SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 11: SUSTAINABLE CITIES AND COMMUNITIES

The pledge of Goal 11 is to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.

This provides an unparalleled opportunity for the attainment of collective and inclusive progress and for the achievement of sustainable development in the world.

Inadequate housing impacts negatively urban equity and inclusion, urban safety, and livelihood opportunities, and causes negative health conditions.

Resilient infrastructure and industrialization are essential for the prosperity of cities; and the efficient management of natural resources, safe disposal, and treatment of toxic waste and pollutants can contribute to health, as well as responsible consumption and production.

The goal of cities offers many opportunities to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies to address climate change, especially through environmentally sustainable and resilient urban development.

This depends on reforms that empower local governments through intergovernmental transfers, own source revenue collection, and enhanced creditworthiness of cities to create certainty for subnational investment.

More needs to be done to make cities more inclusive and accessible for different social groups such as women and girls or persons with disabilities.

This includes improving the safety and availability of public transport, multimodal transport, street lighting, or making all parts of the city accessible to wheelchair users or the visually impaired.

Increased support to the most vulnerable and exposed countries is needed, particularly least developed countries, with the capacities, technologies, and financial resources to prevent the creation of new disaster risks and to reduce existing levels of risk, leaving no one left behind.

 

The rapidly increasing dominance of urban areas ensures that the process of urbanization is among the most significant global trends of the 21st century.

 

Urban life influences consumption and production patterns, as well as levels and rates of urban socio-economic activities, growth, and development.

 

The future we want includes cities that have opportunities for all, with access to basic services, energy, housing, transportation, and more. 

With an increasingly urbanized world, this requires the attention of both local regional, and national governments to work towards achieving these goals.

Rapid urbanization, if not well managed, increases informal settlements/housing and poverty.

 

This leads to spatial inequalities that are expressed as segregation of certain population groups, which may indicate poverty as well as inadequate living conditions in urban areas.

Therefore, to develop appropriate policies it is necessary to identify and quantify the proportion of the population living in slums, informal settlements, or those living in inadequate housing.

A prosperous and inclusive city or nation seeks to reduce spatial inequalities and provide comprehensive responses to the challenges of urban poverty.

 

The ability of residents including persons with disabilities and businesses to access markets, employment opportunities, and service centers such as schools and hospitals is critical to urban economic development.

It is important to provide access to safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport, with special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women, children, persons with disabilities, and older persons.

The transport system thus provides access to resources and employment opportunities.

The accessibility of jobs, services, and markets also allows policymakers, citizens, and businesses to discuss the state of the transport system in a comprehensible manner.

With accessibility to services, goods, and opportunities for all as the ultimate goal, priority is given to making cities more compact and walkable through better planning and the integration of land use planning within transport planning. 

Public participation ensures a positive relationship between the government and the public by communicating effectively and solving conflicts more gently.

Managing solid waste is one of the important challenges of urban areas of all sizes.

The proper management of waste generated by cities has direct implications for the pollution of oceans and the degradation of natural habitats and the loss of biodiversity largely depends on the way cities are managed.

Urban households and businesses produce substantial amounts of solid waste, including industrial, construction, and hazardous waste that needs to be collected regularly and properly disposed of to maintain healthy and sanitary living conditions.

Uncollected and improperly managed solid waste can end up in drains and dumps leading to blocked drainage and unsanitary conditions providing breeding grounds for disease vectors.

In this rapidly urbanizing world, urbanists are forced to find solutions to solve the unprecedented challenges ahead of them, from building adequate housing, providing access to decent public transportation, and ensuring the supply of safe drinking water to building resilience to climate change and providing walkable streets and green public spaces where people can live healthy and productive lives.

In other words, urbanists must work collectively to achieve a liveable city.

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