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Washington, D.C.-If global development priorities are not
reassessed to account for massive urban poverty, well over
half of the 1.1 billion people projected to join the world's
population between now and 2030 may live in under-serviced
slums, according to State
of the World 2007: Our Urban Future, released today
by the Worldwatch Institute. Additionally, while cities
cover only 0.4 percent of the Earth's surface, they generate
the bulk of the world's carbon emissions, making cities
key to alleviating the climate crisis, notes the report.
As recently as a century ago, the vast majority of the
world's people lived in rural areas, but by sometime next
year more than half of all people will live in urban areas.
Over 60 million people-roughly the population of France-are
now added to the planet's burgeoning cities and suburbs
each year, mostly in low-income urban settlements in developing
countries.
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State
of the World 2007 Home Page
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Unplanned and chaotic urbanization is taking
a huge toll on human health and the quality of the environment,
contributing to social, ecological, and economic instability in
many countries. Of the 3 billion urban dwellers today, 1 billion
live in "slums," defined as areas where people cannot
secure key necessities such as clean water, a nearby toilet, or
durable housing. An estimated 1.6 million urban residents die
each year due to lack of clean water and sanitation as a result.
"For a child living in a slum, disease and violence are daily
threats, while education and health care are often a distant hope,"
said Molly O'Meara Sheehan, State
of the World 2007 project director. "Policymakers need
to address the 'urbanization of poverty' by stepping up investments
in education, healthcare, and infrastructure." From 1970
to 2000, urban aid worldwide was estimated at $60 billion-just
4 percent of the $1.5 trillion in total development assistance.
The Commission for Africa has identified urbanization
as the second greatest challenge confronting the world's most
rapidly urbanizing continent, after HIV/AIDS. Only about 35 percent
of Africa's population is urban, but it is predicted that this
figure will jump to 50 percent by 2030. "The promise of independence
has given way to the harsh realities of urban living mainly because
too many of us were ill-prepared for our urban future," notes
Anna Tibaijuka, executive director of UN-HABITAT, in the report's
foreword.
State
of the World 2007 also describes how community groups and
local governments have emerged as pioneers of groundbreaking policies
to address both poverty and environmental concerns, in some cases
surpassing the efforts of their national governments. "The
task of saving the world's modern cities might seem hopeless-except
that it is already happening," said Christopher Flavin, president
of the Worldwatch Institute. "Necessities from food to energy
are increasingly being produced by urban pioneers inside city
limits."
Among the many examples of cities taking the lead in shaping a
sustainable future cited in the report:
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In Karachi, Pakistan,
the Orangi Pilot Project has linked hundreds of thousands of
low-income households in informal settlements with good-quality
sewers. By taking charge of the pipes connecting their houses
to lane sewers, local residents cut costs to a fifth of what
they would have been charged by the official water and sanitation
agency.
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In Freetown,
Sierra Leone, after the cessation of a multi-year civil
war, a swelling population has successfully turned to urban
farming to meet much of its food demand.
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In Rizhao, China,
a government program enabled 99 percent of households in the
central districts to obtain solar water heaters, while most
traffic signals and street and park lights are powered by solar
cells, limiting the city's carbon emissions and urban pollution.
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In Bogotá,
Colombia, engineers improved upon the iconic bus rapid transit
system of Curitiba, Brazil, to create the TransMilenio, which
has helped decrease air pollution, increase quality of life,
and inspire similar projects in Europe, North America, and Asia.
Cities around the world have also begun to take
climate change seriously, many in response to the direct threat
they face. Of the 33 cities projected to have at least 8 million
residents by 2015, at least 21 are coastal cities that will have
to contend with sea-level rise from climate change.
In the United States, over 300 cities-home to
more than 51 million Americans-have joined the U.S. Mayors' Climate
Protection Agreement, committing to reducing their emissions and
lobbying the federal government for a national climate policy.
Chicago, for example, has negotiated with a private utility to
provide 20 percent of the city government's electricity from renewable
sources by 2010, and aims to become "the most environmentally
friendly city in America." Not to be outdone, New York mayor
Michael Bloomberg recently announced plans for his city to become
the nation's leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
While no single set of "best practices"
would enable all cities to successfully address the challenges
of poverty and environmental degradation, State
of the World 2007 focuses on areas where urban leadership
can have huge benefits for the planet and human development. These
include providing water and sanitation services to the urban poor,
bolstering urban farming, and improving public transportation.
Additionally, the report recommends devoting more resources to
information gathering on urban issues so that city, national,
and international entities can better assess development priorities.
"A city is a collective dream. To build
this dream is vital," observes Jaime Lerner, the former governor
of Paraná, Brazil, and the former mayor of Curitiba, in
his foreword to the report. "It is in our cities that we
can make the most progress toward a more peaceful and balanced
planet, so we can look at an urban world with optimism instead
of fear."
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STATE OF THE WORLD 2007: Notable Trends
An Urbanizing World
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In the last half-century,
the world's urban population has increased nearly fourfold,
from 732 million in 1950 to more than 3.2 billion in 2006. (p.
7)
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Africa now has 350
million urban dwellers, more than the populations of Canada
and the United States combined. Asia and Africa are expected
to double their urban populations to roughly 3.4 billion by
2030. (p. 4)
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The vast majority
of net additions to the human population-88 percent of the growth
from 2000 to 2030-will be urban dwellers in low- and middle-income
countries. (p. 7)
Providing Clean Water and Sanitation
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Roughly half the
people in African and Asian cities lack healthy and convenient
water and sanitation. (p. 26)
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A million or more
infants and children die each year from diseases related to
inadequate water and sanitation, and hundreds of millions suffer
illness, pain, and discomfort. (p. 27)
- Local community organizations and nongovernmental
groups in the slums of Mumbai and Pune in India have designed,
built, and managed more than 500 public toilet blocks that are
safer, cleaner, and cheaper than standard facilities. (pp. 36-37)
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An estimated 800
million people are involved in urban farming worldwide. (p.
50)
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Consumers in urban
areas pay up to 30 percent more for food than people in rural
areas. In some cases, poor urbanites spend 60-80 percent of
their income on food. (pp. 51-52)
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Studies show that
people at farmers' markets have as many as 10 times more conversations,
greetings, and other social interactions than people in supermarkets.
(p. 53)
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Worldwide, 3.5-4.5
million hectares of land are irrigated with wastewater, which
is used on more than half of the urban vegetable supply in several
Asian and African cities. (p. 54)
Greening Urban Transportation
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On average, urban
car travel uses nearly twice as much energy as urban bus travel,
3.7 times more than light rail or tram system travel, and 6.6
times more than electric train travel. (p. 72)
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U.S. public transport
use in the first quarter of 2006 was more than 4 percent higher
than a year earlier. (p. 79)
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Between 2000 and
2005, voters in 33 U.S. states approved 70 percent of transport
ballot measures, generating more than $70 billion, much of it
for public transportation. (p. 84)
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Air pollution dropped
by 39 percent in Delhi after all buses were required to use
compressed natural gas (CNG) as a result of a suit brought against
the Indian government. By 2006, some 80,000 CNG vehicles were
registered in Delhi, including all public buses and mini-taxis.
(p. 74)
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Nearly one-fifth of the estimated 1.6 billion
people worldwide who lack access to electricity and other modern
energy services live in the world's cities. (p. 93)
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Globally, buildings account for more than
40 percent of total energy use. (p. 93)
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China now leads the world in the manufacture
and use of solar thermal systems, and Shanghai is a hotbed for
solar energy. (p. 97) About 250,000 Chinese work in the solar
industry. (p. 100)
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Some 650 local governments worldwide participate
in the Cities for Climate Protection Campaign of ICLEI-Local
Governments for Sustainability. (p. 103)
Reducing Natural Disaster Risk in Cities
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The number of people
affected by natural disasters jumped from 177 million a year
on average in the late 1980s to 270 million annually since 2001-a
more than 50 percent increase. (p. 113)
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Eight of the world's
10 most populous cities sit on or near earthquake faults, and
6 of the 10 are vulnerable to storm surges. (p. 115)
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Economic losses
worldwide from natural disasters in the 1990s could have been
reduced by $280 billion if an estimated $40 billion had been
invested in preventative measures. (p. 122)
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Only 1-3 percent
of households in low- and middle-income countries carry insurance
against natural disasters, compared with 30 percent in high-income
countries. (p. 125)
Charting a New Course for Urban Public Health
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In poorer countries,
urban areas often have the worst of all worlds, as the infectious
diseases of deep poverty and the so-called "diseases of
modernity" present a double burden. (p. 136)
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Urban air pollution
kills an estimated 800,000 people each year, roughly half of
them in China (p. 138)
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Each year, traffic
accidents kill about 1.2 million people and injure up to 50
million more. (p. 139)
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From Peru to India,
localities have improved human and environmental health by paying
attention to the views of their poorest citizens. (pp. 142-43)
Strengthening Local Economies
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The Emilia Romagna
region of northern Italy has more than 15,000 cooperatives,
which contribute over one-third of the region's GDP. (p. 157)
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By the end of 2004,
3,164 microcredit institutions had reached more than 92 million
clients, nearly 84 percent of them women.
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Worldwide, there
are more than 157 million credit union members in 92 countries.
(pp. 159-61)
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Sales of fair trade
products jumped 56 percent from 1997 to 2004, to 125,596 tons.
(p. 163)
Fighting Poverty and Environmental Injustice
in Cities
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For decades, governments
have struggled to limit urbanization and halt the growth of
cities. In a 2005 study of 164 countries, 70 percent aimed to
slow migration from rural to urban areas. (p. 176)
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Over the last two
decades, federations of urban poor have emerged from the grassroots.
Shack/Slum Dwellers International, an umbrella group of such
federations, now encompasses more than a dozen countries in
the Americas, Asia, and Africa. (pp. 178-79)
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Participatory budgeting,
first developed in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1988 to engage the
urban poor in setting community-level budgets, had spread to
some 200-250 municipalities in Brazil by 2006 and been adapted
in cities worldwide.
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Between 2000 and
2006, the total number of cities with participatory budgets
grew from 200 to roughly 1,200. (pp. 180-81)
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