Urban Solutions: Metropolitan Approaches, Innovation in Urban Water and Sanitation, and Inclusive Smart Cities

More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas today. According to United Nations estimates, four out of every five people might be living in towns and cities by the middle of the 21st century. More than sixty percent of the area expected to be urban by 2030 is yet to be built, and virtually all of this urban expansion will occur in cities of the developing world. These trends present tremendous challenges to ecosystems, infrastructure, and local government capacity, but at the same time urbanization offers a unique opportunity to shape a more equitable and sustainable global future.

Profound demographic and economic transformations are reshaping the world and how it works, demanding new policy frameworks for understanding and guiding urban growth. The United Nations will convene its bi-decennial Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development in October 2016. Habitat III creates an important opening for international cooperation and national action to integrate urban approaches into the global development agenda. Leading up to the conference, formal and informal channels create space for discussions about innovative urban solutions for global challenges. These processes will contribute to the formulation of the “New Urban Agenda,” the primary outcome document of Habitat III which will guide policy and planning for the world’s cities for the next twenty years, positioning urban areas as drivers of sustainable development.

This publication marks the sixth year of the “Reducing Urban Poverty” paper competition and includes a range of perspectives on urban challenges and policy solutions. The 2015 competition called for papers linked to one of the following subtopics: metropolitan approaches for the urban poor, making smart cities inclusive, innovation in water and sanitation, and cities through a gender lens. A panel of urban experts representing each of the sponsoring institutions reviewed 137 abstract submissions, from which 21 student authors were invited to write a full-length paper. From these, seven papers were selected for this publication. Each chapter in this volume critically examines existing urban policies and projects, offering original, solutions-oriented research and strategies.