Sustainability Spotlight, Feb 2021 - Diversity and Division in Urban Neighbourhoods
We've already highlighted the great work the GCRF Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC) is doing on our UN SDGs Highlights page. This month we're shining a spotlight on a suite of new research summaries from their international research team that explore urban expansion and patterns of neighbourhood distribution in 14 fast-growing cities across Africa and Asia, including Cape Town, Delhi, Dar es Salaam, and more.
SHLC Director Prof Ya Ping Wang and Deputy Director Prof Keith Kintrea also published a blog summarising this research for World Cities Day 2020, in the context of COVID-19 and UN Habitat’s 2016 Urban Agenda.
Prof Ya Ping Wang says:
“Our research in 14 cities in Africa and Asia shows that trends in urban development are leading to cities that are socially and spatially fractured. The call of UN Habitat’s 2016 Urban Agenda for planning as a basis for more equitable and sustainable cities appears to have gone largely unheeded. Although most cities boast they have a master plan, neighbourhood planning is rare and almost always benefits only the rich and the emerging middle class.”
The reports are authored by members of SHLC based at the Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa; Ifakara Health Institute, Tanzania; Khulna University, Bangladesh; Nankai University, PR China; the National Institute of Urban Affairs, India; the University of Rwanda; the University of the Philippines Diliman; and University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.
Professor Keith Kintrea, sums up the need for this research:
Cities need to address the causes and consequences of urban neighbourhood and spatial division; pro-poor urban planning should become the reality rather than just a slogan.