Cities and the Problems with Concrete Jungles

Rio de Janeiro is a big city, and this week sustainable cities is the conversation topic of choice.

Rio+20, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, will bring over 50,000 people from across the globe in the hope of developing solutions to increasing sustainability issues.

One of the seven key focus areas is sustainable cities. An increasing number of people are moving to cities in pursuit of better standards of living. By 2050, over 70% of people will live in cities.

Mass migration causes problems though and here are just a handful under discussion:

– Transport and energy efficiency: in recent negotiations, one of the few things that all countries have agreed on has been the need to lessen the dependence of cities on cars. The irony being that most delegates would have endured a two-hour traffic riddled journey to the conference centre.

– Land use: in the past few years alone, millions of people have been affected by natural disasters from floods to fires, earthquakes and tsunamis. The poorest city dwellers tend to reside in the most disaster-vulnerable areas. A number of efforts are needed to rectify previous town planning failures including: zoning specific areas for farmland or green-space to limit urban sprawl; protecting vital water infrastructure and the movement of people away from high risk areas of disaster.

– Social issues: resettlement programs may begin positively as was the case in Port Elizabeth, South Africa for example but tend to end negatively, in this case it was violence. The loss of simple meeting places like central water wells led to the loss in social infrastructure and community stability. Without sensitive, consultative and appropriate ways of addressing urban marginalised populations these problems are inevitable.

– Economic matters: over a billion people currently live in “informal settlements” more popularly known as slums. These settlements will become the majority of the urban population in 2050. Much like the disaster-vulnerable communities, private sector investment has been seen as one potential option of improving this problem.

– The political system: of short-term cycles are not compatible with the long-term planning needed for sustainable and effective cities. With limited participation from the private sector, there has been little time dedicated to fixing fundamental problems

Today the Rio Dialogues will hold a plenary session devoted to sustainable cities. What will be discussed will inevitably affect the lofty aspirations of global and national governments. Their effect on the ground is yet to be seen. Whatever happens, the outcome is sure to be relevant to at least 70% of the future population.

By Sam Bowstead.