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Articles on Habitat III

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Meeting the challenges of informal settlements, such as this one in Caracas, Venezuela, calls for integrated approaches that cut across urban scales and disciplines. Hesam Kamalipour

When planning falls short: the challenges of informal settlements

Informal settlements are often undocumented or hidden on official maps, but they house about a billion people worldwide. Their existence demands a more sophisticated approach to urban development.
Think of all the resources needed to transform Shenzhen, a fishing town 35 years ago, into a megacity of more than 10 million people. Wikimedia Commons

Our cities need to go on a resource diet

Our cities need to become much more efficient not just to conserve precious resources but to improve the economy, wellbeing and resilience to environmental change and disasters.
Quito lights up for Habitat III. Alexei Trundle

Habitat III is over, but will its New Urban Agenda transform the world’s cities?

Nation states, UN bodies and civil society gathered in Quito for Habitat III to adopt the New Urban Agenda. So how will the UN’s new global urban roadmap transform our cities over the next 20 years?
Cities like Dhaka are internally diverse, even contradictory. Such variation extends to the types of economic activity that take place in them. Reuters/Andrew Biraj

Design in the ‘hybrid city’: DIY meets platform urbanism in Dhaka’s informal settlements

As cities trumpet their liveability, creativity and greenness, many informal settlement activities are often relegated to the shadows.
Joan Clos (right) shows visiting dignitaries around the UN complex in Nairobi, Kenya, which as host of UN-Habitat headquarters was pushing one of two competing proposals for implementation responsibilities. Noor Khamis/Reuters

Phew! New Urban Agenda clears last hurdle before Habitat III

Two years of marathon negotiations have finally yielded agreement in last-minute meetings in New York on the New Urban Agenda to be adopted at the Habitat III summit in Quito in October.
A distinctive feature of the New Urban Agenda is that it redefines informal settlements, such as Dharavi in Mumbai, India, as an asset based on their potential to promote economic growth. YGLvoices/flickr

Habitat III: the biggest conference you’ve probably never heard of

More than 25,000 delegates will meet in Quito in October to set out a New Urban Agenda for the UN, to be implemented over the next 20 years. But Australia is yet to play a major role in the process.
As machinery demolishes houses behind them, Jakarta police evict residents from the settlement of Luar Batang in April. Reuters/Beawiharta Beawiharta

Will Habitat III defend the human right to the city?

The world’s informal settlements are growing at an unprecedented rate, with about one in four urban dwellers living in slums. We need to rethink how we view and deal with these people and places.
For one in three people who live in cities in the global south that means living in a slum. AAP/Diego Azubel

The ethical city: an idea whose time has come

At the Habitat III summit in October, governments will agree an agenda to guide sustainable global urban development over the next 20 years. The rise of the ethical city is a key element of this.

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