Designing Our Urban Future
The World Health Organization found in 2014 that 54% of the world’s population lived in cities and projected that urban populations will continue growing steadily, especially in Africa and Asia. As millions of migrants move to cities seeking work, chronic housing shortages drive many into unplanned, overcrowded and dangerous slums.
The UN Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat) estimates that 826 million people live in slums globally, and in some cities slums house over 80% of the population.
Despite their geographic concentration and easy access to resources and services compared to rural intervention zones, urban slums comprise many different health, safety and quality-of-life problems, and no singular intervention addresses all issues simultaneously.
The WHO’s recently disaggregated city data has also revealed stark income-based health and mortality disparities within urban populations, and programmatic reviews have indicated that greater institutional cooperation is needed to address these inequalities at a meaningful scale around the world. For example, the WHO has linked slum conditions to higher rates of crime, disease and child malnutrition that disproportionately affect the poorest 20% of residents.
To meet the significant planning and building challenges sustained urban growth will bring, new design solutions are needed to address questions about how best to transform the world’s inchoate “megacities” into healthier, more natural and more livable human habitats.
How could local urban populations gain greater control over planning and construction to improve their living spaces and neighborhoods? What local social groups are best positioned to spearhead these changes? What social needs are not being met in slums, and how could physical space be altered to better suit these needs? What design, building or behavior changes would most efficiently improve residents’ health, safety and well-being?
How are economic livelihoods related to living space and environment, and how can urban planning, design and construction sustainably increase local employment? What new local businesses could reinforce positive social and environmental changes while also encouraging local income growth? What services and materials are most valuable to low income urban residents, especially those living in slum conditions?
