WORLD URBAN FORUM 6

E-Dialogue Analysis

1. Introduction

the World Urban Forum IV e-dialogue platform was an enormous success, thanks to the concerted

and collaborative efforts from the entire team to make the most recent iteration of the e-dialogues a

success. The moderation team of Shipra Narang, James Duminy, Peter Robinson, Carlosfelipe Pardo,

Cornie Huizenga, Steve Miller, Edgar Pieterse and Fernanda Magalhaes were instrumental to the

daily functioning of the e-dialogues as they effectively monitored and controlled the flow of

discussion topics in their respective sections. Our platform administration team led by Bart Driessen

and Yvonne Rijpers ensured they smooth running of the platform by quickly patching up any glitches

during both the trial run and live launch of the World Urban Forum 6 e-dialogues. Finally, UN-

Habitat staff and their respective partners work tirelessly to ensure the successful operation of the

WUF 6 platform. UN-Habitat has been hosting an online discussion to start the debate prior to the

substantive Sessions of the Forum.

This debate builds on discussions of the previous fora and encourages a critical reflection of the

existing reality with a view to building a shared vision of the future. A significant part of the forum

discussion will generate an informed exchange on the implications of the fusion of urban with

society and what policy, strategic and operational preparations will be necessary. The forum will

provide an opportunity to grapple with the challenge of fostering prosperity and connecting it with

the opportunities of broadening improvements in the quality of urban life. As was the case in

previous World Urban Fora, the principles of sustainable urban development will inform the

discussions and an attempt will be made to further enrich our understanding of its implications in

the context of prevailing dynamics.

The Forum provided a platform to debate both historical and newly emerging factors for creating a

sustainable, inclusive and prosperous future; it examined mechanisms employed by successful cities

as well as the reasons why some cities have not become more prosperous. In addition the debates

were concerned with the types of partnerships that help emergent cities develop policies and plans

to meet the shared goals for urban‐based social and economic development that is environmentally

safe, equitable and sustainable.

2. Platform Strengths and Weaknesses

From a technical standpoint, the platform performed exceedingly well. The moderators carried out

a trial run one week prior to the live launch, which enabled us to rectify the vast majority of issues

prior to May 7th, 2012 when the platform went live. Accordingly, the period during the live running

of the WUF 6 platform we encountered minimal system issues and when a system issue was

encountered, Bart and his team generally addressed and fixed the issue in no longer than 24 hours.

Given the time constraints afforded to us in designing and developing this platform, the end result in

terms of stability, functionality, flexibility and interactivity was very acceptable, however there are

definitely areas in which improvements can be made if a ‘2.0’ version of the platform were to be

requested. The chief functional advantages of the WUF 6 platform over its predecessor are as

follows: The effective use of automated processes, the effective integration of social media and the

overall flexibility of the platform. Automated processes inherent to the platform included automatic

flagging of various words and phrases which may be offensive, instant notifications on content that

may be of interest to members and notifications to moderators on the general running of the

platform via the ‘Moderator Dashboard’. Social media plug-ins such as Facebook and Twitter

allowed us to engage the networks of our members while the flexibility of the platform allows us to

easily adapt it to other initiatives that we are engaged in if we so wished.

While the promotion of the platform through our internal and external channels definitely picked up

steam during the closing weeks, we should engage in such a marketing push at least a month prior to

the launch of the WUF 6 e-dialogues in order to maximize participation. The establishment of a

‘countdown page’ prior to the launch of the e-dialogues, allowed users to enter their name and

email in order to be notified once the dialogues went live and this will work well with an early

marketing strategy. The WUF 6 platform had a great emphasis on multimedia, however there was

no single place from which all photos and videos posted on the platform could be viewed. We

realized this to be a detriment as it required to comb through individual posts to locate a specific

multimedia file. A final improvement would be to separate ‘user posts’ and ‘moderator posts’ in

each of the dialogue themes. Moderators did have the ability to ‘highlight’ various posts, but for

posts that weren’t highlighted, finding a moderator thread among the multitudes of user threads at

times proved to be tedious.

In spite of the aforementioned drawbacks, more than 25,000 contributions have been made on the

e-debate platform located at the www.worldurbanforum.org. The discussion has been intensive,

engaging and enlightening. This “Snapshot” report serves merely to highlight some aspects of the

diverse dialogues that took place in the first two months of the e-debates, a precursor to enriching

the sixth sessions of the World Urban Forum and to take into consideration current and emergent

global thinking on our Urban Future. We discuss them in turn.

3. Dialogues

Dialogue 1

Urban Planning, Institutions and Regulations; Including the Improvement of Quality of Life

The E-debate on Urban Planning – Institutions and Regulations explored a number of themes related

to urban planning, a key instrument for guiding urban development and creating prosperity in cities.

Among the most significant challenges of urban planning today and in the next few decades is how

to make space available for structured urban growth, while avoiding sprawl or inefficient land use.

However, traditional modes of planning have largely proved ineffective in dealing with issues such as

slum formation, urban sprawl, and the impacts of climate change. The key assumption underpinning

this debate was that planning frameworks, including their tools, institutions and regulations, play a

significant role in determining the sustainability and liveability of cities. The challenge was to

understand exactly how this is manifested - what kind of policies, legislations, regulations and

institutions contribute positively to cities, and the reverse, which of these hamper cities’

productivity, sustainability and quality of life.

The E-Debate was divided into three broad segments. The first one dealt with overarching issues

such as urban challenges and urban policies, rural-urban migration, city greening, slums and poverty,

and as well densification vs. expansion. The second segment of the Debate explored issues related to

urban policies, legislations and institutions. The final segment discussed how the quality of public

spaces could be enhanced in cities, especially as conventional planning instruments, such as strict

separation of land uses through zoning, have actually led to the fragmentation of open spaces and

loss of urban quality. The integration of informal economic activity into public spaces was, inter alia,

a significant dimension explored in this segment.

The E-debate on planning was lively and interactive on a number of key issues, many of which were

not in fact initiated by the moderators. The most popular topic was ‘infrastructure, investment and

job creation’ as expected, possibly participants felt most comfortable posting there rather than

under one of the more specialized headings. Surprisingly, the discussion on rural-urban migration

also had quite a few takers, whereas this is a subject international professionals tend to take for

granted. The discussion on reforming urban policies, institutions and legislation did not attract as

much responses as the moderators had hoped for – this is clearly a new area and probably seen as

very “technical” or specialized.

Some interesting strands emerged from the E-Debate for further exploration – it is impossible to

label them as conclusions or recommendations and they must not be treated as such but instead

should provide the starting point for discussions during the WUF Dialogue on Urban Planning.

The first emergent theme was that an explicit ethical basis or direction (or at least intention) is

needed for planning, beyond any technical principles. The Right to the City framework can provide

such a basis and can help make cities more equitable and sustainable. At the same time, equity and

sustainability also requires meaningful and effective public participation. This in turn depends

significantly on not only political but also “professional” will, i.e. the willingness of planners to cede

their ‘turf’ and empower citizens to decide on what their community, neighbourhood or city should

look like. Furthermore, urban planning alone cannot determine a sustainable future for all – rural

and urban development must go hand in hand, and integrated planning efforts (for instance through

a national urban policy) could ensure a proper distribution of population across different sizes and

classes of settlements. Proper land management must form an integral part of urban planning, even

though that is not the case in many cities and countries. This is essential both to capture the land

value generated from the process of development, as well as to prevent the formation and

expansion of slums. Additionally, legislative change must accompany sectorial or other reforms.

The objective of these macro-level changes is, of course, to improve the quality of life in cities. One

important element of this would be an improvement in the quality of public spaces, to making them

inclusive and accessible to all sections of society. Diversity of public spaces in cities, and their ability

to accommodate a variety of uses, interests and activities, are key characteristics of good urban

planning and inclusive public spaces.

Key quotes:

‘While the cities, municipalities and provinces comply with this planning mandate, the challenge lies

on providing investments and appropriate budgets to fund projects and programs as reflected in their

plans.’

..’The Slum Rehabilitation Authority of the state government invited international bids for

redevelopment unfortunately, the proposal did not get off the ground; not on account of lack of

participation but due to political apathy.’

‘Urban planning and urban design can help to draw more socially integrated spaces but

complementary regulation will be necessary to cross-subsidize more affordable land and housing.’

A few bullet points on emerging issues are listed below.

In addition to the seven basic principles of planning enunciated by UN-HABITAT, what can be

a consensual or at least a common view on the ethical basis for planning?

What are the variations to these seven principles – their adaptation to different contexts?

Urban planning, urban economy and urban governance are inextricably linked – How can we

ensure that they are addressed together ?

Densification can be an effective response to urban sprawl. At the same time, can slum

redevelopment be a simple and efficient low-cost strategy towards densification? What

would make it work?

What legislative and policy changes are needed for effective slum redevelopment and urban

renewal?

Instead of trying to put a halt to rural-urban migration, how can governments/policy-makers

be guided to prepare integrated national plans or urban policies to ensure a balanced

pattern or urbanization?

If a planner’s role is increasingly that of a mediator of different interests, what are the

changes needed in planning education and professional training?

How can increased land values be captured for public interest? What are the legislative,

policy and capacity changes required?

Can good public spaces truly be designed or planned? Is there something such as over-

planning” a public space, which can lead to loss of spontaneity?

How can the often divergent interests of different stakeholders – informal traders, the

middle classes, commuters, the elderly and otherwise vulnerable, etc – be reconciled in city

planning, especially in the development and use of public spaces?

Dialogue 2

Equity and Prosperity: Distribution of Wealth and Opportunities

There was general consensus around the notion of equity as being important for signalling the

realities of urban ‘inequality traps’, operating through multiple dimensions including those of

income/wealth, spatial location and mobility, administrative justice, gender relations, and so on.

Furthermore, equity indicates a promising approach to analyse and intervene in cities. Urban issues

such as livelihood and access to vital resources (food, water, etc.) can be interpreted and

incorporated into policy from an ‘equity perspective’, which takes into account social and spatial

differences in historical inequality and capacity when distributing economic goods, public services

and access to urban opportunities of all kinds (public space, employment and livelihood

opportunities, and so on).

Discussion on the issue of whether ‘equality’ or ‘equity’ approaches are more suited to thinking

about economic development and urban policy started with an early recognition that the two are

not mutually exclusive and policy should be informed by elements of each.

When reading about ‘equity’ in relation to cities, it is clear that people mean different things when

they use the term. We can see at least four overlapping meanings:

Firstly, ‘equity’ is used as an analytical concept. In economics, for example, the concept of ‘social

equity’ points to the distribution of capital, goods and access to services throughout an economy,

and is measured using tools such as the Gini index.

Secondly, ‘equity’ can refer to a way of seeing and understanding certain critical issues in a more

general way. An ‘equity perspective’ of transportation and environmental sustainability, for

example, would signal that understanding and responding to these issues requires that we take

historical differences between social groups into account.

Thirdly, in discussions of urban policy ‘equity’ is often used as a normative ideal or principle, which

we can and should move towards (in the same way that other concepts such as integration,

sustainability and participation are often presented as principles to inform urban policies).

Finally, ‘equity’ may refer to a certain approach to policy and city making, where social groups are

treated differently according to their historical experiences of exclusion or injustice. This can be

contrasted with policy approaches based on the notion of ‘equality’, where all people are treated

equally despite their individual or group differences.

With these differences in mind, this topic sought to provoke discussion on what is meant by the term

‘equity’, and what an ‘equitable city’ could be. It was noted that a basic definition of equity as

‘equality of opportunity and avoidance of absolute deprivation’ resounds and intersects with a

rights-based approach to development in that ‘avoidance of absolute deprivation’ will invariably

include targeted interventions to better the standard of living for the most poor, marginalized and

vulnerable groups in the city. In this sense, some minimum standards and conditions will have to be

put in place before we have a ‘level playing field’ and equality of opportunity.

A report entitled ‘Equity in development’, produced by the Overseas Development Institute, argued

that a better definition of equity rests upon three key principles:

1. Equal life chances: There should be no differences in outcome based on factors for which people

cannot be held responsible.

2. Equal concern for people’s needs: Some goods/services are matters of necessity and should be

distributed proportional to people’s level of need and nothing else.

3. Meritocracy: Positions in society and rewards should be distributed to reflect differences in

effort and ability, based on fair competition.

These principles were seen as useful and comprehensive, highlighting the central and crucial link

between equity and the appropriate distribution of developmental outcomes (as opposed to equal

treatment within development processes). From a human rights perspective, such principles

necessitate community participation and empowerment to ensure that local needs are adequately

reflected and prioritised in developmental procedures.

The issue of spatial equity was also raised, emphasising the need to promote access to land, housing

and affordable public transportation as a route to a more equitable urban future.

The right to the city is emerging as an important political concept, gaining traction in policy circles

internationally (see the attached document produced by UNESCO and HIC on the right to the city

and urban policy in India). It states that all people who inhabit cities should have the right to share

equally in the resources and opportunities that these places have to offer. The right to the city

demands that we have the right to change the way that cities are produced, to shape the city ‘after

our heart’s desire’. According to this idea, the social ‘use value’ of urban land should be prioritized

above its ‘exchange value’.

It was generally agreed that the right to the city concurs with an equity perspective of development,

which adds several progressive principles to conventional policy discourse. These include: equality in

the usage of public space; an emphasis on promoting quality of life in cities; the right for women to

live free from violence and fear in cities; the right to administrative justice and free, fair and open

government; as well as the need to recognize and support the social function of land and property.

Although cities are the sites of economic production and innovation, they are also places of social

and spatial inequality. In contexts where urban planning and governance has not been effective to

manage rapid urbanization, severe inequalities have been created and reproduced. Indeed, the

recent State of the World’s Cities Report 2010/2011 (UN-Habitat) used the framework of ‘The Urban

Divide’ to analyse the complex social, political, economic and cultural dynamics of contemporary

urban environments. The proliferation of laissez faire or free-market urban growth regimes

internationally, over the past three decades, has accelerated this growing divide.

Endogenous development approaches based on human rights principles were emphasized as

potential responses. This alternative approach highlighted the efficacy of development approaches

that emphasize community buy-in; capacity development; the consolidation and utilization of local

knowledge, which transcend mere government obligations to provide for citizens according to a

(narrowly defined) rights based approach.

The issue of land access and security of tenure was raised very early on in the eDebate, as a

potential means to address pervasive urban spatial and income inequalities. Most discussion centred

on the basic issues of land ownership – how should land tenure be conceptualized and managed?

Some disagreement emerged over whether private land ownership (seeing as encouraging

individualism) should be allowed. One user argued, ‘individuals should not be allowed own land (by

law, custom, culture or any other code) but they should be able to access it and use it for their own

survival and the survival of the nation’. Others disagreed, positing that private ownership is

important because ‘people always have a tendency of taking care of what they own. Unfortunately,

if they don’t own land, they will strive to maximize its use for the predetermined period at the

expense of the future generations’. The compromise position appeared to be that that government

ought to better regulate land ownership ‘without unnecessary infringement of people or private

right to land or property ownership’.

A specific strategy of land management, based on providing low-income residents with long-term

leases, was singled out as an example:

International human rights law recognizes everyone’s right to an adequate standard of living,

including adequate housing. Despite the central place of this right within the global legal system,

well over a billion people are not adequately housed. Millions around the world live in life- or health-

threatening conditions, in overcrowded slums and informal settlements, or in other conditions which

do not uphold their human rights and their dignity. Furthermore, millions are forcibly evicted, or

threatened with forced eviction, from their homes every year.

These issues demand a new approach to housing, to ensure that people’s rights to safe shelter and

livelihood are realized as one route to achieving equitable cities. During the eDebate, most

discussion around housing strategy arose in response to a call inviting readers to contribute to the

UN-HABITAT Global Housing Strategy 2025. It was agreed that there are important synergies

between housing and jobs, both in terms of the jobs that are created during housing construction,

and the possibilities for end users to access employment and livelihood following the handover of

houses.

Key points emerging:

Greater policy coordination is required to link job creation and housing provision, and as well a

need to focus on economic activities to empower lower income citizens to move into the formal

housing market.

The state should play a role in housing provision, although redefinition of its role is needed, in

light of the consequences of previous laissez faire approaches.

Major challenges facing housing programmes include the upgrading of existing slums, as well as

the prevention of new slum formation. The best solution is advance planning and enabling

access to land; however, where it is sometimes necessary to relocate slum dwellers for reasons

of safety or planning, these projects should be sensitive to context.

Supporting and working with community structures and organized movements of slum dwellers

is a major way to promote community participation in housing projects, and ensure their

sustainability.

Urban planning is a key activity within conventional urban management systems, but as a

normative profession (i.e. a practice of setting norms and directing spatial relations and activities

according to these) it possibly lacks the ‘proactive tools’ to deliver sustainable communities,

especially those living in slums. On the other hand, despite this normativity and association with

legality, planning is still a key instrument for optimizing urban infrastructural (including housing)

investments in space and time. Nevertheless, better institutional coordination is needed to

enable planning to be an effective activity.

The issue of spatial (in) equity was identified as a key way of understanding how inequalities

manifest in cities, and how they are reproduced. In addressing space inequality, participants

identified the development of equitable public transportation systems as a key strategy. Innovative

examples such as the use of cable cars to provide access to low-income areas in various South

American cities were cited, although it was warned that all such initiatives have to be informed by

context and participation (what do local residents want for their neighbourhoods?).

A popular early topic centred on the issue of access to water, and other vital resources more

generally. Users were encouraged to reflect on their personal experiences and stories. Generally,

users considered that water management debates should take into account the factors influencing

water demand, rather than supply issues exclusively, proposing that people be ‘responsible for their

own [consumption] through the use of harvesting water systems’, for example. Similar points were

raised with respect to urban food security – putting the responsibility on consumers to use resources

sustainably, and to produce their own. The integration of formal and informal water supply networks

was identified as one potential strategy for promoting affordable access to safe water in developing

cities.

It was emphasized that access to water has a gendered dimension. One user explained that more

research is needed into the ‘gender gaps’ affecting the provision of essential services in

communities, as well as the ‘opportunity costs’ affecting women (i.e. the time spent collecting water

that could have been spent productively otherwise).

Although participation forms a cornerstone of planning and development policies amongst many

government and international agencies, seldom do these official procedures lead to real community

cooperation and co-ownership. Centralized and bureaucratic approaches to urban planning also tend

to ignore the potential contributions of informal workers to local development. Local governments

in most developing countries seldom engage in partnerships with groups of the working poor.

However, membership-based organizations of the working poor are forming national, regional and

global alliances to challenge prevailing, exclusive planning ideologies and practices. There is a need

to fully explore experiences of participatory planning involving groups of informal workers so that

we can deepen the understanding of the rules that structure their participation; to assess progress

towards securing the livelihoods of these informal workers; to assess the potential and constraints of

participatory platforms’ ability to influence public policies, and to understand what the necessary

paradigms shifts are within the field of urban planning. Several International Labour Organization

(ILO) research papers were shared on this topic.

The second major point raised concerned the need for creative methods of involving urban

residents, especially young people and vulnerable groups, in the production of urban infrastructures

and public space. It was suggested that forms of popular media (magazines, accessible websites,

museum exhibitions targeted at schools, etc.), as well as public art projects are means of driving

public interest in urban planning and development issues. Geospatial mapping (including

participatory GIS techniques) of cities was also highlighted as a key practice leading to greater

community involvement in planning procedures, and more informed planning practices.

On Safer cities, security and crime prevention posters emphasized the need to think about how

different social groups in the city have different types of security arrangements, different levels of

access to administrative justice, and may be more or less vulnerable to criminalization through

official policy and legal systems. Equity as a principle of the application of justice (i.e. in the court

system) has therefore been considered implicitly. One user argued that an equity perspective should

take a more holistic approach to understanding a concept such as urban security (i.e. incorporating

gender, environmental and land tenure aspects).

Key points:

We need to nuance our understandings of urban security issues in order to improve the efficacy

of our responses.

Certain groups in society are more likely to commit offenses and enter the criminal justice

system, due to their historical experiences of dispossession and lack of access to income and

welfare opportunities. Treating all people in society according to the same standards of justice

may therefore encourage persistent inequality.

Urban areas are affected by different types and levels of violence and insecurity, including

domestic violence, corruption, risk from natural disasters, rape, child labour, vigilante justice,

amongst other problems.

Community planning should move beyond ‘punitive’ models of society, and should have the

objective of increasing social capital and cohesion, bringing more ‘humanism’ into daily life.

Community-based security systems are extremely effective in many countries. In Asian contexts,

it is often a major rationale and driving force for community organization, especially in poor

contexts where it is necessary and desirable for communities to have organized systems to

provide security.

Security issues are linked to land issues – poor land management can encourage the growth of

slums and hence physical vulnerability and land tenure insecurity.

Planners working in developing contexts often face highly complex issues relating to safety. They

need to take clearly defined steps to anticipate and combat these issues, ensuring a safe

environment for development – the example of the Cato Manor Development Project (Durban,

South Africa) was given.

Gender sensitive research methodologies can be used to provide more accurate pictures of

urban safety issues, and to develop appropriate responses. Groups such as Women in Cities

International use the women’s safety audit methodology to gather data on where women feel

unsafe in cities, and why.

Urban design is one area of action for safety issues – one example cited was the Violence

Prevention through Urban Upgrading (VPUU) project in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. This project

took an approach based on promoting social, situational and institutional forms of crime

prevention simultaneously.

Even in relatively successful cases such as the VPUU project, attention must be paid to how

international planning methods are adapted to local contexts and how this informs their

sustainability and replication. There have to be better ways of defining how key successes can be

documented and incorporated into policy and planning systems.

Interventions targeted at the livelihoods of the poor urban youth should be emphasized, with

efforts made to provide minor vocational skills to support already existent social capital and

entrepreneurial skills.

Three topics were created to highlight gender issues relating to urban development and inequality.

The first tried to generate debate on the role played by women in economic development – recent

evidence shows that women entering the workforce has accounted for a large proportion of

economic growth over the past decade. The second sought to highlight women’s unequal

experiences and ‘opportunity costs’ relating to urban poverty. The third and final topic looked at

strategies to empower women through strategies relating to land and housing.

Ideas on how to solve gendered poverty traps varied from the programmatic (we should collect

‘facts and figures about women in development planning and ensure that gender and development

are considered in the realm of local and national planning, investment programming and budgeting’)

to the pragmatic (‘Practically, the best option for improving the lives of vulnerable girls and women

living in our cities is to promote their access to vocational training. Encourage them to learn quick

skills of tailoring, hairdressing, catering, sports, modeling, Arts/Music performers, etc.’).

Key points:

An increase in female employment has been the main driving force of global economic growth in

the past couple of decades. Evidence shows that poverty incidence tends to be lower in

countries with more gender equality. However, a number of obstacles prevent women from

engaging in paid work, especially in low-income urban areas.

Women experience an unequal burden of poor water and sanitation services. Poor delivery of

basic services often leads to an increase in opportunity costs for women due to the time spent

collecting water, bathing children, washing clothes, and so on, locking them out of opportunities

for education, employment and training. These issues have to be taken into account in the way

that policies are made and implemented.

Capacity building, education (confronting illiteracy), as well as vocational and entrepreneurial

training are key areas of intervention.

In many countries, the relationship women have to men – for example as wives or daughters –

defines their access to land. This leaves women particularly disadvantaged in cases of

relationship breakdown, widowhood or changing priorities of landowners.

Exclusion of women from access to land pushes them from rural areas to cities, and especially

slums, where they often join the ranks of female-headed households. As a result, female-headed

households typically represent high proportions of the poorest living in informal settlements

worldwide.

Creating community structures at the grassroots level is a way of promoting the empowerment

of women in land and housing planning. In India, initiatives in this regard ‘give special focus on

community organization with the help of thrift and credit mechanisms, and linking them with

supplementary support for education, skill development, preventive healthcare, finance,

marketing facilities, etc.’ Such initiatives are now being consolidated within India’s National

Urban Livelihood mission five year plan.

The eDebate featured a wide variety of topics, with differing levels of detail and experience evident

amongst the various comments. Relatively few were relevant to the original intention of the ‘Equity

and prosperity of cities’ dialogue, which was to discuss ‘the distribution of wealth and opportunities’

through examples of innovative redistributive policy, despite efforts to create topics along the lines

of income inequality, economic development, and potential policy responses. The most important

and recurrent cross-cutting issue was that of gender. It was consistently emphasized as a primary

category for analyzing, creating policies for, and intervening in urban development. For example,

urban data and policy systems should be attuned to the fact that access to basic vital resources, such

as water, varies considerably between income classes and sexes in many cities. Safety and security

issues also manifest differently between sexes and age groups. Appropriate equity-based responses

necessarily must take these issues into account.

Dialogue 3

Equity and Prosperity of Cities

Although for sake of analysis, the over 40 different topics which made up the eDebate have been

organized in terms of the above six clusters, these clusters are at times interrelated. By analyzing the

above clusters and their interrelationships, we can arrive at a certain number of recommendations

on emerging issues to address at the World Urban Forum.

One contributor states that public employment programmes can support job creation in all of the six

thematic areas (clusters) discussed above. Since a number of contributions argued that municipal

governments and public authorities cannot hope to create jobs for the huge numbers of

unemployed, the role of public employment programmes deserve careful scrutiny, particularly in

light of the conventional wisdom that enterprise and private sector development are the most

promising routes for job creation. Public employment programmes can be a realistic complement to

the standard approaches to job creation which are based on training and private sector

development, and this this alternative should not be rejected out of hand, as is often the case,

without a careful analysis and costing of its feasibility.

In the framework of the eDebate it is argued: While such programs take many forms, their common

feature is that the government employs citizens to carry out work, usually within the local

community. Often the local communities have also strong influence in determining the type of work

to be done. Such work can include a wide range of activities and include work related to many of the

six clusters [identified above].

There are many examples of such programs around the world, and while they have traditionally

been more common in rural areas, there is increasing experience in urban and peri-urban areas. In

South Africa the Community Works Programme (CWP) is active in urban gardening (food security) as

well as health and child care amongst other activities that are highly relevant in urban areas. In

Indonesia the PNPM Urban program implements a range of urban infrastructure projects.

One participant stressed the importance of finding integrated – nexus - solutions to the need for

adequate access to the three key resources of water, energy and agriculture, in order to ensure

sustainable cities. It was argued that globalization is the basic cause of the lack of local employment

opportunities. Rising energy costs may negatively impact on transportation costs and have a positive

impact on locally produced resources, such as urban agriculture.

Similarly, another participant argues:

Drawing on Markusen and Schrock’s concept of consumption-driven urban development (2009), we

recommend urban farming as a target for strategic investment in the local consumption base, with

the expectation that such investment will catalyze changes in spending in favor of locally produced

goods, the substitution of local products for imported ones, the renewed attractiveness of urban

neighborhoods for skilled workers entrepreneurs, and potentially the development of new “traded

clusters” centered on food and food products.

With respect to the linkage between transportation infrastructure development and the issue of

‘greening the urban environment’, in the past there have been serious distortions in that available

money has gone into urban infrastructure construction. Far too much has gone into transport and

especially roads, subsidizing middle classes in their car-driving habits and with pitifully little going

into sidewalks to give the poor at least some comfort in their getting around the city, lacking cars

and with uncomfortable and heavily polluting informal ‘public’ transport. This has been called (I

think with justification) socialism for the rich and laissez faire for the poor.

The above contributions illustrate how different thematic aspects of urban job creation (urban

agriculture, infrastructure, informal economy) are linked to the question of local economic

development and specifically to local employment generation. Specifically, infrastructure

development not only supports productivity and job creation in the formal economy, but also

improves prospects (working conditions, levels of remuneration, market access, etc.) in the informal

economy.

The eDebate proved useful in generating new ideas and pooling resources on job creation in cities. A

number of areas were identified where municipalities can intervene to stimulate job creation, such

as urban agriculture, environmental improvements, helping young people start their own

businesses, training geared to the needs of local labour markets and public employment

programmes.

However, it must be recognized that the level of discourse was uneven and, as one participant put it,

there was at times “a certain lack of thinking,” particularly in terms of implementing the ideas

proposed. The “shoulds” generally outweighed the “how to”s. As a result, it is worthwhile to reflect

on how to best carry forward the ideas raised, either in terms of further research, or in terms of the

policies required for their implementation.

Indeed the first issue which was not sufficiently explored relates to the title of the eDebate itself,

namely, that of “Productive Cities: urban job creation.” Are those strategies required to make cities

more productive, identical to those required to create new jobs? Productivity enhancement can be

interpreted as making municipalities and local businesses “leaner and meaner” implying in some

cases laying off municipal workers, privatizing municipal services, and regulating or eliminating

(informal and other) employment generating activities which are perceived to be environmentally

detrimental. All of these productivity enhancing measures could be detrimental to job creation.

On the other hand, if productivity enhancing measures (new infrastructure investments, improved

working conditions and returns to labour) help industries to grow and provide new fiscal revenues to

municipalities, this could be beneficial to job creation. More work is required to determine, at the

level of municipalities, which productivity-enhancing measures will foster and which ones will be

detrimental to job creation. In the event that trade-offs between productivity and employment exist,

policy advice will be required to help municipalities decide which avenue to pursue in line with local

government priorities.

What is the relationship between informal employment and informal settlements? How can slum

upgrading schemes best create employment? Urban development policy often carries a quasi-

exclusive focus on the built environment or on the demographic dimensions of cities, thereby

neglecting their economic dimension. “Cities without Slums” initiatives have often suffered from this

focus on the built or physical environment. However, more work is required to determine if housing,

slum upgrading and infrastructure improvements actually lead to more, better and sustainable jobs.

Specific research and policy questions include:

What can be done to improve employment (incomes, working conditions, market accessibility,

etc.) for those who work from or out of their homes? Solutions can range from business

development services, more appropriate housing design, registration services and innovative

mixed zoning regulations.

Are informal employment and informal settlements positively correlated? Will programmes to

eliminate slums (or upgrade informal settlements) help create formal employment – or

conversely, will programmes to create decent work help to eliminate slums? Often it is assumed

that the informal economy provides goods and services for those living in informal settlements.

However, informal settlements can also be seen as reserve or bedroom communities for cheap

labour for formal sector enterprises. Also, the goods and services produced or sold by the

informal economy may well find themselves integrated into the supply chains of the formal

economy.

The role of public employment programmes deserves careful scrutiny, particularly in light of the

convention wisdom that enterprise and private sector development are the most promising

routes for job creation. Public employment programmes can be a realistic complement to the

standard approaches to job creation which are based on training and private sector

development.

One participant stressed the importance of finding integrated – nexus - solutions to the need for

adequate access to the three key resources of water, energy and agriculture, in order to ensure

sustainable cities. Similarly, another participant recommends urban farming as a target for

strategic investment in the local consumption base, with the expectation that such investment

will catalyze changes in spending in favour of locally produced goods, the substitution of local

products for imported ones, the renewed attractiveness of urban neighbourhoods for skilled

workers entrepreneurs, and potentially the development of new “traded clusters” centered on

food and food products.

‘in the past there have been serious distortions in that available money has gone into urban

infrastructure construction. Far too much has gone into transport and especially roads, subsidizing

middle classes in their car-driving habits and with pitifully little going into sidewalks to give the poor

at least some comfort in their getting around the city, lacking cars and with uncomfortable and

heavily polluting informal ‘public’ transport.’

Key points emerging:

Overall, the eDebate proved useful in generating new ideas and pooling resources on job creation in

cities. A number of areas were identified where municipalities can intervene to stimulate job

creation, such as urban agriculture, environmental improvements, helping young people start their

own businesses, and training geared to the needs of local labour markets and public employment

programmes. However, the level of discourse was uneven and the following issues merit further

exploration, either in terms of research, or in terms of the policies required for their

implementation:

More work is required to determine, at the level of municipalities, which productivity-enhancing

measures will foster and which ones will be detrimental to job creation. In the event that trade-offs

between productivity and employment exist, policy advice will be required to help municipalities

decide which avenue to pursue in line with local government priorities.

What is the relationship between informal employment and informal settlements? How can slum

upgrading schemes best create employment? More work is required to determine if housing, slum

upgrading and infrastructure improvements actually lead to more, better and sustainable jobs.

Dialogue 4

Urban Mobility, Energy and Environment

Sustainability, low carbon and the development of new urban agendas: The e-debate had

considerable discussion related to the issue of the agendas that sustainability (and, to an extent, the

new “low carbon” term) have developed and how they can be addressed properly to create real

solutions and avoid becoming “buzz words” only. For instance, cities where urban policies are

“rebranded” as sustainable in writing, but the implementation of such policies does not reflect the

meaning or does not generate the expected impacts of sustainability is an example of this issue; This

specific topic/posting was the most reiterative, with greatest amount of responses (28) and with a

considerable amount of followers (10).

Knowledge transfer between developing and developed countries: good and best practices from

developing cities have shown that those cities can also provide examples for others in the world, and

that knowledge transfer should be enhanced in all directions, balancing out the predominance of

“developed cities as the only best practices”;

The topic of transport is a longstanding concern of cities, but one which has been increasingly

transformed throughout the past few decades from traditional urban transport approaches to one

where sustainability has a more predominant role, thus creating a more comprehensive debate on

public transport, non-motorized transport and travel demand management as instruments of

change. This was evident in discussions, and most participants who discussed the topics related to

urban transport were of the view that sustainability was a core issue to be included in all debates

related to urban transport. As was seen in the tag cloud, transport is one of the more predominant

terms, and the term “transport” arose in more than one third of the posts.

Two important and re-occurring questions focused on the nexus of urban energy and the green

economy: How to enhance consumer demand for low carbon, energy efficient technologies,

especially in cities in developing countries; and how to support/create a sector for local production

of these technologies? This is especially relevant for Africa. Building sustainable cities is also an

economic opportunity that should benefit the cities directly, by job creation and generation of

revenues. This is the way green economy and sustainable urbanization can go hand in hand.

The impact of modernist planning on sustainable cities: The great impact that modernism generated

on the planning and development of cities seems to have relevance in discussions, and it would be

useful to take it up in discussions as well. This is referred to the fact that, during the first half of the

twentieth century, many planners proposed the development of cities of large infrastructure

(highways and buildings), in an effort to “organize” cities. This effort backfired in negative outcomes

ranging from lack of safety to a more generalized urban blight and sprawl – these discussions were

present in various topics, though one in particular which was the second most reiterative, had 18

responses, three “likes” and 7 followers.

Key points emerging:

People in the world today are more aware than ever of the importance of energy efficiency

and the need to develop suitable infrastructure for efficient public transportation networks.

The need for ‘regenerative cities’ as opposed to simply sustainable cities was identified to

meet the increased demands of a growing population.

Despite increased urbanization being correlated with increased energy use, increasing

population densities provides us with opportunities for more efficient energy use, sharing of

resources and investment costs.

Cities require well functioning transportation systems that do not solely rely on private car

ownership but also on public transport and non-motorized transport.

Incentives are required to encourage alternative forms of transport. Congestion charges

that have been implemented in London’s city centre have provided residents with a reason

to branch out to other forms of transport. Money generated from the congestion charges

are then invested in public transportation infrastructure.

Motorcycle use as an alternative to car ownership has substantially increased in parts of

South America such as Brazil, many countries in Asia and is catching on in African countries

such as Kenya.

Overall, the themes that have emerged from this dialogue centre on the notion of sustainability and

regeneration. As cities grow, increasing demand for energy and efficient transport are inevitable.

However, population density itself can be used as a positive opportunity for us to improve the

efficiency our energy use, generation and distribution of our energy resources. Moreover,

anticipating growth rates and building public transportation infrastructure is vital to avoid many of

the congestion problems we see today in many of the world’s cities.

Providing citizens with incentives to warrant energy efficiency or to utilize alternative forms of

transport will be important in the short-term. In an ideal scenario, citizens will adopt such measures

with long-term prosperity in mind without the requirement of short-term incentives. However the

success of measures such as congestion charges coupled with tax cuts that many cities are offering

on low-emission transport solutions appear to be enticing citizens to ditch their traditional habits for

more energy efficient alternatives.

The key to meeting our cities’ energy and transport requirements will be planning ahead to

anticipate growth rates while offering efficient and innovative solutions to manage our finite

resources effectively.

4. Lessons Learned

The titles of each of the dialogues should be as specific as possible. For example, the theme

‘sustainable’ cities encompasses a great deal beyond the energy and transport issues that

we were looking for in this dialogue and thus generated posts outside the realm of what we

were looking for.

Despite a substantial number of participants during the peak of the e-dialogues, this number

could have been significantly increased if we had strengthened the advertising of the WUF 6

e-dialogues and engaged internal and external partners at least 3-4 weeks earlier.

The trial run of the e-dialogues was a great success and significantly reduced technical issues

during the live launch of the e-dialogues. A future edition of the e-dialogues should strongly

consider implementing a trial run.

The administrator forum, which was first introduced for the WUF 6 e-dialogues greatly

enhanced internal communication between moderators and UN-Staff by providing an ‘on

the go’ FAQ portal in which peers were able to assist each other.

The platform should allow for greater flexibility for similar posts to be grouped together

without the need to delete posts that are too similar, thereby discouraging the person who

posted it.