SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities

By Daria Cibrario, Public Services International (PSI)

In October 2016 over 30,000 representatives of national, regional and local governments, trade unions, business, academia, urban planning and civil society gathered in Quito, Ecuador, for the Habitat III Conference (HIII), where state representatives adopted the New Urban Agenda (NUA), [fn]UN General Assembly (2016), quoted in the following as NUA. [/fn] the UN guidelines meant to serve as a reference for urbanization policies for the next 20 years. The NUA is directly related [...]

By Anita Pleumarom, Tourism Investigation and Monitoring Team

With increased global economic integration, a new form of airport-centric commercial development has emerged and is spreading rapidly worldwide. As nodes in global production systems offering speed and connectivity, ‘city airports’ are being transformed into ‘airport cities’, or so-called ‘aerotropolises’. Like other cities, the aerotropolis consists of a central core with rings of development permeating outwards. But its core is an airport, and all surrounding development supports and is, in turn, supported [...]

By Alana Dave, International Transport Federation (ITF)

Urban transport is a sector where the industrial and the political are very closely linked. Public transport is an essential service relied upon by millions of people globally. Public authorities are lead industry players in both their role as employers and political decision-makers. The sector has massive strategic importance in the economic and social life of cities. So for labour, the struggle for power is not only in workplaces with employers (private and/or [...]

By Leilani Farha, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing, and Bruce Porter, Social Rights Advocacy Centre [fn]This article is based on the 2017 report of the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing to the Human Rights Council, see UN Human Rights Council (2017). [/fn]

SDG 11, “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” has the right to adequate housing at its core. Target 11.1 commits governments, by 2030, “to ensure access for all to adequate, safe [...]

By Daria Cibrario, Public Services International

Habitat III, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, will be convened in Quito, Ecuador, 17-20 October 2016. The objective of this conference is to reinvigorate the global commitment to sustainable urbanization and to focus on the implementation of a “New Urban Agenda.”[fn]Cf. UN Doc. A/RES/66/207. [/fn] This agenda can also be seen as the implementation programme for SDG 11 on inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities.

These are the 10 [...]