Taken as a whole, An Urbanizing World offers us an overview of the harsh conditions in our human settlements that urgently demand creative innovation and action. And here it provides us with invaluable insights into the new partnerships being forged in the human settlements sector and the increasing importance of civic engagement and community initiatives being undertaken to help meet the growing challenges and needs of today for achieving sustainable human settlements. They offer encouragement and evidence of an untapped, latent capacity.
In the final analysis, the task before us is as much about doing something to cure the malaise of inadequate housing and decaying infrastructures, dangerous streets and environmental neglect, as it is about the willingness of society to meet the needs of humanity, the needs we all share with our neighbours in the `global village' that is now our world. One of the problems we face here is that so many of us know so very little about the forces that are shaping our cities and towns–indeed, some of us may know more about the distant planets of outer space than about the cities of our own Planet Earth. We have to shift our focus, and do it now.
Resource collections
- UN Habitat - Urban Response Collection
- Urban Response - Urban Crisis Preparedness and Risk Reduction
- Urban Response Collection - Community Engagement and Social Cohesion
- Urban Response Collection - Economic Recovery
- Urban Response Collection - Environment and Climate Change
- Urban Response Collection - Housing, Land and Property
- Urban Response Collection - Urban Crisis Response, Recovery and Reconstruction
- Urban Response Collection - Urban Resilience
