Living in
an Urban World
Dr
Director a. i. for
cooperation
+ LaSUR (Laboratory of
Urban Sociology, INTER/ENAC)
EPFL (Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology)
"Urban
Governance, diversity and social action
in cities of the South"
International Conference 2004
N-AERUS
September 17th,
2004
Living in
an Urban World
- Introduction
We all live in the city!
Such a claim could easily be made by the denizens of the 21st
century. If we look beyond the strictly numerical demographic and spatial data
relative to urbanisation processes, it becomes obvious that almost all
individuals who today inhabit Planet Earth are in some way influenced and
concerned by the urban phenomenon. They may live in a city themselves, be dependent
upon a city for their income - as is the case for most agricultural workers in
rural areas, go to a city occasionally to make use of urban equipment and
services - health, education, public administration, banking, or others; they
may have family ties or other links to city dwellers, consider moving to a city
as seasonal or permanent migrants, depend financially on money remitted by
family members, or be influenced by the media – radio, television, and more
recently the Internet - that flourish in cities and are beamed throughout the
inhabited world.
It is true of course that
the new information technologies have profoundly modified the balance between
rural and urban regions. The global economy has also changed power
relationships, and political and administrative decentralisation processes are
creating new decision-making centres. But when all is said and done, cities
continue to be a driving force in local, regional, national and international
development.
To understand the evolution
of the contemporary world and how it affects urban dynamics, as well as the
role of cities in the South and their players – populations, rulers,
entrepreneurs, associations, etc. - we must examine various aspects of these
phenomena, ever mindful of the rapidity of territorial changes, and of the
growth of socio-economic inequalities between the regions of the world, as well
as within each country and each urban society.
- The growth of cities – general trends and
diversity
Before looking at the
statistics relative to the urban environment, let us consider the following
statement highlighted by the
"Some
923,986,000 people, or 31.6% of the world’s total urban population, live in
slums; some 43% of the urban population of all developing regions combined live
in slums; some 78.2% of the urban population in the least developed countries
live in slums; some 6% of the urban population in developed regions live in
slum-like conditions.
The
total number of slum dwellers in the world increased by about 36% during the
1990s and in the next 30 years, the global number of slum dwellers will
increase to about two billion if no concerted action to address the challenge
of slums is taken."
These few words express the
essence of the issue.
In both territorial and
demographic terms, the world is becoming more and more urban. This process now
affects above all the developing countries in Asia and Africa, and
Let us take a quick look at
the situation (according to World Bank data for 2004[1]):
Suffice
it to say that in
Nevertheless, the UN Population
Division in 2003 confirmed that a majority of the current three million city
dwellers - who will become five million by 2030 - still live in small or
medium-sized urban agglomerations:
In the developing
countries, of 100 city dwellers, 16% live in a megalopolis of over 5 million
inhabitants, 24% in a metropolis of one to five million, 9.4% in an agglomeration
of 500.000 to one million inhabitants, and 50.5% in cities of less than 500.000
inhabitants.
Translating the diversity of
the urban context, and its globalising dynamics
The situations that characterise
the present-day world are highly diverse. Still, this should not keep us from pinpointing
certain major trends and defining them in the following synthetic terms:
1.
Urbanisation is a multi-dimensional and continuous
process of change that affects and has affected the entire world over several
centuries
2.
The high rate of demographic growth one observes in
developing countries goes hand in hand with a massive transfer of rural
populations towards urban regions
3.
The level of urbanisation differs between countries
and continents. It is particularly high in Europe, North America and
4.
Africa and
5.
In every developing country one can establish a correspondence
between poverty level and size of the rural population on the one hand, and the
scope and speed of urban growth: generally speaking, the poorer and more rural
a country is today, the faster will be the rate of its urban growth and the more
serious the problems it will have to face tomorrow
6.
High speed urbanisation, as it occurs in developing
countries, leads to:
a. Inadequate correlation
between needs of city-dwellers and the infrastructures and services they are
provided with
b. Deterioration of
material and environmental conditions of life in society
c. A worrying
increase in economic and social disparities within urban societies, and between
urban and rural societies, to the detriment of the latter
d. An expression of
social segregation in spatial terms leading to ever-stronger territorial fragmentation,
with well-equipped affluent residential and business areas, and precarious
habitat zones (slums, favelas, etc.), in which over half of the city population
lives under “survival” conditions
e. Inadequate urban
and regional planning policies, incapable of solving the problems facing a
majority of the population.
Mitigation and possibilities
of coherent urban development
Among syndromes (as
clusters of core problems) defining the questions to overcome in term of a
sustainable development[2]
two deal more particularly with the urban context:
-
the "favela syndrome" as a form of "socio-ecological
degradation through uncontrolled urban growth", characterised by strong
negative impact in the following areas: soil degradation, fresh water scarcity
and global development disparities
-
the "urban sprawl syndrome" as the "destruction
of landscapes through the planned expansion of urban infrastructures", characterised
by soil degradation, climate change, loss of biodiversity, fresh water
scarcity.
After three years of urban
research in the field, our initial vision of urban expansion, differentiated
above all by the degree of planning which opposes uncontrolled urban growth to planned
expansion, has been fine-tuned in response to the complexity of urbanisation as
both process and socio-spatial context.
We can now add the following
analytic elements:
1) The global
nature of the changes that affect contemporary societies makes it impossible to
simply oppose cities in the North (well-planned) and cities in the South
(informal and uncontrolled); however, there are still significant differences
between their territorial and human organisation
2) All cities have
planned and well-managed sectors, and sectors that are left to their own
devices; all cities in both the North and the South are affected by a
redistribution of tasks between the public and the private sectors, by growing
social and economic disparities and greater poverty (the trends are the same
but the proportions differ)
3) As stated by the
Postdam experts (Gaia 10 n° 2, 2001), cities in the South are subject to a
recurring concentration of core problems that slow down their development: strong
demographic growth, precarious habitat, water pollution and scarcity, health
risks for urban dwellers, policy failure
To this we might add several socio-urban dimensions that are often overlooked: petty
crime, insecurity and violence, the economic marginalisation of the
underprivileged classes, growing poverty, corruption and clientelism
4) The reorganisation
of the world fosters planetary links, which benefit regions and cities with
more efficient organisation, infrastructures and services. In the third world
this acts in favour of the larger agglomerations at the expense of the smaller
elements in the urban network (metropolisation process)
5) Over and above
this diagnostic, we see that explanatory factors are often accompanied by
lacking resources – financial and economic, but also human and institutional,
making it difficult for local and regional governments to respond to all the
needs that must be met for balanced urban development.
6) Due to these shortages,
priorities established by urban decision-makers are often inadequately coordinated
at national, regional and local level, and give rise to policies relative to territorial
planning, economic promotion, social protection and the extension of
infrastructures and services that clearly benefit those who are better off.
In spite of these seemingly
pessimistic conclusions, there are many areas of potential development that
should allow us to meet the challenges of sustainable urban development
7) In both the
North and the South cities focus problems as well as potential. They represent
a concentration of people, of public and private institutions, businesses,
universities and research centres, of financial services and political , with
tremendous power to put to work in the interest of urban or even regional bodies
(cities should be seen as a driving force behind regional and national
development)
8) Although infrastructures,
equipment and collective services may be inadequate and too scarce in view of
the great needs of a constantly expanding population, they undeniably represent
an added value for city dwellers in comparison to the situation in rural
regions. Alongside the hope of a higher income, they are the main magnet that
draws immigrants (better education and training, health care and "modern"
leisure activities)
9) The precarious
conditions of urban integration and daily life that afflict the overwhelming
majority of poor city dwellers generate, by choice and necessity, new forms of
solidarity-based community organisation that present a true alternative to more
traditional territorial and social management solutions
10)In the South, the integration of 50% to 80% of the
city population is informal. The “informal sector” offers little or no security.
On the other hand, it testifies to great individual and social drive, and to a spirit
of initiative and adaptation to urban conditions among those we will call the
true "city builders"
11)Cities, whatever their size, are real platforms for intermediation
between local, regional, national or even international dynamics based on a
relationship that, if it is well understood and skilfully employed by the
relevant players (urban, rural, local and national), may be profitable to everyone
in a win- win perspective
12)The globalisation of international trade and exchange
has a favourable impact on the cities of the South, via the decentralisation of
decision-making centres and new possibilities available to urban players
13)Southern metropolitan centres function as "hubs"
that connect national urban networks to a worldwide movement, with possible positive
effects such as job creation and the accumulation of growth in the developing
countries.
14)Cities in the South are characterised by the social
and cultural intermingling of various populations. This in turn gives rise to
great cultural, social and economic creativity which radiates beyond the spatial
and demographic limits of the given city
15)To conclude, the future of the cities in the South
will to a large extent depend upon the political, economic and social capacity
of urban decision-makers to address the great issues of territorial planning
and social organisation, keeping in mind that sustainable urban development is
only possible through interaction with the other syndrome contexts, and through
concerted reflection and action between social, economic and institutional
partners, both internal and external, with a view to positive global change.