STATE OF THE WORLD'S CITIES 2012/2013 Prosperity

State of the World’s Cities 2012/2013
FACILITATING ACCESS TO ‘COMMONS’,
PROvIDING PUBLIC GOODS, IMPLEMENTING
SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS
Facilitating Access to ‘Commons’: A prosperous city
facilitates equitable access to the ‘commons’. These include
water, air, biodiversity, knowledge and other shared
resources, including public infrastructure, together with
more intangible forms like a better environment, sense of
identity and cultural and symbolic spaces that in principle
belong to everyone.
Cities with islands of prosperity tend to enclose the
‘commons’, restrict their use to a selected few, or deplete
them through unsustainable use.
Prosperous cities require ‘commons resource pools’,
which can take the form of institutional arrangements where
conflicts are solved through negotiation, and consensus is
built for decision-making. ‘Commons’ also include any legal
or statutory provisions facilitating community participation
in planning decisions, available quality information,
transparency as well as cultural norms and social compacts.
Some public goods, such as community civic centres,
will often be found to function as ‘space commons’,
facilitating the integration of marginal and voiceless groups,
in the process promoting pluralism and diversity, which are
inseparable from shared prosperity.
Providing public goods43 : A prosperous city makes a
profusion of public goods available to all: efficient public
transport, educational
opportunities, healthcare,
quality public spaces such
as libraries, recreation
areas, parks and open
spaces, etc. A substantial
part of urban well-being
is derived from access to
and consumption of these
public goods, which in
principle must be ‘nonexcludable’
(everyone can
enjoy their benefits) and
‘non-rivalry’ (individual
consumption of the good
does not decrease the
amount available for
consumption by others). 44
POLICy
Enclaves of prosperity
‘fence in’ or restrict the
availability of public goods,
UN-Habitat’s
reinvigorated
notion of urban planning
involves sustainable use
and equitable access to
the ‘commons’ through
appropriate policies and
schemes.
In general, the
FACT production AND
enjoyment of public goods
rely on a set of ‘commons’
such as better connectivity,
public security and safety,
predictability, property rights
under their various forms,
street nomenclature, etc.
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concentrating public investment in selected areas only,
limiting access and privatizing control over a number of
such goods.
The provision of public goods contributes to
economic advancement with environmental preservation
and quality of life, which, incidentally, are fundamental
‘smart growth’ concerns, too. 45 Bogotá has transformed
its own landscape with a variety of public goods such as
multi-modal transport, social infrastructure and quality
public spaces that have contributed to sharing more of
the benefits of prosperity with poor and middle-income
neighbourhoods. Still in Colombia, Medellín has resorted
to bold civic architecture, public spaces and other public
goods in a bid to enhance collective prosperity. Involvement
of urban planning with education, culture, infrastructure,
safety and community development has enabled the
municipality to connect poor barrios (which, according to
the head of municipal planning, “always had lots of energy,
but were disconnected from the city”) with more affluent
neighbourhoods, in the process planting the seeds of mutual
trust and expanding shared prosperity. 46
Acting from the ‘hub’ of the ‘wheel for prosperity’,
urban planning can identify strategies and plan for optimal
production of public goods, in the process contributing
to social capital, enhancing sense of place, safety and
security, integrating social groups (e.g., youth), and
increasing the economic value of the areas where these
goods are provided. This strategy can generate widespread
benefits to all urban residents, expanding prosperity across
different areas. Such prosperity in turn can be leveraged for
maintenance and further enhancement of public goods.
Implementing Sustainable Solutions: Prosperous cities
must plan and implement a variety of technical solutions
to improve the functionality of the city and achieve a
sustainable urban form.
Although solutions can
vary according to local
conditions, UN-Habitat POLICy has identified a number
of key interventions in
various areas to assist the
transition away from the
current “Global Standard
Urbanization Model of the
20th Century” (GS20C),
which is unsustainable
on many accounts, to the
city of the 21st century.
A
reinvigorated
notion of urban planning
would give any city
tighter public control
over the use of land,
change the form and
function of cities
based on sustainable
development principles,
as well as expand the
provision of, and access
to, public goods.