Smart Cities Summit Tel Aviv — Focus on Habitat III — DLD Tel Aviv 2015

Within the Cities Summit event, the City of Tel Aviv is hosting the first Habitat III Thematic Meeting, with a focus on Civic Engagement.

Cities are facing a new reality with the need to develop sustainable mechanisms that will enable their citizens to develop capacity and experience in civic responsibility, to broaden democratic platforms and responsible governance.

This is a twofold challenge, for the city to become again a democratic arena and for the residents to reinvent themselves as citizens instead of consumers of services. Civic engagement needs to become an everyday practice, embedded into city life at all levels of municipal and community activities.

The Thematic Meeting is discussing issues at the global level in preparation for Habitat III that ensures to address them in Quito in October 2016. The meeting will achieve a final declaration to be considered official contribution to the Habitat III process.

I see the changes here in the city of Tel Aviv that I call one of my home. I am seeing it deal with the variety of challenges:

• absorbing migrant populations
• population growth
• building sustainable infrastructure
• encouraging active civic participation
• ensuring that all sectors of society benefit from the city’s thriving high-tech industry, among other issues.