NAPLES, Italy – At the beginning of the
World Urban Forum VI here last week, a conga line of sorts wound its way past the exhibits, from the solar-powered refugee shelter to the prototype gondola used as an alternate transport system in some favelas in South America. A large group, some in traditional African dress, chanted "Africa’s future is your future!" and "Toilets for all!" The boisterous invocation left no room for subtlety. Cities in sub-Saharan Africa are expecting an influx of tens of millions of poor rural migrants in the years ahead, flooding into already precarious conditions in sprawling megacities like Lagos. Overall, Africa will account for about half the total increase of urban population in the developing world, from 2 billion to 4 billion, over the next 30 years.
Just picture these four billion people, living in cities in the developing world – places where, by some estimates, there may be one billion people already living in informal settlements, slums, and shantytowns, with no access to basic services such as clean water or sanitation, let alone education or arts or recreation, the fundamental elements of the metropolis elsewhere. All of which raised the question: is any conference up to this staggering challenge? Could any problem-solving gathering possibly make the way this trend plays out even a little bit better? More humane? Conferences about global cities struggle with the reputation of this pattern: advocates, government officials, academics and generally a great many smart people fly in from all over for several days, and then nothing happens. The World Urban Forum is run by the United Nations organization
UN-Habitat, which has as its slogan "a better urban future." Under current director Joan Clos, a salt-and-pepper haired former mayor of Barcelona, the organization has shifted its emphasis from housing to cities in a broader perspective. The ambition of the gathering – held every two years, most recently in Rio de Janiero, and Nanjing before that – might be described as the definitive gathering on the great planet-wide urbanization project, the Davos of global cities.
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