Rethinking the City

What’s now?

After the Earth Summit held in Rio in 1992, and its subsequent conventions and chapters that produced the local agenda 21, public awareness on local sustainable development and environmental issues have increased greatly. Nonetheless, population growth continues rising dramatically. Future world population growth will be concentrated in urban areas of the developing world. In 1950 there was only one city with more than 10 million people: New York. By 2015 it is expected that there will be 23 mega cities exceeding 10 million people. 19 of them will be in developing countries. Most of this expected increase in the 2000-2030 period will take place in the urban areas of the less developed regions (Source: UN 2002). Latin America and the Caribbean regions are the most urbanized areas. Their urban poverty ranks the highest in the world with 39% of householders living below the poverty line (Source: World Bank 2002).

Today the city is the scene where major tensions concentrate. In Latin America and the Caribbean this imbalance between soaring population growth, and unequal distribution of wealth generates the most serious problems facing human settlements: uncontrolled urbanisation and migration, marginalisation, violence and insecurity. On the other hand, as indicated the President of Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Maureen O'Neil, in 2002, “globalisation has also contributed to an enormous awareness of the North’s model of consumption. The combination of unsatisfied demand and high population growth is explosive and difficult for governments to manage”.

What’s the answer?

It is impossible to conceive it as a self-sustainable development system isolated from natural and human resources, economic, ethics, social, and cultural issues. That approach goes beyond the local geographical scenario and poses it at a regional and international level. The integration of the major stakeholders to the Urban Environmental Management: public institutions, businesses (formal and informal), local communities (NGOs or not), academy, and financial institutions, facilitates an effective application of the decision-making policy, and its transparency and sustainability.

In particular, it is important to stress that each opportunity must comply with the four general urban principles, called the “Sharing Cities Principles”: Ecological, Efficiency, Equity and Ethics, as well as with technical and environmental implications. Only those options that are ecologically sustainable, economically efficient, socially equitable and culturally acceptable, will be of interest to urban communities.

In a globalized world where environmental disturbance is not restricted to political boundaries, it is obvious that diverse programmes and other new multi-participatory mechanisms acting around the world must be linked in an international network. This network should be coordinated by an observatory body in order to reinforce international capacity building, monitor performance, and exchange experiences and new practices to be conceptualised as a standard.

After the many preparatory discussions held in the last months towards the World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002, “Rethinking the City” gives an opportunity to outline the profile for the cities of tomorrow.

Finally, this one-day session will attempt to summarise a set of "international guidelines" which will reflect the knowledge and insights - the "lessons learned" - gained through the different cities’ experiences.

by Walter Ubal Giordano
Executive Director of the Environmental Management Secretariat (EMS) for Latin America and the Caribbean