State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future

http://www.worldwatch.org/taxonomy/term/467

Chapter 1: An Urbanizing World

Kai N. Lee is Rosenburg Professor of Environmental Studies at Williams College in
Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Thanks to rapid urban growth not just in China but elsewhere in Asia and Africa, some time in
the coming year or so the population of the world will become mostly urban. By 2005, the
worlds urban population of 3.18 billion people constituted 49 percent of the total population of
6.46 billion. Very soon, and for the first time in the history of our species, more humans will live
in urban areas than rural places.
In parallel, human activity has emerged as an environmental force of planetary proportions,
replumbing watercourses, exterminating species, and altering the global climate. These changes
have brought unprecedented material gains to our species, particularly in the high-income
nations. Whether these gains can be shared with all of humanity, and whether they can be
sustained, are questions that now seem increasingly urgent, as the impact of humans on the
natural world can no longer be considered negligible.
At first sight, cities seem to be the problem rather than the solution: the number of people living
in slums has steadily increased, and industrial pollution in rapidly growing economies fouls water
and air. Yet the flow of people toward cities seems unlikely to stop or even slow, in part because
life chances and economic opportunities are often better in cities, even for many of the poor.
From that perspective, urbanization provides a crucial opportunity: to create living patterns
harmonized with natures rhythms as people continue to create urban habitat.

Chapter 2: Providing Clean Water and Sanitation

David Satterthwaite is a Senior Fellow at the Human Settlements Group and Gordon
McGranahan is Director of the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for
Environment and Development in London.
Clean, convenient water supplies for drinking and bathing and convenient toilets became routine
only in the last 100150 years. I n the 19th century, cities of the industrializing world were
notorious for being far less healthy than their rural surrounds, until the sanitary revolution
provided them with piped water and sewerage systems. Today, about 1 billion urban dwellers are
still waiting for their sanitary revolution.
The health costs of inadequate sanitation are very large. One million or more infants and children
still die each year from diseases related directly to inadequate provision of water and sanitation,
and hundreds of millions are debilitated by illness, pain, and discomfort.

Most examples of improved water and sanitation are underpinned by government recognition of
the legitimacy of the needs of unserved groups, including those who live in illegal settlements.
Organizations of the urban poor and other local nongovernmental groups also play an important
role in turning the sanitation situation around, demonstrating to governments the possibilities of
improved provision and the benefits of working together toward that end.

Chapter 3: Farming the Cities

Brian Halweil is a Senior Researcher and Danielle Nierenberg is a Research Associate at the
Worldwatch Institute.
Growing food and raising fish and livestock in cities is nothing new. In some ways, cities are
responding to the same challenges that urban gardeners have faced for millennia. The hanging
gardens in Babylon, for instance, were an example of urban agriculture, while residents of the
first cities of ancient Iran, Syria, and Iraq produced vegetables in home gardens. This is partly
because cities have traditionally sprung up on the best farmland: the same flat land that is good
for farming is also easiest for constructing office buildings, condominiums, and factories . The
masses of urban dwellers also create a perfect market for fresh fruits and vegetables.
Despite all that farming can do for the city landscape and the urban soul, politicians, businesses,
and planners continue to regard food as a rural issue that does not demand the same attention as
housing, crime, or transportation. Policymakers would be wise to realize the nutritional, social,
ecological, and economic benefits of reversing this mindset and putting programs in place to
encourage cities to feed themselves. Fortunately, urban politicians, businesses, and planners are
beginning to regard urban agriculture as a tool to help cities cope with a range of ecological,
social, and nutritional challengesfrom sprawl and malnutrition to swelling landfills and the
threat of attacks on the food chain.

Chapter 4: Greening Urban Transportation

Peter Newman is Professor of City Policy and Director of the Institute for Sustainability and
Technology Policy, and Jeff Kenworthy is Associate Professor in Sustainable Settlements at the
Institute, at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia.
While each city has its own transportation story, the past 30 years have seen an explosion in the
growth of cars in cities worldwide. In 1970, there were 200 million cars in the world, but by 2006
this had grown to more than 850 millionand the number is expected to double by 2030.
Heavily marketed and the symbol of success for any aspiring person from Boston to Belgrade to
Beijing, the car seems unstoppable.
A city needs a variety of transportation and land use options, not just one . Providing a wide
range of options can build resilience into an urban area, especially when it faces crises like
climate change and the peaking of world oil production, as well as the need to address a wide

range of economic and social functions through transportation . On average, urban car travel uses
nearly twice as much energy as urban bus travel, 3.7 times more than light rail or tram travel, and
6.6 times more than electric train travel.
In the past, transportation priorities have generally been set by engineers, not the public. Cities
need visions for how they can be transformed from car dependence and car saturation to greener
modes of transport. And they need political leaders who can overcome the various barriers that
prevent these visions from coming true.

Chapter 5: Energizing Cities

Janet Sawin is a Senior Researcher and Director of the Energy and Climate Change Program at
the Worldwatch Institute. Kristen Hughes is a research associate and doctoral candidate at the
Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, University of Delaware.
The Industrial Revolution happened in the blink of an eye. In the span of a few generations, cities
were transformed from dense areas of narrow streets with small, low dwellings to skyscrapers
and sprawling suburbs. Energy use surged as well, and the advent of the fossil fuel age, which
provided power for elevators, electric lights, and motor vehicles, enabled cities to become what
they are today.
Cities require energy to build infrastructure, to manufacture goods, to transport people, to prepare
food, and to light, heat, and cool buildings. The infrastructure itself, including streets, buildings,
bridges, and other urban features, represents large quantities of embodied energythe energy
invested in these structures during their lifetimes from the cradle of raw materials, to city block,
to eventual grave. Urban residents also consume large amounts of energy indirectly in the food
and other goods they import.
Today, cities have an unprecedented opportunity to change the way they supply and use energy.
New eco-cities such as Dongtan in China may show the way, even as existing cities turn to
technologies rooted in the pastfrom adobe architecture to passive solar heating. When
complemented by conservation, more-efficient technologies, and new decentralized, small-scale
energy services, these efforts can help cities confidently navigate the forthcoming peak of cheap
oil and natural gas production while reducing the impacts of climate change.

Chapter 6: Reducing Natural Disaster Risk in Cities

Zo Chafe is a Staff Researcher at the Worldwatch Institute.
Large natural disasters, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunamis, garner media attention, inspire
action, and remain emblazoned in our memories. But the suffering caused by chronic small-scale
urban disasters such as local flooding, water contamination, and landslides often escapes the
limelight. While cities are increasingly home to both types of disaster, they also serve as great
places for tackling the underlying issues that leave people vulnerable to these threats .

Although natural disasters are often presented as rare and unexpected tragedies, the reality is that
they now occur more frequently, affect more people, and cause higher economic damages than
ever before. Urban disaster risk reduction goes hand-in-hand with the aims of poverty reduction,
and it can easily be linked to international efforts to achieve a better standard of living for the
growing number of urban dwellers struggling to make ends meet.
Already w e are seeing hints of the ways that climate change will affect cities by amplifying
natural hazards, including sea- level rise. Of the 33 cities projected to have at least 8 million
residents each by 2015, some 21 are coastal cities that will have to contend with the impacts of
rising seas , however severe they may be.
Effective urban disaster risk management hinges on advocacy for risk awareness, good
governance, proper technical and communication infrastructure, and the empowerment of all
those who are at risk.

Chapter 7: Charting a New Course for Urban Public Health

Carolyn Stephens is a senior lecturer in environment and health at the London School of Hygiene
& Tropical Medicine and a visiting professor in the Federal University of Paran in Brazil. Peter
Stair, a former MAP Fellow at Worldwatch Institute, is a Masters candidate in the Department
of City and Regional Planning, University of CaliforniaBerkeley.
For millions of people around the world, cities are places of hope and growth, but also despair
and death. For a tiny minority, cities and towns are meccas of long life, health, and even luxury. F
or the majority of urban residents, however, they offer the hope of opportunity but are often only
home to pollution, disease, and insecurity.
As people move into low-income settlements that are vaster and denser than ever before, they are
struggling to prosper in environments at least as challenging as the cities of Victorian Europe.
These are places unable to draw in enough fresh water or to channel excrement away safely.
Residents live in dilapidated, intensely crowded homes. They have little access to health services,
and few are able to get the education or jobs that could raise them out of their situation. Although
cities have gained a reputation as healthy places to live, the urban poor often have higher rates of
infant deaths and under-five mortality than their rural counterparts.
Our urban future needs creative new solutions. Equity is perhaps the key to the more complex
social problems of citiesand it also can lead toward sustainability. A city where all residents
live together in peace, sharing the same spaces and the same resources, is far from todays urban
reality. A city where people think of the next generation and the planet as a whole is also far from
this reality. But neither vision is impossibleeither to imagine or to achieve.

Chapter 8: Strengthening Local Economies

Mark Roseland is Director of the Centre for Sustainable Community Development (CSCD) and a
professor in the Department of Geography at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.
Lena Soots is a researcher at the CSCD.
The wealth of a nation depends in large measure on the economic health of its cities. Strong local
economies are the foundation of strong communities that can grow and withstand the pressures
created by an increasingly urbanized world. And strong communities require a holistic approach
that not only provides the traditional deliverables of economic developmentjobs, income,
wealth, securitybut also protects the environment, improves community infrastructure,
increases and develops local skills and capacity, strengthens the social fabric, and respects
heritage and cultural identity.
While individual actions and lifestyle choices, such as buying organic produce, are important
personal contributions, strengthening local economies requires a collective shift in individual
actions and political choices. The cooperative economy of Emilia Romagna in northern Italy, the
Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, Vancity Credit Union in Vancouver, the Womens International
Sewing Cooperatives of Nueva Vida, and the campaigns for local trade across North America are
all examples of the potential of community mobilization to help strengthen local economies.
Strong local economies give communities the capacity and resources to address specific and
immediate problems such as the provision of health care, adequate housing, clean water and
sanitation, and disaster prevention and response. Human settlementslarge and small, rich and
poorneed strong local economies to withstand the pressures created by an increasingly
urbanized world.

Chapter 9: Fighting Poverty and Injustice in Cities

Janice E. Perlman, a Guggenheim Award recipient, is the founder and President of the MegaCities Project, an international nonprofit, and a former professor of city and regional planning
who consults widely on urban poverty and environmental justice issues. Molly OMeara Sheehan
is a Senior Researcher at the Worldwatch Institute and Project Director for State of the World
2007.
Poor urban neighborhoods face the worst of two worlds: the environmental health hazards of
underdevelopment, such as lack of clean drinking water, and of industrialization, such as toxic
wastes. Yet their residents tread lightly on the planet, using few resources and generating low
levels of waste in comparison with their wealthier neighbors. The gap between rich and poor in
cities from Nairobi to New York means that those with the fewest resources suffer most from
pollution generated by the wealthiest.
What can be done to make our urban future a desirable and sustainable one? What kinds of cities
foster conviviality and creativity? How can poverty and environmental degradation be alleviated
and a voice for the disenfranchised be ensured?

There is no magic bullet for creating sustainable, equitable, and peaceful cities. But there are
some necessary if not sufficient conditions for such transformations: transparent governance,
decent work or a basic income, innovative infrastructure to conserve the environment, intelligent
land use with integrated community development, and social cohesion along with cultural
diversity. Bridging divides will require a new mindset. Unless and until we are ready to
expand our conception of we from me and my family to my community, city, country, and
planet, the gap will continue to grow.

http://www.cec.org/greenbuilding/
Green Building in Northamerica
CEC
Commercial and residential buildings have huge environmental impacts. It is estimated that, in
the United States alone, commercial and residential buildings consume some 65 percent of all
electricity generated, 12 percent of fresh water supplies and 40 percent of all raw materials, as
well as contributing about one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions.
Green Building refers to design and construction practices that significantly reduce or eliminate
the negative impact of buildings on the environment and occupants. Potential positive effects of
green building practices include sustainable use of energy, materials, and water, along with lower
resource and waste disposal costs, as well as increased comfort and well-being for occupants.
Buildings designed in an environmentally conscious manner represent an important opportunity
to accrue environmental benefits for generations.
Despite these environmental and economic benefits, green building represents only a small
fraction of the new construction in North America. To examine the status of green building in
North America, as well as some of the drivers and barriers to its development, the Secretariat of
the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) is initiating a report on Green Building in
North America: Opportunities and Challenges.