Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Matas Rivera
The city of the global south
First semester, 2015/2016 academic year
Introduction
According to data retrieved from the World Urbanization Prospects (Population
Division of DESA-UN, 2014), on the next 20 years the urban population of the world
will increase in the staggering amount of 1,4 billion people, which also implies that
by 20362 the urban population will represent the 63% of the entire world population.
Its under these projections that the Habitat Conference and the World Urban
Forum 3 , both sponsored by the United Nations, justify the urgency to gather
government officials, scholars, decision makers, NGOs and other influential world
leaders to debate and agree upon guidelines and actions, seeking to impact in the
most positive way possible the development of urbanization in the coming years.
The present essay is an attempt to reveal possible continuities and ruptures
between the official discourses of WUF7 and Habitat III, this in order to achieve a
better (if only partial) understanding of the international debate on urbanization in the
specific issue of urban equity, at the same time recognizing that despite the shared
topics, there are clear differences that set both events apart, most fundamentally
the fact that as an official UN Conference, Habitat has the potential of going further
than the non-legislative WUF in linking its outcomes to impacts on national
legislation, which essentially will shape the development of our Worlds cities.
(Paraschivoiu, 2014)
In particular, the Issue Papers that seemingly relate more directly to the debate addressed on WUF7
on urban equity, namely the Issue Paper on Inclusive Cities (2015), Issue Paper on Spatial Planning
and Design (2015) and the Issue Paper on Urban-Rural Linkages (2015)
2
The 20-year time span was chosen to coincide with the time span in-between Habitat Conferences.
3
The upcoming versions are Habitat III (Quito, 2016) and WUF9 (Kuala Lumpur, 2018)
4 With Joan Clos, former mayor of Barcelona, at the helm of UN-Habitat, it is not surprising that the
consensus has settled around what we might call the Barcelona model of the compact city(3)
5
From 2005 to 2012 poverty in Colombias two largest cities, Bogota and Medelln fell by an average
of 23.3%(2)
6 Inequality in Colombia`s urban centers grew by 15% between 1990 and 2010. () inequality is
growing faster in Colombia than in any other of the 18 Latin American countries studied by the UN.(4)
REFERENCES:
1) Brand P (2013) Governing inequality in the South through the Barcelona model:
social urbanism in Medelln, Colombia. Universidad Nacional de Colombia
2) DANE Colombia (2014) Pobreza Monetaria y Multidimensional 2013.
3) Datu, K (2014) The road to Habitat III: a wake-up call to the New Urban Agenda.
The Global Urbanist.