global analysis of income inequality at the
city level. Income inequality within cities is high in the developing world, especially in Latin
America and Sub-Saharan Africa, where in some cities, it is actually rising. A society cannot claim
to be harmonious if large sections of its population are deprived of basic needs while other
sections live in opulence. A city cannot be harmonious if some groups concentrate resources and
opportunities while others remain impoverished and deprived. Income inequalities within cities not
only threaten the harmony of cities, but of countries as well, as they create social and political
fractures within society that could develop into social unrest or full-blown conflicts The reduction
of income inequalities and the provision of services and better housing to those who live in slum
conditions would go a long way in averting the types of conflicts that are becoming increasingly
prevalent in many cities around the world.
World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
Objectives:
The Dialogue on "Socially harmonious cities: Inclusion, rights and equity for all"
will contribute to the global debate on socially harmonious cities by creating
a forum for citizens representatives, local and central authorities, researchers
and professionals across the world. The Dialogue has three main objectives.
Firstly, the dialogue will examine the realities of non-socially harmonious
cities, using the voices of the urban poor. Secondly, it will examine what cities
can achieve in terms of inclusiveness, equity and social harmony, showcasing
lessons learnt and case studies. Thirdly, the dialogue will focus on the way
forward towards socially harmonious cities by presenting overarching
principles, strategies and implementation tools and practices, extracted from
the presentations.
Main Outputs
The Dialogue will address a range of key urban issues through the perspectives of
inclusiveness and equity, such as: (a) access to land; (b) forced evictions and
market evictions; (c) pro poor compensation and land acquisition; (d) social housing
and access to housing finance; (e) city planning for migrants including post disaster
refugees (also those affected by climate change); (f) affordable mobility
management (g) health/pollution/cost/accessibility; (g) formal and informal avenues
for business opportunities; (h) wealth distribution and social welfare; and, (j) social
safety nets and public services.
The dialogue will build on strategies and experiences from a number of ongoing
initiatives and global policies such as; a) The Millennium Development Goals; The
United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) which addresses
land, Africa, and capacity building themes in 2008-9; (b) The Commission on Legal
Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP); (c) The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN), a
long term initiative to develop systematic, innovative, pro-poor, affordable and
gender sensitive land tools; (d) The Advisory Group on Forced Evictions (AGFE);
(e) UN-HABITAT’s Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme in ACP Countries;
and, (f) The Slum Upgrading Facility (SUF) that aims to assist Municipalities and
communities in accessing finance from domestic capital markets for slum upgrading
and very low income housing.
World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
Dialogue: 2
Title: Economically Harmonious Cities:
Strengthening Urban Infrastructure, Finance and
Employment
Coordinator: Frederico Neto
UN-HABITAT Team :Gulelat Kebede, Ansa Masaud, Christian Schlosser,
Ananda Weliwita, Xing Zhang, Mary Dibo
Background
In many cities, wealth and poverty coexist in close proximity: rich, well-serviced
neighbourhoods and gated residential communities live next to dense inner-city or
peri-urban slum communities that lack even the most basic of services. Today
some one billion people –nearly one-third of the world’s urban population – live in
slum conditions. Slum dwellers experience multiple deprivations that are direct
expressions of poverty: many of their houses are unfit for habitation and they often
lack adequate food, education, health and basic services that the better-off take for
granted. Frequently, their neighbourhoods are not recognized by local and central
authorities; however, in many parts of the world these “invisible” or informal parts
of cities are growing faster than formal parts of the city.
A society cannot claim to be harmonious if large sections of its population are
deprived of basic needs while other sections live in opulence. A city cannot be
harmonious if some groups concentrate resources and opportunities while others
remain impoverished and deprived. Income inequalities within cities not only
threaten the harmony of cities, but of countries as well, as they create social and
political fractures within society that could develop into social unrest or full-blown
conflicts.
The reduction of income inequalities and the provision of services and better
housing to those who live in slum conditions would go a long way in averting the
types of conflicts that are becoming increasingly prevalent in many cities around
the world. National and urban development planning strategies should thus pay
particular attention to pro-poor and equitable policies promoting economically
harmonious cities, with a focus on the reduction of income disparities. This calls,
in particular, for the provision of better urban infrastructure and services, as well
employment generation targeting the urban poor
World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
Objective:
The ultimate objective of the dialogue is to identify policy options that can
contribute to reducing income disparities in cities around the world.
Main Outputs:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Three key themes to be addressed by the dialogue are: (i) sustained infrastructure
development; (ii) the provision of adequate finance for urban development and (iii)
measures to maximize income benefits of pro-poor employment policies.
Sustainable infrastructure development : There is a strong correlation between
adequacy of infrastructure such as transportation, communication, energy, water
supply and other basic services, and enhancement of incomes. In many cities,
however, the high capital requirement for infrastructure development has often led to
sporadic and disjointed development policies that are inconsistent with longer-term
infrastructure demands. Suggested focus areas for this theme include: (a) innovative
infrastructure solutions, including examples from China and other developing
countries; and (b) successful Local Economic Development (LED) strategies in
selected countries.
Financing urban development: Many developing country cities are facing a growing
gap between the demand for the delivery of municipal services (and associated capital
investments) to growing urban populations and the insufficient financial resources
available to municipal authorities to fund those services. This means that much of the
developing world is faced with an urban paradox: on the one hand, cities are the
engines of economic growth; on the other, cities are also centres of increasing
poverty and unemployment. There is an urgent need, therefore, to identify reliable
sources of finance to promote equitable urban socio-economic development for both
women and men. Suggested focus areas include (a) mobilization of public and private
finance; (b) case studies of innovative financing mechanisms, including low-cost
affordable housing for women; (c) privatization of urban services; and (d) financial
decentralization.
Pro-poor employment policies: Significant reductions of urban income disparities can
be achieved through the implementation of pro-poor employment policies.
Employment opportunities for the urban poor are affected by diverse factors,
including favourable macroeconomic conditions; an enabling environment for
increased private sector investment; sustained public investment in urban
infrastructure; and regulatory constraints on small businesses. Most of the urban poor
in developing country cities are employed in the informal economy, or in formal
employment characterized by low wages and little social protection. Pro-poor urban
employment policies should thus target the gradual regularization of the informal
economy and strengthen its income enhancing effects on the urban poor. Suggested
focus areas include the creation of an appropriate regulatory and policy framework to
release the economic potential of the urban informal economy; complementary
development policies; as well as other pro-poor urban employment policies targeting
the formal economy.
World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
Dialogue: 3
Title: Environmentally Harmonious Cities
Coordinator: Marco Keiner
UN-HABITAT Team :Dan Lewis/Jaana Mioch, Karin Buhren, Jossy Materu,
Chris Radford, Rob Jong/Xenya Scanlon (UNEP)
Background
The Dialogue on Environmentally Harmonious Cities is ultimately focusing on reducing urban poverty
and addressing the challenge of slums by improving the environmental living conditions, protecting
resources and achieving better access to basic urban infrastructure, such as water and sanitation. A
special focus is on climate change.
Climate Change / Energy: Global warming and urbanization are closely interlinked and the key drivers
for the development of mankind. Melting glaciers and permafrost soils, sea-level rise, tropical cyclones,
inland flooding, drought, scarce water resources and resulting conflicts for land-use are the bill
humanity will have to pay for its lifestyle largely based upon the overuse of carbon energy resources.
This Dialogue looks at the world’s cities as metabolisms emitting greenhouse gases from production,
heating, transportation, and other sources, and at the same time being heavily impacted by climate
change. Innovative paths to reduce the cities’ contribution to global warming and their vulnerability, and
strategies, policies and successful examples from practice to enhance their resilience and
responsiveness will be presented and discussed. Among others, ways of making the U-turn to low
carbon cities will be explored. In the forefront are ecological sound and energy-efficient buildings and
settlement patterns that will be based on carbon-free alternative energy sources, thus at the same time
mitigating and adapting to climate change. Successful adaptation strategies for different climate zones
and locations will be presented and concrete measures in the fields of mobility, construction, energy
use, and others that can be practically implemented in other places will be highlighted.
Biodiversity: Next to climate change, biodiversity will be another main topic. The ongoing process of
global urbanization is, among others, destroying habitats of flora and fauna, resulting in food and water
insecurity, and health impacts for the urbanites. All these aspects are directly linked to urban poverty.
New strategies of how mankind can make sustainable use of and coexist in harmony with nature, will be
discussed as well as activities on how to reduce impacts on urban biodiversity, and to manage
pollutions from and in cities, mainly affecting the access to safe drinking water.
Waste management / Pollution: Urbanization increases demand for solid waste management and
drainage services; generates air, water and noise pollution; contributes to biodiversity loss and
deforestation; and has other environmental impacts such as changes in agricultural patterns. Many
cities both in the developing and the developed world have a voracious appetite for raw materials,
energy and foodstuffs to develop economic activities, growth and develop their full potentials.
Water supply and sanitation: In order to address the global slum challenge - both as cause and effect of
the environmental degradation, the issues of water supply and sanitation are key.
World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
Objective:
Reducing urban poverty and addressing the challenge of slums by
improving the environmental living conditions, protecting
resources and achieving better access to basic urban
infrastructure.
Main Outputs:
The Dialogue will analyze the role that cities can play to strike a balance between man
and nature. It will analyze the interactions between urban growth and environmental
change in a selected number of cities, proving good examples of how without
obstructing the growth potential of urban areas the environmental functions can be
preserved and eventually expanded. The panelists will have an occasion to report
and compare notes on actions, results and impact, and will provide answers to
questions such as: which are today the innovative mechanisms and policies to save
resources and protect the environment while achieving high city outputs? How can
an environmentally harmonious urban development be achieved? How is it possible
to create more circular and sustainable urban economic systems that are resourceefficient and environmentally friendly in terms of low investment, low consumption
and low discharge that do not impair economic activities? Doing this, they will
present position papers highlighting good examples of normative work, advocacy,
networking, tool development, and knowledge management successfully applied in
cities they work with, preferrably from case studies in Asia.
The Dialogue will highlight UN-HABITAT’s Global Campaign on Sustainable
Urbanization, call for a culture of partnerships, namely an increased commitment by
all parts of society to support a coalition of joint efforts, particularly in the area of the
urban environment at the local, national and global levels. Case studies of best
practices of environmentally harmonious cities will be presented and reflected in the
SWCR and in a forthcoming global sustainable urban development network (SUDNet) under the auspices of UN-HABITAT.
World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
Dialogue: 4
Title: Spatially Harmonious Cities
Coordinator: Paul Taylor
UN-HABITAT Team :Frederic Saliez, Filiep Decorte, Naison MutizwaMangiza, Raf Tus, Kibe Muigai
Background
Cities and regions surrounding it have a symbiotic relationship. As
long as this relationship is understood and carefully nurtured, both
will advance together.[1] It provides preliminary observations on the
spatial identity of the world’s cities, going beyond the “one or two
cities tell everything approach” that has dominated urban studies so
far.
[1] Friedmann John, “The Wealth of Cities: Towards and Asset-based Development of newly
urbanized Regions”, UN-HABITAT, Lecture Award Series No.1, 2006.
World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
Objective:
The cohering principle of the Dialogue is an assessment of the role of
urban planning in achieving the balanced, sustainable and harmonious
development of cities.
Main Ouputs:
Planning’s particular ability to harmonise social, environmental and
economic considerations in city development will be explored. Its role vis-àvis other tools and instrumentalities in achieving these ends will be looked at
and evaluated.
The relative achievements that different planning approaches have made in
realising these ends will be addressed, as some are more successful than
others. The most useful planning intervention opportunities will be assessed
in order to give a focus on results as much as on methodology. A case study
approach will be adopted, and examples that are representative of
mainstream planning practices will be selected for exposure at the Dialogue.
These will be subject to comments and observations by the Dialogue
audience.
Given the increased world awareness of the pressing issues of exclusion –
particularly the growth of slums – and climate change, these will be given
particular attention in assessing the contributions of different planning
approaches featured in the Dialogue. The analyses contained in The State of
the World’s Cities Report (SOWC) – particularly Part 2 – will be used to
provide background and further specificity in the definition of issues to be
addressed. The role of urban planning in meeting the SOWC theme of
developing cities that can deliver high economic outputs in a resource
efficient and environmentally friendly fashion will be particularly addressed.
The contribution of planning in re-engineering existing cities, in addition to
managing urban growth, to meet these challenges will be a leitmotif of
Dialogue presentations and discussions.
The Global Report on Human Settlements (GRHS) 2009 will be devoted to
planning. It is intended that both the lead-up period to WUF4 and the
Spatially Harmonious Cities Dialogue at the event itself will contribute
directly to the selection and evaluation of case studies that will feature in
GRHS. The Dialogue will also generate some propositions that will be further
tested in the GRHS. The City of Rome has signalled its intention to
financially support an expert meeting in early 2008 that will assess potential
case study cities that can be profiles at WUF4. Opportunities will be sought
to find case study cities that are also city samples that are to be selected for
the purposes of analysis for the State of the World’s Cities Report.
World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
Dialogue: 5
Title: Historically Harmonious Cities
Coordinator: Mohamed Halfani
UN-HABITAT Team: Alioune badiane,Jossy Materu,
Soraya Smaoun,, Anantha Krishnan, Raf Tutz, Kibe
Miugai
Background
Cities are not just brick and mortar; they represent the way of living of
a society, including its values and norms at a given point in history.
They are the depository of knowledge and art, centres of exchange,
locus of power and authority and places where symbols of society are
exhibited. They are spaces where dreams, aspirations and hopes of
societies have been manifested and trans-local identities developed.
The configuration of a city embodies a “personality”, with its strengths
and weaknesses, failures and successes. It is this inner personality of
a city, composed of its intangibles, that provides the foundation of a
social fabric and nurtures the relative well-being of its dwellers. The
inner essence of a city underlies its functional convenience, degree of
grandeur, and what it receives and offers to the rest of the world. The
city represents a heritage from the past, which if properly deployed
and harnessed can contribute to overcoming the societal challenges
of the present and in shaping the future.
World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
Objective:
The dialogue will attempt to examine the above issues of urban history with
respect to cities of industrial societies as well as those of Africa, Asia and Latin
America. It will devote more attention to fostering historical harmony within the
framework of urban sustainability at the level of the environment, society and the
economy. The overall intention will be to ensure that urban development is
promoted by meeting the needs of present generations without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Development needs also to
ensure that the contribution of past generations to the cultural and architectural
heritage is respected, harnessed and valorised.
Main Outputs:
As places of diversity and heterogeneity, cities have been depositories of culture but also hubs
where different traditions interact and mutate. Cities have provided spaces for the free expression
and elaboration of aesthetics, philosophy, science and the formation of identities. The uniqueness
of urban places is the capacity to allow for co-existence and transformation of cultural diversity
into strength for collective growth and development. The challenge is how to ensure harmonious
transformation of the progressive cultural attributes of the past with the imperatives of the present
and those of the future.
Within the urban space the most distinctive revelation of a city’s history is architecture and landuse configuration. These, not only represent the socio-political character of the people in a city,
but they also demonstrate people’s creative skills, symbols, belief systems, influences they have
been subjected to, and the overall genesis of the city. Architecture contributes significantly to the
physical image of a city and it is an important historical heritage in incarnating the ‘soul’ of the city
and maintaining its identity. Nevertheless, as the city develops there are changes in design and
delineation of its space. Once again, the challenge is how to maintain a harmonious
transformation without completely destroying the distinctive architectural assets of a given city.
The challenge of maintaining harmony becomes more pertinent in a context of urban renewal.
When places and structures of the past either fail to meet the functional requirements of the
present or simply begin to breakdown, a need arises for rescuing them. Quite often in such a
state of dilapidation, the neighborhoods tend to become the only affordable settlements for the
urban poor. A city’s historical heritage is thus relegated into a bastion of poverty and marginality.
And in the name of urban renewal there is sometimes a tendency of destroying the indigenous
architectural heritage and replacing it with unfitting imitations which do not relate with the people’s
psyche and identity.
The notion of historical harmony underscores the linkage between the past, present and future
evolution of cities in relation to the overall wellbeing of the population, functionality of urban
spaces, and the general sustainability of urban development. The dynamics of such a linkage
needs to take into account and valorise not only such aspects as architectural heritage, but also
to rectify the distortions and inequities of the past.. A historically harmonious city is thus one that
finds relevance for its scars of trauma, relics of past glamour in its present and future forms,
structures and functions as part of innovations for new frontiers of living and not to discard them.
World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
Dialogue 6
Title: Harmonious Cities for all age groups
Coordinator: Guenter karl
UN-HABITAT Team: Mutinta Munyati
Background
To discuss how the different age-groups can live harmoniously in a
city. Particular emphasis should be given to what can be learned from
the past and how the future can be shaped to that end. In this regard, it
will be important to bring out the intergenerational perceptions and
goals of their envisaged future and explain how these future scenarios
can be reconciled, be made compatible and be reinforcing each other.
Objective:
The main objective of the dialogue should include youth, aging
population, Internet and ICT, education and health care as well as sport
and music. Efforts should be made to show the interrelationship
between several components. For example, aging population and
health care, youth and education, youth and sport as well as youth and
art.
World Urban Forum IV
Nanjing China
Harmonious Urbanization
Main Output:
An important aspect of the envisaged discussions will be to what
extent participatory urban planning for the various age-groups can
be a successful strategy to harmonize relations among
generations. Urban policy formulation as well as the planning and
provision of city services should allow for common interfaces
such as meetings and exchange of experience between different
generations.
Older generations can for example provide a lot of information on
the topics of education and employment for younger generations
who are particularly keen to be well-informed on such topics.
Similarly, older generations can learn a lot about ICT from young
people.
More generally, what is required is a fostered relationship between
between all age groups where all parties have equal potential in
making decisions, utilizing skills, learning from each other and
promoting change. A relationship, which does not have any
dominant force.
The anticipated outcome of the dialogue on harmonious cities for
all age groups, is to sensitize the WUF IV and the public on the
necessity that different generations map out and discuss their
future plans with each other and identify common grounds. The
second expected outcome then is to reconcile the possibly varying
future plans of the different age groups and harmonizing them into
a common future of the city. The conclusions and
recommendations will be reflected in the Report of the Dialogue.