Inter-American Development Bank
facebook
twitter
youtube
linkedin
instagram
Abierto al públicoBeyond BordersCaribbean Development TrendsCiudades SosteniblesEnergía para el FuturoEnfoque EducaciónFactor TrabajoGente SaludableGestión fiscalGobernarteIdeas MatterIdeas que CuentanIdeaçãoImpactoKreatopolisLa Maleta AbiertaMoviliblogMás Allá de las FronterasNegocios SosteniblesPrimeros PasosPuntos sobre la iSeguridad CiudadanaSostenibilidadVolvamos a la fuente ¿Y si hablamos de igualdad?Home
Citizen Security and Justice Creative Industries Development Effectiveness Early Childhood Development Education Energy Envirnment. Climate Change and Safeguards Fiscal policy and management Gender and Diversity Health Labor and pensions Open Knowledge Public management Science, Technology and Innovation  Trade and Regional Integration Urban Development and Housing Water and Sanitation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Ciudades Sostenibles

  • HOME
  • CATEGORIES
    • Housing
    • Sustainable development
    • Urban heritage
    • Smart cities
    • Metropolitan governance
    • Urban economics
    • Urban society
    • Cities LAB
    • Cities Network

Four Challenges Our Cities Can Overcome

February 16, 2021 por Nora Libertun Leave a Comment


Cities in Latin America and the Caribbean are changing and leading the region’s transformation. If current demographic trends continue, by 2050 more than 86 percent of the region’s population will be living in cities (UN, 2018). Although the region’s 10 largest cities are home to one in four households, fast growing mid-sized cities are increasingly important (Jedwab et al., 2015). Also, rural-to-urban migration is gradually being eclipsed by urban-to-urban migration, with over half of all urban migrants coming from other cities (Bernard et al., 2017).

In terms of urban form, 80 percent of LAC’s cities have densities above the world average of 1,500 persons per square kilometer (Ferreira and Roberts, 2018); however, they are sprawling and their consumption of natural resources and rural lands is growing (Hasse and Lathrop, 2003). Increasingly, urban governance requires greater focus on metropolitan areas expanding over many municipalities that share one single labor market and cultural identity.

LAC cities have tremendous potential to lift people out of poverty, increase productivity, and change consumption patterns to protect the environment. Though cities are often the epicenters of crises—as in the current COVID-19 pandemic—they also have the tools to solve crises. To promote fair, sustainable, and productive cities, four challenges need to be overcome.

1. Structural Social Exclusion

Inequality in cities is persistent and deep, with the main cities in many countries experiencing greater inequality than for the whole country and with inequality in some cities rising as the number of people living in poverty falls (UN Habitat, 2016). The likelihood of living in an underserved or informal neighborhood depends on ethnicity, birthplace, and other characteristics beyond people’s control. LAC cities are undersupplied with safe public green spaces, and distribution and quality are uneven. Gaps in urban service delivery particularly affect women, children, elders, and people with disabilities, who make up about two-thirds of a city’s residents (Libertun et al., 2020).

2. Excessive Pollution and Low Climate Mitigation and Resilience

Cities can reduce emissions and improve quality of life by transforming their urban plans, built environment, and energy use. The region has made some progress in incorporating energy- and water-saving technologies in housing, but much remains to be done to reduce cities’ environmental footprints.

Pollution has serious adverse effects on human health. The main causes of air pollution are increasing motorization, limited public transport, and obsolete regulations. Water pollution is caused by discharging untreated sewage into bodies of water and disposing of solid waste in open dumps, which pollutes soil and water.

Also, cities suffer high levels of environmental noise pollution, which cause health problems and lower real estate prices. LAC cities are very vulnerable to disasters triggered by natural hazards and climate change. Informal neighborhoods are particularly vulnerable to flash floods and many large cities are facing serious challenges in water management. Direct and indirect climate impacts include economic costs, the risks of losing unparalleled biodiversity, high levels of pollution, and gaps in natural resource management.

3. Stagnating Urban Productivity

LAC’s productivity is highly dependent on a handful of cities, which poses the risk that economic shocks in these cities could destabilize the region’s entire economy. Sparse infrastructure between and within cities undermines productivity. Also, cumbersome municipal regulations increase costs for small entrepreneurs and contribute to the persistence of labor informality. In addition, LAC cities do not take full advantage of the opportunities that innovation in the built environment provides for increasing urban productivity (MGI, 2017).

4. Weak Urban Governance

LAC’s institutions for urban governance have limited capacity to tackle the complex and interdisciplinary issues they face. Most city governments have limited fiscal autonomy, insufficient financial and human resources, and little access to data and technology.

The lack of strong institutional arrangements and coordination among cities, and between cities and national governments, diminishes the effectiveness of emergency responses to all forms of disasters (health, natural hazards, and climate change). Though community engagement is critical for the long-term social and fiscal sustainability of projects, citizen participation in LAC cities is quite low. Further, urban leadership is still behind in terms of using digital technologies to establish an open dialogue with residents.

The Way Forward

To fully benefit from the extent of urbanization, LAC’s national and subnational governments need to work proactively to improve the performance of cities. To support this goal, the IDB´s new Sector Framework Document (SFD) on Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recommends policies and programs for cities to: a) overcome structural social exclusion by upgrading underserved and informal neighborhoods, supporting access to adequate housing, and expanding safe public spaces for all; b) reduce environmental degradation and boost climate mitigation and resiliency by reducing air, water, soil, and noise pollution, incorporating the net-zero emission goal in urban areas, and promoting disaster and climate change resilience; c) boost urban productivity by supporting comprehensive urban infrastructure, streamlining urban regulations, and promoting innovation in the built environment; and d) promote good urban governance by strengthening fiscal and data management, improving coordination among institutions, and fostering citizen participation.

The good news is that these goals are attainable. Our cities should continue exploring the power of public-private partnerships and experiment with new urban solutions led by citizens, NGOs, academia and urban planners. The positive transformation of cities reminds us that, even in the face of obstacles, our cities’ biggest challenges can be overcome with our collective will and imagination.     


Filed Under: Ciudades emergentes, Desarrollo sostenible, Gobernanza metropolitana Tagged With: citizen participation, climate resilience, climate risk, productivity, social inclusion, urban governance, urban innovation

Nora Libertun

Nora Libertun es PhD en Desarrollo Urbano del MIT, master en urbanismo de la Universidad de Harvard, y arquitecta de la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Su experiencia profesional incluye ser Directora de Planificación de la Ciudad de Nueva York junto al alcalde Michael Bloomberg, en el Departamento de Parques y Recreación; profesora adjunta en la Universidad de Columbia; y editora del MIT Journal of Planning. Nacida en Buenos Aires, Argentina, se unió al equipo de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano del BID como especialista en 2011.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Follow Us

Subscribe

Description

Este es el blog de la División de Vivienda y Desarrollo Urbano (HUD) del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. Súmate a la conversación sobre cómo mejorar la sostenibilidad y calidad de vida en ciudades de América Latina y el Caribe.

Search

Recent Posts

  • Innovative solutions in the public sector: The new Govtech ecosystems
  • Four Challenges Our Cities Can Overcome
  • Health, the new epicenter of urban development
  • Secondary cities: How hard and soft infrastructure can improve collaboration and support competitiveness to achieve equitable growth
  • Culture on Every Corner: The Opportunity for Cities in the COVID-era

¡Síguenos en nuestras redes!

Tweets by BID_Ciudades
View this post on Instagram

A post shared by BID Ciudades Sostenibles (@bid_ciudades) on Jun 23, 2020 at 11:54am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by BID Ciudades Sostenibles (@bid_ciudades) on Jun 15, 2020 at 4:33pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by BID Ciudades Sostenibles (@bid_ciudades) on Jun 30, 2020 at 4:48pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by BID Ciudades Sostenibles (@bid_ciudades) on Aug 13, 2020 at 4:36pm PDT

Footer

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo
facebook
twitter
youtube
youtube
youtube

Blog posts written by Bank employees:

Copyright © Inter-American Development Bank ("IDB"). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives. (CC-IGO 3.0 BY-NC-ND) license and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed. Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC- IGO license. Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.


For blogs written by external parties:

For questions concerning copyright for authors that are not IADB employees please complete the contact form for this blog.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDB, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent.

Attribution: in addition to giving attribution to the respective author and copyright owner, as appropriate, we would appreciate if you could include a link that remits back the IDB Blogs website.



Privacy Policy

Derechos de autor © 2021 · Magazine Pro en Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo

Aviso Legal

Las opiniones expresadas en estos blogs son las de los autores y no necesariamente reflejan las opiniones del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, sus directivas, la Asamblea de Gobernadores o sus países miembros.

facebook
twitter
youtube