Today, the Global Meeting of the Sustainable Cities Programme (SCP) -- held under the auspices of the Alexandria Governorate and hosted by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) -- concludes. Al-Ahram Weekly takes the opportunity to consider some of the concerns posed by unsustainable cities
Urban matters
Fatemah Farag considers the dark side of city life
As populations in the less-developed world exploded over the last 50 years, cities became increasingly massive havens attracting rural dwellers looking for a stake in industrialisation, trade and development. Cities promised employment, better education, health services, the lustre of the modern and, that most cryptic of all hopes, a future.
In North Africa, around 64 per cent of the population has been drawn into towns and cities. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) "Northern Africa is the most urbanised sub-region in Africa. Within the sub- region, urbanisation rates vary between countries -- 36 per cent in Sudan to 95 per cent in Western Sahara. Most of this growth has occurred in the last two decades, although urban populations have increased steadily since the colonial phase." UNEP goes on to report that, with the annual urbanisation rate at two per cent throughout the 1990s, it is predicted that by 2015, 70 per cent of Northern Africa's population will live in cities.
Africa Environment Outlook: Past, present and future perspectives, published by UNEP, indicates that "Africa's rate of urbanisation of 3.5 per cent per year is the highest in the world, resulting in more urban areas with bigger populations, as well as the expansion of existing urban areas. There are currently 40 cities in Africa with populations of more than a million and it is expected that by 2015 70 cities will have populations of one million or more. Lagos, with its current population of 13.4 million is the largest city in Africa, and the sixth largest in the world. Cairo, Africa's second largest city, has a population of 10.6 million and ranks 19th in the world."
Ironically, however, most people did not find the better future they were looking for and the nature of urbanisation itself has proven to be the problem. It has also become increasingly clear that this urbanisation -- in Africa and across the globe -- is unsustainable. Environmental degradation and increased poverty, manifesting itself in the growth of slums and a shortage of basic services, are symptoms of urban expansion at the expense of human rights and the environment. UNEP points out that "Between 15 and 50 per cent of city residents in North Africa are urban poor living in squatter settlements, illegal subdivisions, sub-standard inner-city housing, custom-built slums, and boarding houses. It has also been indicated that cultural heritage sites are especially at risk from uncontrolled development and environmental degradation in urban areas. While there have been national and international efforts to conserve this heritage, greater efforts are required to ensure its protection."
Cairo, a monstrous city, suffers many of the problems mentioned above. This year, Mohamed Ibrahim Soliman, minister of housing and population declared that 88 per cent of housing in Egypt is in violation of the building code. And, while parliament released figures indicating that 20 per cent of the Egyptian population live in shanty housing, specialists put the figure at closer to 60 per cent. The World Bank's 1995 report on the Construction Industry in Egypt states that 80 per cent of housing built between 1966 and 1986 was sub-standard, and the Al-Ahram Strategic Report for 1995 indicates that 84 per cent of total construction in the 1980s was informal housing.
The First Conference on Urban Planning held in Cairo in 1994 identified the lack of comprehensive urban planning as a major factor behind the extensive slum areas. That is, the great increase in population was not accompanied by the necessary increase in land designated for housing.
The strategy for dealing with slums since then has been two-pronged: upgrading and eviction. The latter often used to accommodate new developments and/or high-income housing. According to a report published jointly by the Egyptian Centre for Housing Rights and the World Organisation Against Torture "Forced evictions and house demolitions are the most dramatic violation of the human right to adequate housing in Egypt. These evictions and demolitions occur on a large scale and mostly affect poor communities. As a consequence, they deepen the crises in living conditions faced by the poor and at the same time fail to provide or enable alternative solutions." (see related article)
But alternative solutions are not easy to come by and upgrading is expensive. In many countries economic and infrastructure developments have lagged behind urban growth resulting in chronic unemployment and lack of health, education and housing facilities, which has negatively impacted the standard of living and development. That is why the Sustainable Cities Programme is so pertinent. In the words of Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, executive director of UN-HABITAT, at the opening session of the Global Meeting of the Sustainable Cities Programme held in Alexandria this week "'Sustainable urbanisation' is an urgent call to recognise the opportunities and the challenges of what will inevitably become a predominantly urbanised world. Our common quest, be it for global peace and social justice, biodiversity or climate protection, democracy or good governance, will depend to a large and increasing extent on our ability to manage the urbanisation process." (see related interview)
SCP was launched in the early 1990s and, according to UN-HABITAT, "SCP provides municipal authorities and their partners in the public, private and community sectors with improved capacities in environmental planning and management." SCP has grown from $100,000 per year to a $30 million global programme with activities currently underway in over 40 countries, including states as diverse as China and Bahrain or Egypt and India. (see related article)
But from Kenya to Sri Lanka to Alexandria many of the problems seemed the same: solid waste management and slums topping almost everyone's agenda. But the problems and the solutions being discussed to create sustainable cities -- livable for the majority of their populations -- are debated within the framework of a world system increasingly characterised by a polarisation of wealth and poverty. According to GEO-3, published by UNEP, "one of the key driving forces [of underdevelopment] has been the growing gap between the rich and poor parts of the globe. Currently, one-fifth of the world's population enjoys high, some would say excessive, levels of affluence. It accounts for nearly 90 per cent of total personal consumption globally. In comparison, around four billion people are surviving on less than US$1 to $2 a day."
Can those who survive on less than $2 a day build the humane and environmentally sound cities of the future? The answers, so far are inconclusive.
