Snapshots of our Urban Future.

Sometime in 2008, the United Nations predicts, we'll reach the point at which over half of the world's people live in urban areas. More than at any time in history, the fate of humanity, our economy, and the planet will be influenced by cities.

In the period from the Industrial Revolution through the 20th century, populations in Europe, North America, and then Japan passed the half-urban point. Most of the world's future population growth is expected to come in the rapidly growing cities of Africa and Asia, two regions that are set to become predominantly urban, and in Latin America, already 77 percent urban.

As urban numbers have grown, the ranks of the urban poor have surged as well. Of the 3 billion urban dwellers today, roughly 1 billion live in "slums," defined by UN-HABITAT as areas where people cannot secure one or more of these necessities: clean water, sanitation, sufficient living space, durable housing, or "secure tenure," which includes freedom from forced eviction.

In State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future, released in January, researchers find that urbanization is not only the defining demographic trend of our time, but also an important environmental phenomenon. Cities and suburbs are becoming the main human habitat. Although cities may strike us as unnatural landscapes--"concrete jungles" of buildings and pavement that supplant trees and grass--cities are in fact tied directly to nature, providing us with water, food, and shelter from the elements. Population growth may well cease in this century, but cities and their environmental pressures appear likely to expand.

Analyzing the links between cities and the environment, Kai Lee, a State of the World 2007 contributor, reviews evidence that the environmental challenges of urban areas vary with wealth. The poorest cities, and the poorest slums within them, tend to house the worst local hazards, such as disease spread by dirty water and lack of toilets. As a city industrializes, problems at the scale of the metropolitan area, such as air pollution from industry and traffic, tend to worsen at first and then improve as economic growth yields the resources to mandate cleaner technologies. However, a city's burden on the global environment tends to worsen with economic growth, as its residents are able to buy more cars, move into bigger houses that require more energy, and accumulate more stuff.

The stories that follow, excerpted from State of the World 2007, show how six cities are grappling with these trends. In sub-Saharan Lagos, Nigeria, local environmental threats are multiplying, as the government has proven unable to provide basic services to its population of more than 10 million. Other stories offer more hope. In rapidly industrializing China, home to some of the world's worst coal pollution, the small city of Rizhao has gone solar. Even with relatively low per capita income, Rizhao has spurred widespread use of solar hot water heaters, reducing coal use and improving air quality. And in a new section of Malmo, Sweden, high-income living takes less of a toll on the environment: all energy comes from local, renewable sources, and organic waste is re-used as biogas for cooking and to fuel vehicles.

For decades, many policymakers and environmentalists have looked at cities as the source of many problems, from the unhealthy living conditions of the urban poor to the air pollution that choked people of all income levels. But history has shown that cities can also generate solutions, which is why Jaime Lerner, the former mayor of a city known for its green urban design and planning (Curitiba, Brazil), writes in his foreword to State of the World 2007, "It is in our cities that we can make the most progress toward a more peaceful and balanced planet, so we can look at an urban world with optimism instead of fear."

--Molly O'Meara Sheehan, Worldwatch senior researcher and State of the World 2007 project director

CITYSCAPE:

LOJA, ECUADOR

An Ecological and Healthy City

When Jose Bolivar Castillo was elected mayor of Loja, Ecuador, in 1996, this impoverished Andean city of 160,000 was sprawling uncontrollably. Deforestation resulted in flooded rivers, and buses and cars burning leaded fuel polluted the air. Garbage filled the city's waterways, overflowed in collection bins, and overwhelmed a dumpsite across the street from the world-renowned Podocarpus National Park.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

For Mayor Castillo, the inspiration to turn the city from an average Ecuadorian city into a "ciudad ecologica y salud-able"--an ecological and healthy city--came from within Loja itself: "I remember when I was a child, before the city became so polluted." In his eight years as mayor, Castillo worked with the municipality to implement policies that underscore the correlation between a healthy ecosystem, a healthy human population, and a healthy economy.

Comprehensive land-use planning and environmental policies at the county level limited degradation of the land, improved public health, and facilitated the management of necessary infrastructure--all while saving material and construction costs for important municipal projects like adding water lines to the poorest neighborhoods. As scientist Ermel Salinas explained, the water became drinkable "because our rivers have been cleaned up, protected, and are treated to United States ... requirements," preventing many illnesses caused by dirty drinking water.

A well-enforced ordinance required real estate developers to set aside 20 percent of their land for public open space, resulting in popular parks with multiple benefits. Architect Jorge Munos Alvarado, Loja's director of city planning, explained that the greenery "acts as a sponge by retaining stormwater, which prevents the rivers from flooding." And Humberto Tapia, director of public health, noted that exercising in parks reduces preventable illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

The city's air quality improved following the use of cleaner public buses and the implementation of a new transportation policy mandating all cars to run on unleaded gas, with catalytic converters. Residents were also receptive to a new recycling program that required them to separate organic from inorganic trash every day, resulting in a 95 percent adherence rate. The municipality collected all city trash at least once daily and swept streets several times a day.

The benefits of this program were widespread. Ecologically, the city recycled all organic waste and over 50 percent of the inorganic waste generated, dumping non-recyclables and hazardous waste in a sanitary landfill. Economically, the city earned about US$50,000 a year (7 percent of the program's US$685,000 operating cost) from selling recycled materials, and it created more than 50 related full-time jobs citywide. The cleanliness of the streets lowered the presence of rodents and vermin.

Lojanos joined in because the municipality fined any household or business that failed to comply with the recycling rules; if a building owner didn't pay the fine, the municipality shut off the water supply. The system's organization ensured a high rate of participation as well: each collection truck met its schedule, plus or minus 10 minutes, seven days a week, and on-board inspectors recorded infractions.

A key incentive for participation in Loja's transformation was the creation of communal work projects called mingas. Lolita Samaniego, president of La Floresta, a women's housing organization, explained that a minga is an obligatory event where "everyone works for everyone's benefit.... Women provide food and men distribute the work amongst themselves, working from sunup to sundown." These gestures strengthened residents' perception of a direct relationship between waste management, natural resources, and civic improvement. Local leaders asserted that civic awareness and cultural solidarity were values that stemmed from Loja's indigenous past. Hiring a local workforce also gave city workers a tremendous sense of ownership and pride.

Loja has won three international prizes for its efforts, recognizing the municipality's embrace of community involvement, ecological principles, and public recreation and physical activity. If a poor city like Loja, which has needs far beyond the health of its environment, can learn to embrace the "ecological city," then surely such a concept--with appropriate cultural adjustments--can succeed elsewhere.

--Rob Crauderueff, Sustainable South Bronx, New York

LOS ANGELES, UNITED STATES

The End of Sprawl

Los Angeles is known around the world as the "mother of sprawl," thanks to aerial photographs portraying vast landscapes of monotonous suburban houses. So it may come as a surprise to learn that the city will soon be known instead as the birthplace of the post-suburban city.

Los Angeles is a city, a county, and a region--an immense mosaic of continuous development in southern California. The city's 1,300 square kilometers are inhabited by some 3.8 million people, translating to a density of 2,900 persons per square kilometer. Compared with other global cities, Los Angeles is unquestionably "suburban." Its density is half that of London, one-quarter that of Sao Paolo, and one-tenth that of Hong Kong or Mumbai.

Seemingly unbounded expansion has been part of the city's geography for over 200 years. The first ring of detached, single-family dwellings was followed by an explosion of suburbs after World War II, when immense developments like Lakewood, much of Orange County, and the San Fernando Valley were built up. These subdivisions came to define the image of suburban sprawl.

From the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, the U.S. government financed tens of thousands of home sales through such means as housing loans and infrastructure subsidies. Federal housing policy had several political uses: it created employment for the vast construction industry, provided housing to the middle class, and served conservative national interests (based on the belief that no homeowner would have enough spare time to be a revolutionary). In an effective marriage of government and construction interests, 58 percent of Californians became homeowners by 1960, and the figure never climbed higher.

Los Angeles continued its unabated growth as long as geography, policy, economics, and the environment were amenable. It was only in the new millennium that definitive research corroborated Angelenos' impression that "sprawl has hit the wall." There is no more land for easy suburban growth, commute times exceed viability, and water is in short supply. Yet Los Angeles expects to add 6 million new inhabitants--roughly two Chicagos--by 2020. The mother of sprawl must now transform herself into the mother of invention, and there are signs she is doing just that.

The city has slowed its outward growth and begun to fill interior gaps in its fabric. In 2000, the Los Angeles urban area was more densely populated than San Francisco, New York, or Washington, D.C. As existing neighborhoods grow denser, residents notice changes that may not seem linked: traffic worsens, prices skyrocket, parking is more difficult, older housing is upgraded, communities grow more ethnically diverse, and neighborhood organizations become more protectionist.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Some of this infill is improving the quality of life in Los Angeles. Yet in certain areas, the results are a looming disaster. For example, the core of urban poverty in the region is a vast, 272-square-kilometer zone that cuts across municipal boundaries and holds nearly 40 percent of the county's poorest households. These neighborhoods are growing more overcrowded, as new generations of immigrants double- and triple-up in existing apartments. Inadequate infrastructure and services exacerbate problems of poverty and inequity.

Yet within that urban core of poverty, as well as in some suburbs, a flowering of infill projects is adding to the housing stock and to neighborhood quality. Formerly industrial areas are undergoing reinvention as young urban dwellers move into the new market-rate housing. Once-abandoned streets are filled at night with people walking dogs and dining out. Creative nonprofit housing corporations are demonstrating ways to build affordable multifamily units. And smaller public schools are being established in older neighborhoods so that children can be educated locally.

Los Angeles has a more-than-adequate supply of sites for future infill, with residents of every income and race willing to live at higher densities, provided they get the housing and services they need. Local policymakers are struggling to create stronger public guidance, so that the next Los Angeles will be characterized by greater community equality. The lessons this city of nearly 4 million holds for metropolitan futures may help stop the export of the tired U.S. suburban model to the rest of the world and simultaneously cultivate a new, more compact Los Angeles.

--Dana Cuff, University of California, Los Angeles

MALMO, SWEDEN

Building a Green Future

As people drive across the Oresund Bridge from Copenhagen, Denmark, to Malmo, Sweden, their eyes are drawn to the "Turning Torso" in Malmo's Western Harbour. The apartment tower's white marble walls twist 90 degrees as they rise 54 stories above a city of just under 300,000 people. Architect Santiago Calatrava's design mimics the human body in motion. The building, completed in 2005, can be seen as symbolizing Malmo's efforts to move from its recent history of industrial pollution and unemployment to an ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable future.

Malmo, Sweden's third largest city, is an international port that has survived many transitions. Founded in 1275 as a Danish city, it became part of Sweden in the 17th century. For many of the last 150 years, it was a prominent shipbuilding center. After the main shipyard closed in the mid-1980s during a recession, some 35,000 people left town within a couple of years. Today, one-quarter of Malmo's residents are foreign-born.

In the 1990s, Malmo began to forge a new vision of itself as a "sustainable" city. Among the first steps: transforming the Western Harbour from abandoned industrial sites into a model of ecological design to host the 2001 European Housing Exhibition. The government invested in cleaning up contaminated land. The city took responsibility for public spaces and infrastructure. Sixteen development companies chosen to participate were in charge of everything inside their plot boundaries.

Malmo partnered with E.ON Sweden, a subsidiary of Europe's largest privately owned energy company, to obtain 100 percent of the area's energy from local renewable sources: wind, sun, water, and gas from garbage and sewage. The Swedish government granted roughly 250 million krona (US$34 million) to offset costs for environmental investments.

A 2-megawatt wind turbine, supplemented by photovoltaic sun shields on one building, provides virtually all electricity to homes in the Western Harbour and powers heat pumps that supply hot water and district heating. The pumps extract heat from seawater in the city's canal, from solar collectors installed on rooftops, and from an innovative aquifer storage system. When energy production exceeds demand, the district exports power back to the city grid. All apartments in the Turning Torso have units that grind organic waste, which is collected to produce biogas for cooking and to fuel vehicles.

Malmo aims to decrease its carbon dioxide emissions on average by 25 percent by 2012 compared with 1990 levels, which will mean bringing them 10-15 percent below 1999 levels. Malmo has joined three other cities--Dublin in Ireland, Hillerod in Denmark, and Tallinn in Estonia--in a three-year project for Sustainable Energy Communities and Urban Areas in Europe, or SECURE, to seek good energy solutions and produce local energy action plans. Malmo's strategy involves extending its district heating system and increasing the use of natural gas for electricity. The city is also educating citizens about their role in climate change, using billboards and other techniques.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The city's environmental initiatives have sparked change. Malmo University was founded in 1998 with a focus on the environment, conservation, ethnicity, and gender. Since 1997, many information technology and telecommunications companies have opened offices, as have new shops. Malmo hosts a growing number of cultural activities, sports events, exhibitions, and shows. Housing construction is steadily increasing, with 1,265 new dwellings built in 2005. Joblessness among adults has fallen from 16 percent in 1996 to 8.8 percent in 2005. Today, 39 percent of people in Malmo have a university or postgraduate education, double the figure in 1990. On the negative side, the city is grappling with a rise in crime and has yet to integrate its large immigrant population.

Residents have taken note of the city's rapid transformation. Jeanette Andersson, a young eco-toxicologist, said, "Moving to Malmo as a young student offered me several advantages, such as good housing and a cheap living. After just a few years the situation had changed and suddenly people started fighting about apartments. You could tell by just walking through the city that the population and atmosphere of Malmo was about to change."

--Ivana Kildsgaard, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute

MUMBAI, INDIA

Policing from Within

Mumbai, India's largest city, has the distinction of having almost half its population of more than 12 million living in "slums" or informal settlements. Today, these very slums are pioneering a new concept: policing with people's involvement.

Police commissioner Anami Narayan Roy says the slums don't get the attention they deserve from any part of the government, including the police. He also notes that the majority of crimes do not take place in slums. More common in these areas are offenses that wouldn't come before a court--minor scuffles and disagreements over things like the common water tap, a fight between children, or a drunken husband beating his wife.

Roy believes that policing needs to be customized, which led him to the idea of slum panchayats--a Hindi word for councils of respected elders chosen and accepted by a village to make decisions on key issues. Because slum dwellers needed ways to handle minor offenses, and because the police didn't have the resources to fully meet this need, Roy thought the best solution was to get slum dwellers to devise their own policing.

Roy met with Arputham Jockin, president of the National Slum Dwellers' Federation (NSDF), and together they brainstormed about how to involve the community. The police, Jockin explains, were generally unresponsive to issues that concerned slum dwellers. They were particularly indifferent to women's concerns and often refused to entertain complaints brought to the police station by women.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

With this as a central thought, in 2003 Roy and the NSDF launched the slum panchayats in Pune, 170 kilometers southeast of Mumbai. The first slum panchayats in Mumbai were established in October 2004. Each panchayat has 10 members: 7 women and 3 men. In addition, the local "beat cop" becomes a member. A panchayat covers a population of roughly 10,000, and every member is given an identification card. When resolving a dispute, the members summon both sides involved, listen to their points of view, and work out a compromise. The panchayats have the authority of law as well as moral authority in the community.

Malti Ambre, 34, is a member of the slum panchayat in Mankhurd, a northeastern suburb of Mumbai. The mother of three, who has studied only up to grade seven, says the panchayat in her area has reduced petty crimes "100 percent." Proudly displaying her ID card, she says the presence of women has made a difference. One of their main achievements, she says, is closing down the illicit liquor dens despite resistance from men and even some local police. "Our men would drink away all they earned at these dens and then come home and beat up their wives," she explains.

In 2005, the police and the nongovernmental groups involved in the policing experiment took stock. "All the panchayats were not functioning effectively. In fact, out of 131, only 81 were working well," Roy admits. In the more efficient ones, however, the number of offenses registered with the police declined noticeably. "There is general harmony in the community and the difference is palpable. This is more important than crime statistics," he says.

The other key "collateral benefit," according to Roy, is the change in the attitude of slum dwellers toward the police. This has happened because both sit at the same table, unlike in the past when the slum dwellers would have to plead with the police to register their complaints. The panchayat has also made the police realize that such collaboration can result in more effective policing.

Roy adds that without the active participation of groups like NSDF, and of women, the slum panchayat would not work. "One test of success is that some of the slum women call me directly," he says. "The confidence they now have is one of the biggest successes. This is democracy working at the grassroots. The panchayats should function like people's committees. The police should just facilitate."

--Kalpana Sharma, deputy editor, The Hindu, India

NAIROBI, KENYA

Life in Kibera

From a distance, Kibera, the largest informal settlement in Kenya's capital city of Nairobi, is visually stunning. Seen from the air, its corrugated iron sheets twinkle like stars scattered on the ground. Step a little closer, though, and the first thing you're hit with is the stench of human waste.

On a typical day in Kibera, the smells of roast meat and mandazi (a local doughnut) mingle with the odor of raw sewage. Plastic bags, some used as "flying toilets," litter the lanes separating the shacks. Occasionally, you may stumble upon someone lying on the ground intoxicated with changaa, a lethal local brew. But for the most part, Kibera is a bustling settlement, where restaurants and businesses thrive.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Some seven kilometers southwest of Nairobi's central business district, Kibera covers approximately 225 hectares split by the Nairobi-Kisumu railway line and surrounded by middle-income housing estates, a dam, vacant land, and a lush golf course. The area is named after the Nubian term kibra, meaning "wilderness" or "bush," but it is now estimated to house more than 1,200 people per hectare. Most live in tiny wattle, daub, and tin shacks with no electricity or running water.

Population estimates for the area range from 400,000 to over 600,000, making Kibera the densest and most populous of Nairobi's nearly 200 informal settlements or "slums." A recent survey found that over 80 percent of inhabitants live in single rooms that average 9.4 square meters and are shared by five persons. Water sold by vendors is affordable only in small quantities. One pit latrine is usually shared by 75 people. Fewer than half the residents have access to a bathroom, so many bathe in their one-room hovel. Over 80 percent of residents are tenants in illegal structures, paying an average monthly rent of US$12.

Most residents cite affordability as the most critical determinant of whether they would stay in Kibera. In Nairobi's skewed housing market, where more than 80 percent of residents are tenants, low-cost rental options range from shacks in slums to single rooms in multistory tenements. A one-bedroom apartment in Nairobi's Umoja estate, intended for the lower end of the housing market, costs just under US$100 a month. That's out of reach for most Kiberans, nearly half of whom earn US$70-140 a month and a third of whom earn less than US$70.

The scale of deprivation in Kibera is so huge that non-governmental interventions have managed only marginally to improve access to basic services. Schools, health facilities, and water points remain inadequate. A study found that 14 public primary schools were situated within walking distance of Kibera, but they could accommodate only 20,000 of the 100,000 primary school-age children in the area.

Government efforts remain mired in conflict and confusion. The Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme, initiated in 2000 in an agreement between the government of Kenya and UN-HABITAT, has remained largely unimplemented, mainly because no one can agree on the best way forward. Suspicions arise due to Kenya's corrupt land allocation system. Kibera residents fear that any attempts to "redevelop" or "upgrade" their homes will leave them homeless, as upgrading may lead to land speculation that prices them out of the refurbished settlements.

The answer to Nairobi's slum problem lies in stronger and more integrated intervention by government ministries and agencies in this city of 3 million. The government needs to step in to the distorted rental market with effective regulation and to invest in low-cost public housing. Ownership solutions, such as communal titling, could prevent titles from being traded to non-slum dwellers.

A common view among policymakers in Kenya and other countries is that once rural areas are made more enticing, rural-to-urban migration--and slum growth--will be curbed. But history has shown that urbanization is irreversible and closely linked to development. People move to Kibera because it means better access to employment. Slums like Kibera are sites of immense opportunity and enterprise, places of transition where dreams of escaping poverty are first nurtured. But they are also sites of immense misery and poor health and environmental conditions.

--Rasna Warah, freelance writer, Kenya

RIZHAO, CHINA

Solar-Powered City

Buildings in Rizhao, a coastal city of nearly 3 million on northern China's Shandong Peninsula, have a common yet unique appearance: most rooftops and walls are covered with small panels. They are solar heat collectors.

In Rizhao--the "city of sunshine"--99 percent of households in the central districts use solar water heaters, and most traffic signals and streetlights are powered by photovoltaic cells. In the suburbs and nearby villages, more than 30 percent of households use solar water heaters, and over 6,000 households have solar cooking facilities. More than 60,000 greenhouses are heated by solar panels, reducing overhead costs for local farmers. In total, Rizhao has over 500,000 square meters of solar water-heating panels, the equivalent of about 0.5 megawatts of electric water heaters.

One satisfied solar user is Kouguan Town Primary School. Since wall-mounted solar heat collectors were installed in 1999, the school has relied on them for water heating year-round and for classroom heating in winter. After more than a decade, the system is still functioning well.

The fact that Rizhao is a small, ordinary Chinese city with a relatively low per capita income makes the story even more remarkable. The achievement was the result of an unusual convergence of three key factors: a supportive government policy, local solar industries that seized the opportunity, and strong political will among the city's leadership.

As in many industrial countries that promote solar power, the Shandong provincial government provided subsidies. But instead of funding the end users, the government funded the R & D activities of the solar industry, which led to increased efficiency and lower costs. The cost of a solar water heater fell to the same level as an electric one: about US$190, or 4-5 percent of the annual income of an average in-town household. Using a solar water heater for 15 years in Rizhao equates to saving US$120 per year.

A combination of regulations and public education spurred the broad adoption of solar heaters. The city mandates all new buildings to incorporate solar panels, and it oversees the construction process to ensure proper installation. To raise awareness, the city held open seminars and ran public advertising on television. Government buildings and the homes of city leaders were the first to have the panels installed, and some government bodies and businesses provided free installation for employees. After 15 years of effort, "you don't need to persuade people anymore to make the choice," according to Wang Shuguang, a government official.

Rizhao would not be the city it now is without the clear vision and innovative thinking of its leaders. Although the program was started by his predecessor, Mayor Li Zhaoqian has a special interest in continuing it. Before becoming mayor, Dr. Li was vice president and professor at Shandong University of Technology and served as vice director general of the Economic and Trade Commission of Shandong Province, where he helped industries improve solar energy production technology and efficiency.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Widespread use of solar energy reduced the use of coal and improved the environmental quality of Rizhao, which has consistently been listed among China's top 10 cities for air quality. In 2006, the State Environmental Protection Agency designated it as the Environmental Protection Model City.

Rizhao's leaders believe that an enhanced environment will in turn help the city's social, economic, and cultural development. The city is attracting a rapidly increasing amount of foreign direct investment, and in the last two years visitation increased by 48 and 30 percent respectively. Since 2002, Rizhao has successfully hosted a series of water sports events, including an International Sailing Federation championship.

The favorable environmental profile of Rizhao is changing its cultural profile by attracting prominent universities and professors to the city. The prestigious Peking University is building a residential complex in Rizhao, and more than 300 professors have bought their second or retirement homes in the city. Qufu Normal University and Shandong Institute of Athletics have also chosen Rizhao for new campuses, citing the city's favorable environmental quality as a key reason.

--Xuemei Bai, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia

For more information about State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future, visit www.worldwatch.org/ww/SOTW07.