people and planet

5
FIGURE 5.4A:
In Medellín, Colombia, education reform was targeted to improve inclusion …
Location and type of libraries in 2009, and socio-economic index for Medellín’s 16 communes, 2010
Location and types of libraries
Socio-economic index
Public Library Park
Municipal Public Library
Pilot Public Library
Public Library “Caja de Compensacion”
REBIPOA Public Library
6 (high)
5 (medium high)
4 (medium)
3 (medium low)
2 (low)
Source: Viteri (2016).
FIGURE 5.4B:
… and linked to crime reduction
Homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants, 1998–2014, Medellín, Colombia
Homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants
200
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
Source: Giraldo-Ramírez and Preciado-Restrepo (2015).
2007
Since 2012, the public utilities company has been
required to assign 7% of its annual profits to support the
city’s science, technology and innovation plan (OECD,
2015). Medellín is the only Latin American city with such
a plan, and has a strong foundation to develop health,
energy, and ICT clusters (Bomberg, 2014).
URBAN PLANNING BENEFITS FROM
CITY-LEVEL LEADERSHIP
The role of city-level leadership is important both for
urban planning in general and for integrated urban
planning that addresses education. As the previous
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
section shows, a degree of autonomy is an important
condition for strong city-level ownership of urban reform.
City-level leadership can also have a positive impact at
the global and regional levels. As cities have grown in
size and political importance, their role in local and global
governance has grown. Global networks of city governance
can provide urban solutions. Mayors are linked through
long-term global–local (‘glocal’) initiatives such as Local
Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), United Cities
and Local Governments (UCLG), and the GNLC.
Efforts to address climate change benefit from citylevel
leadership. The climate leadership group C40
involves many major cities working with international
actors, such as the World Bank, the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and
the Clinton Foundation. It promotes the leadership
of mayors in global governance (Acuto, 2013; Barber,
2013). Transnational municipal networks have also been
instrumental in advancing knowledge and methods for
addressing climate change at the local level (Bouteligier,
2012; Fünfgeld, 2015).
To solve pressing urban challenges, however, many
governance challenges in these networks of knowledge
exchange and generation need to be addressed to realize
their potential. Even as expectations of city governments
are growing, action at the city level in service delivery
and collaboration can be hampered by poor data, lack of
technical capacity, unclear jurisdiction and lack of fiscal
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CHAPTER 5 | PLACE: INCLUSIVE AND SUSTAINABLE CITIES