Harmonious cities - UN-Habitat

different reasons, all with strong local, regional
and national consequences, including
persistent renewal. War or peace – the city
will survive as an essential, resilient human
institution, renewing itself, and enhancing
life globally.
Four roles stand out:
• The city as an engine of economic growth,
trade and transformation.
• The city as a social change agent and the
crucible of innovation and adaptation;
cities as centres of successful, dynamic
progressive governance.
• The city, facilitating the exchange of
ideas, goods and services, community
experience and practices.
• The city as leader in healing environmental
damage, championing public health,
fair food production/distribution, enabling
social equity to increase and as
focus of global communication.
In 1976 at the first UN Conference on Human
Settlements in Vancouver, Lady Barbara
Jackson forecast the world as a “global village”.
Since then the world has become one interactive
system of urbanisation demanding stewardship,
a sharing of resources, anticipating needs, heeding
forecasts, and reducing consumption of the
world’s limited land and resources. Churchill
paraphrased the often quoted “Those who ignore
the past are doomed to relive it.”
Recently, China has demonstrated an unprecedented
constructive transition from
an agrarian economy to an industrial society,
from rural communities to urban settlements,
connected, interdependent and interactive.
From isolated towns and villages to
a system of metropolitan communities, the
city has helped to transform, modernise, and
enhance the lives of a billion people.
Shanghai’s 20 million stand to global account
of urbanisation with all its difficulties and accomplishments.
I first visited Shanghai under
UN auspices 25 years ago. It was a fascinating,
historic port, proud of its past and unable to anticipate
its future. Since then it articulated its future,
marshaled modern technology, harnessed
international exchange, hung onto its history
and welcomed the world as a global trader.
The fourth session of the World Urban Forum
in Nanjing will document the city’s global
social, economic and political transformational
powers. Indeed the Forum in China’s
ancient national capital, is the appropriate
place to celebrate the city’s achievement
The future role of cities
and embrace its global future through the
UN-HABITAT mandate.
From Nairobi to Barcelona to Vancouver and
now to Nanjing is a global arc encompassing all
Member Nations, encouraging the development
of local and regional solutions to a truly
global phenomenon – Urbanisation towards
an Urban World.
The city will continue to be the repository of
human aspirations, and thereby achieve social,
environmental, and economic harmony. Global
continuity will depend on the city’s success in
harmonising the world population’s physical
needs, cultural hopes, social advancement, and
environmental impact. With six billion urbanising
people on a fixed and land-limited globe,
the city’s task is to harmonise this dichotomy.
Its record to date has been positive.
UN-HABITAT and all those who participate
will continue its historic success.
Urbanisation is a given; the city can ameliorate
its consequences and impact. The city is
the world’s barometre of impending changes,
it is the ‘canary in the mineshaft’. We have to
read its indicators, including climate change,
unequal distribution of resources, population
shifts, and political instability.
The city is our most important and lasting
COVER STORY
artifact, sustaining economic, social, and
political equilibrium.
Let us celebrate its historic achievements
and ensure its future responsibility of
promoting sustainable and harmonious
urbanisation.
In the past, cities were fortified to defend
their citizens against war. This defence is no
longer possible. The walls must come down.
Civilisation must come out from behind the
walls, inducing harmonious development under
the aegis of the United Nations committed
to achieving and maintaining peace. u
Peter Oberlander, a founding father of UN-
HABITAT, is Professor Emeritus, Community
and Regional Planning at the University of
British Colombia. He served as Senior Advisor
to Canada’s Commissioner General for
the third session of the World Urban Forum
in Vancouver in 2006. He initiated Ottawa’s
Ministry of State for Urban Affairs as its inaugural
Secretary (Deputy Minister). Earlier,
he played a pivotal role in helping organise the
first UN-HABITAT conference in Vancouver in
1976. In this article, he expresses confidence
that the harmonious city, which he so cherishes,
can be humanity’s greatest guarantor of
peace in our new urban world.
Congestion beyond control? The heart of downtown Monrovia, Liberia Photo © UN-HABITAT
u r b a n
November 2008 WORLD 11