Representatives from nearly 200 nations, as well as an array of non-governmental organizations and foundations including the Lincoln Institute, are gearing up for Habitat III in Quito, Ecuador next month. Important steps will be taken there, including the adoption of the New Urban Agenda, a global framework for urbanization for the next 20 years. Yet the real test will come after everybody packs up and goes home from the nearly two-mile high Ecuadorean capital.
So writes Lincoln Institute president George W. "Mac" McCarthy in Devex, the media platform for the global development community. And a key factor in the implementation of the New Urban Agenda will be monitoring -- to make sure cities are on the right track. Unlike the Paris agreement on climate change, the New Urban Agenda can’t rely on straightforward metrics, such as tons of carbon. But by building on the Sustainable Development Goals adopted last year, the guiding document offers the opportunity to look at the common characteristics that make cities work.
Among the aspects of cities that require monitoring, two are especially critical, McCarthy writes: fiscal systems and spatial planning. The world will need to invest about 3.8 percent of gross domestic product through 2030 — more than $3 trillion per year — in energy, transportation, telecommunications, water and other infrastructure just to support expected rates of growth, according to McKinsey and Co. Meanwhile, the rate of urban sprawl is unsustainable, both financially and environmentally. Between 1990 and 2015, the population of cities in the developing world doubled, but their footprints increased by a factor of 3.5 — mostly through unplanned growth that lacks adequate services and infrastructure, according to the new data collected for the Atlas of Urban Expansion, our project with partners New York University and UN-Habitat, to monitor urban growth.
Read the entire essay -- as well as a sidebar on the five key takeaways in the implementation of policies post-Habitat III -- here.