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| Figure 1. Rural and urban population trends, 1950-2050. Fox, S. & Goodfellow, T. (2016) Cities and Development, Second Edition. Routledge. |
Sustainable Development Goal 11 outlines a global ambition to ‘make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’. It is arguably one of the most important of the 17 recently agreed Goals, but we’re unlikely to reach it in most parts of the world by 2030.
The importance of Goal 11 stems from global demographic
trends. As Figure 1 illustrates, over 50% of the world’s population already
lives in towns and cities, and that percentage is set to rise to 66% by 2050.
In fact, nearly all projected population
growth between now and 2050 is expected to be absorbed in towns and cities,
and the vast majority of this growth will happen in Africa and Asia (see Figure
2).
These trends mean that when it comes to eliminating poverty
and hunger, improving health and education services, ensuring universal access
to clean water and adequate sanitation, promoting economic growth with decent
employment opportunities, and creating ‘responsible consumption and production
patterns’ (and achieving many other goals) urban centres are on the front line by
default.
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| Figure 2. Estimated and projected urban population increase by region, 1950/2000 & 2000/2050 Dr Sean Fox, Lecturer in Urban Geography and Global Development, University of Bristol |
But cities are complex political arenas prone to the kinds
of conflicts that can thwart ambitious visions for transformative development.
To appreciate just how difficult it can be to achieve
seemingly obvious and desirable improvements in cities, it is useful to examine
some practical challenges. Consider the goal of ensuring access to clean,
affordable water for all (Goal 6, Target 1; Goal 11 Target 1). In cities across
Africa and Asia, a significant share of households live in informal settlements
that lack piped water infrastructure. As a result, most residents rely on water
provided by private vendors who sell water by the bucketful from tanker trunks
or standpipes that they control. Perversely, the
poor often end up paying a significant premium for their water on the open
market, while more fortunate residents who are connected to municipal
infrastructure pay far less. This perpetuates inequality, both between
socioeconomic groups and between men and women (as women generally bear the
burden of water collection in such contexts), and it also means that there are
groups of people with fairly strong incentives to resist infrastructure
investments: the water vendors. And these vendors
sometimes take aggressive steps to protect their captive markets and thwart
infrastructure development.
A similar dynamic is often at play when it comes to upgrading
informal settlements more generally. In many cities poorer households do not have
formal (i.e. legally binding) tenure security but rather pay some form of rent
to a third party in return for protection against eviction. This form of ‘land
racketeering’ is often undertaken by the very politicians and bureaucrats
who should be seeking to improve citizens’ lives.
In other words, urban underdevelopment creates profitable
opportunities for some, which in turn creates interest groups opposed to
change.
But even rich cities, with well-developed physical
infrastructure and formal tenure arrangements, often suffer from political
gridlock that impedes progress. Consider the city of Bristol in the UK. Bristol
was recently voted the
best place to live in the UK, yet the city also suffers from dangerous
levels of air pollution, which is linked directly to debilitating
levels of traffic congestion in the city.
While Bristol’s transport woes have long been recognized, it
has proven fiendishly difficult to tackle the underlying problem: a lack of
metropolitan-scale transport planning and investment integrated with land use plans.
This is due to a legacy of ‘horizontal fragmentation’ and ‘vertical
dependence’.
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| Figure 3. Map of Greater Bristol with council boundaries |
Horizontal fragmentation refers to the fact that Greater
Bristol—i.e. the functional area of the city as defined by daily commuter
behaviour—is home to over 1 million people spread across four different local
government areas, each with its own budget, council, transport planning
processes, etc. As Figure 3 clearly shows, the local government boundaries (in
red) carve up this functional urban region into four artificial parts). Indeed,
in some places, such as north Bristol, local government boundaries run straight
through clearly contiguous built-up areas (represented as grey). The challenge
of coordinating planning and investment across four councils is compounded by
the fact that in the past any major infrastructure investment needed to be
approved and funded by the UK central government (i.e. the problem of vertical
dependence). This support is not necessarily forthcoming. An ambitious plan
tabled around the turn of the millennium to integrate city transport with a
tram network, and make the whole system more inclusive for low income residents,
was
rejected by central government. This is a prime example of how political
challenges in wealthy countries impede development progress.
In sum, there are significant political obstacles to
progress in poor cities and rich cities alike. But this doesn’t mean that
progress is impossible. In fact, recognising and understanding these political
complexities is helpful in identifying effective courses of action, whether as
citizens, activists or policymakers. I doubt we will fulfil the aspirations of
SDG 11 in a convincing manner by 2030, but I am hopeful that progress can be
made if we approach the challenge with our eyes wide open to the political
dynamics that could undermine our efforts.
Blog by Dr Sean Fox, School of Geographical Sciences. Originally hosted by the Policy Bristol blog.
The views
expressed here are personal views and do not reflect the views of the funders
of our research.