The Challenges and Opportunities of an Urban World

The International Housing Coalition (IHC), Foreign Policy magazine and the New America Foundation’s Global Assets Project sponsored an interactive discussion on The Challenges and Opportunities of an Urban World, in celebration of World Habitat Day 2010.

Urbanization is a trend that has recently been reported on by Foreign Policy in its latest issue, Metropolis Now. Fast-growing cities, urban poverty and the rapid growth of slums worldwide present great challenges especially for developing countries. At the same time, urbanization brings new opportunities to alleviate poverty, improve health, and generate economic growth.

The discussion centered around these challenges and the actions that governments and partners can take to enable the developing world to plan for and take advantage of the opportunities of urbanization while mitigating its negative impacts.

Panelists Billy Cobbett, Christina Larson, and Lawrence Hannah each spoke on different aspects of urbanization, but all agreed that the first step to effectively manage urban growth is to accept that it is happening and begin planning for it. Having extensively studied slums in developing cities, Billy Cobbett recommends “formalizing the informal” poor that populate slums. If cities can formally incorporate these areas and provide social services like water, power, education, and security, local governments can marginalize the drug lords that often control these areas.

Christina Larson spoke about her experience in the bustling Chinese city of Chongqing, a city that now has a population of 32 million. She noted that western images of Chinese urbanization focus on impressive infrastructure projects and technological progress, but the reality for most people in these expanding cities is that housing is often created to attract workers, but social services are after thoughts and sometimes difficult to tap into. Mrs. Larson also noted that in China, local governors are temporarily appointed from other regions for short amounts of time and favor development that will gain attention for themselves and their communities, like expensive opera houses, rather than investing in prudent and necessary projects like sanitation infrastructure, hospitals, affordable housing, or public schools.

Larry Hannah, formerly the Lead Economist at the World Bank, talked about the brief history of urbanization and what a recent phenomenon it is. He also noted the strong correlation between urbanization and greater development, believing that to gain middle income status, countries must properly urbanize. Before ending the panelist portion, he also made several closing points: urbanization means responsible fiscal planning, not just building infrastructure, and that city governments need to create a business-friendly environment to make important public-private investments.

The discussion ended with a question and answer session from the audience that lead to several interesting exchanges amongst the panelists, such as the use of technology in urbanization and how to formally incorporate those at the bottom of the pyramid.

Participants

Opening Remarks
Jamie Zimmerman
Director, Global Assets Project
New America Foundation

Featured Speakers
Lawrence M. Hannah
Advisor on International Development
Former World Bank Economist

Peter Kimm
Urban Development Consultant
Former Director, USAID Housing Program

William Cobbett
Manager, Cities Alliance

Christina Larson
Contributing Editor, Foreign Policy magazine
Bernard Schwartz Fellow, New America Foundation