state of the world's cities 2012/2013 - United Nations Sustainable ...

Chapter 1.1Conceptualizing UrbanProsperityThe City is the Home of ProsperityCities are where human beings find satisfaction of basicneeds and essential public goods. Where various productscan be found in sufficiency and their utility enjoyed. Citiesare also where ambitions,aspirations and otherIt is in everyimmaterial aspects of lifepolicy city’s interest to are realized, providingadopt organically integrated contentment and happinesstypes of development and and increasing theprosperity that transcendprospects of individual andthe narrow confines of anaccumulation-driven modelcollective well-being.that benefits only a few toHowever, whenthe detriment of the majority. prosperity is absent orrestricted to some groups,when it is only enjoyed insome parts of the city, when it is used to pursue specificinterests, or when it is a justification for financial gains forthe few to the detriment of the majority, the city becomesthe locus where the right to shared prosperity is claimedand fought for.Prosperity: A Misplaced Concern inthe Midst of Crises?Never before had humankind as a whole faced cascadingcrises of all types as have affected it since 2008, fromfinancial to economic to environmental to social topolitical. Soaring unemployment, food shortages andattendant price rises, strains on financial institutions,insecurity and political instability, among other crises,might well on their own call into question the relevanceand even the viability of a Report on prosperity.This proliferation of risks might even challenge theconventional notion of “Cities as the Home of Prosperity”,i.e. where, by definition, “successful, flourishing, orthriving conditions” prevail.As people in the latter part of 2011 gathered in Cairo’sTahrir Square or Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, in front ofLondon’s St Paul’s cathedral or in New York’s ZuccottiPark, they were not only demanding more equality andinclusion; they were also expressing solidarity with fellowcitizens that belong with the“99 per cent” (the vastmajority) as opposed to the “one per cent” (those withvastly disproportionate shares of wealth and decisionmakingcapacity). These movements highlighted theinherent risks of ill-balanced growth or developmentpolicies, and their failure to safeguard prosperity for all.Throughout history, cities as seats of power have servedas stages for protests and the recent social movementsare no exception. Demographic concentrations in denseurban spaces allow critical masses of protestors tocongregate and air new ideas, highlighting cities’ roleas sounding boards forpositive social change. Thispoints to another of theAt best,FACT prosperitypromises of a prosperousas conventionallycity – not just a moreunderstood seems to beproductive socio-economic an unnecessary luxuryuse of space and the built in a time of crisis. Atenvironment, but also one worst, prosperity canthat safeguards the city’s be seen as a harbingerof yet another singlemindedpursuit of purelyrole as a public forumwhere plans and policieseconomic prosperitycan be discussed andthat might bring thechallenged for the sake of a global economy to themore prosperous society. brink again.10