WORLD CITIES REPORT 2016

Summary

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) started in 1976 with the UN Conference on Human Settlements in Vancouver, Canada, at a time when the governments began seriously to perceive the cities under their jurisdictions as “emerging futures” in their own right. Opening the event, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau aptly summarized the worldwide (and ongoing) challenge as follows: “Human settlements are linked so closely to existence itself, represent such a concrete and widespread reality, are so complex and demanding, so laden with questions of rights and desires, with needs and aspirations, so racked with injustices and deficiencies, that the subject cannot be approached with the leisurely detachment of the solitary theoretician.”