Habitat II: Coping with looming issues of urbanized world
Habitat II: Coping with looming issues of urbanized world
JAKARTA (JP): The world is steadily becoming more urban, as
people move to cities and towns. They search for employment and
educational opportunities and higher standards of living,
migrating from rural lands that can no longer support them.
Today, almost half of humanity lives in urban areas, and the
urban population is growing two and a half times faster than its
rural counterpart. By the year 2025 urban areas are expected to
be home to more than two thirds of the world's people. Already
the world is largely urban, and even in rural areas life is
increasingly affected by the changes created by the growth of
cities.
The increases of urban population in developing countries far
exceed those in the more developed regions. Today, there are
nearly two urban dwellers in developing regions for each one
urban dweller in the more developed regions; by 2015 there will
be more than three; by 2025, nearly four.
Rapid rates of urban population growth strain the capacity of
national and local governments to provide basic services. Often,
the resulting inability to keep pace causes human suffering,
environmental damage and unsustainable patterns of development.
Many intractable problems typically accompany rapid urban growth,
such as poverty, unemployment, inadequate shelter, poor or
nonexistent sanitation, contaminated or depleted water supplies,
air pollution and other forms of environmental degradation,
congested streets and overloaded public transport systems.
Concerned by these looming issues, the world's governments
will convene for the Second United Nations Conference on Human
Settlements (Habitat II) in Istanbul from June 3 to June 14,
1996. The conference is served by a preparatory process that
includes efforts by governments, a system of national reports and
development of an action plan for the future. Through an
innovative system of exchanging information about the best
practices in urban governance, participants will trade
experiences concerning programs and policies that have been
effective in solving urban problems.
Habitat II will build on the efforts of the 1994 International
Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, which
made stabilization of world population growth a priority. Habitat
II will further the ICPD's pledge by considering the underlying
cause of urban growth: rising populations. At Habitat II,
governments will also discuss many of the problems caused by
rapid urbanization, including the difficulty of providing basic
services such as water, electricity, sewage, housing, health care
and transport.
Pressure
Controlling the pressure on cities by stabilizing population
growth will require progress toward the goals pledged in the
Cairo conference. At the core of the ICPD goals is the
empowerment of women through education and access to employment
and health care. Governments also agreed to achieve sustainable
development by stabilizing world population through extending
life expectancy, reducing infant and maternal mortality,
providing education for all, and extending reproductive health
care to all by 2015. Governments pledged to achieve these goals
while sustaining dynamic urban growth. The ICPD goals are vital
not just for cities but also for human development in general.
One major area of concern about the growth of urban
populations is the already high incidence of urban poverty.
Today, there are at least 600 million people in urban areas who
cannot adequately provide for their basic needs in shelter,
employment, water and health. It is estimated that approximately
one half of the populations of several of the cities in some of
the world's poorest countries are already living below official
poverty levels.
While the proportion of the poor has decreased in a number of
the world's regions, as the population has increased in size, the
absolute number of the urban poor is increasing. At the same
time, in Asia, the incidence of urban poverty has been decreasing
since the mid-1980s in a number of countries, which clearly
indicates that something can be done.
Urbanization can offer many benefits to developing societies.
Cities provide exceptional opportunities for entrepreneurship,
creativity and the generation of wealth. Education, health and
social services in cities are typically more superior to those in
rural areas. However, when the rate of urbanization exceeds the
pace at which the city can support its inhabitants, problems
occur.
The majority of the world's cities suffer from inadequate
sewage facilities, poor drainage, insufficient solid waste
disposal and poor air and water quality. These problems are
common among cities, and to a great extent the burden of solving
them falls on municipal authorities. The Habitat II process is
focusing world attention on these challenges and promoting
discussion on how to address them.
Suggested approaches include development of partnerships
between private firms and governments to solve problems, as well
as sharing information on which solutions have worked best, in
the hope that they will be adopted in other localities as
appropriate. Water supply is among the most serious problems
facing the cities of developing countries.
Problems related to water supply are city-specific, and the
challenge for each city will be to understand the unique
geographical, topographical and meteorological conditions in
which it is placed and to plan accordingly. Most sewage systems,
like most water supply systems, were constructed to meet the
needs of the colonial populations of the core cities. Because of
the rapid growth of cities in developing countries, the challenge
will be to meet expanding sewerage needs in the coming decades.
Many of the options that used to exist for low-income urban
dwellers are disappearing, such as the availability of unused
public land and low-density central-city neighborhoods. While the
demand for land is growing, the supply in most cities of the
developing world is both genuinely and artificially limited. It
has been estimated that rapid urbanization is likely to lead to a
doubling of the built-up urban areas in most developing countries
over the next 15 years to 20 years.
Since land is essential for urban growth, devising equitable
and efficient land development policies is one of the major
challenges facing planners and policy makers in the world's large
cities. To meet these challenges, governments will have to
maintain or create policies and mechanisms that involve
participation by all sectors of the community.
Habitat II will encourage governments and local authorities to
embark on partnerships with non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), community-based organizations and industry to improve
management of cities. In this way, Habitat II will help to create
opportunities for citizens to participate in local decision-
making processes, creating innovative solutions to urbanization
issues.
Several sectors are already actively involved in addressing
population issues. For example, an Indonesian NGO, Yayasan Kusuma
Buana, has successfully operated urban clinics that offer family
planning information and services such as prenatal care,
immunization, and general maternal and child health services and
information. These clinics cater to people of low to moderate
income, complementing the government clinics, which mostly serve
the poor, and the private clinics and hospitals used by wealthy
Indonesians. Patients pay a modest fee, and delayed-payment plans
are offered.
The many problems facing cities today underscore the fact that
cities are the locus of the most rapid population growth in human
history. Aside from posing problems, however, growing human
numbers also offer hope. People are innovative, and Habitat II is
helping them to focus on areas where improvements are needed.
Dense urban living offers many economies of scale; in
principle, more people can live at a higher standard of living
while consuming fewer resources per capita. In the end, improving
social and economic conditions for all people in urban
environments can make the largest contribution to sustainable
development, especially in the developing world, where needs and
growth are greatest.
-- United Nations Information Center