(Initiated in 2009)

Cities and urban spaces are key components of any initiative for achieving sustainable development at the local, regional and global level. As populations concentrate in the world's cities, the future growth of urban centres is of particular concern for planners and policy-makers in both the developed and developing world. However, contemporary patterns of urban growth do not conform to previous experiences or expectations. Large cities in the developing world have been attracting millions of people, many of them living in sprawling slums without the most basic necessities like housing and sanitation, and vulnerable to natural disasters. This urbanisation process also stresses the environmental resources within and beyond the cities’ boundaries. How and where cities will grow, what drives their growth, what impacts they will have on the environment and people’s livelihoods and how best to manage them is yet to be understood, especially having a future scenario with climatic change.

The programme seeks to understand the causes, consequences and solutions of urban environmental problems. We are particularly interested in examining how and why successful actions can emerge to tackle urban environmental problems in developing countries. Some of the challenges and general questions we are interested in are the following:

• City or local organisations may not have the institutional capacity or the financial resources necessary to implement effective environmental policies. How can cities create the institutional capacity to implement effective environmental policies with social inclusion?
• Cities may be overloaded with other local demands, and environmental policy may be down on the list of priorities. What processes are important to make environmental issues a policy priority for a city?
• For global issues, there is the economically rational argument that local governments are motivated to free-riding in a global public good (as climate stability). How can cities move their interests and actions/policies beyond the strictly narrow local interests/issues?

The programme’s main areas of interest include the following themes:

• Cities and Climate Change: Understand how and why cities are affected by and coping with climate change
• Local Governance: Examine how city governance structures emerge and change, and how they affect the environment
• Old Problems, New Agendas for Implementation: Study how to make environmental policy implementation more effective at the local level by integrating with other policies
• Cities and Ecosystems: Analyse how the urbanisation processes compete with ecosystems, looking at the institutional, economic and social dimensions
• Land and Property Rights: Understand how property rights institutions affect the development of cities and consequently their environmental and social outcomes

The programme will build upon the previous extensive UNU-IAS programme called Urban Futures.

Current members:

Jose A. Puppim de Oliveira, Senior Research Fellow (Programme Co-ordinator)
Christopher Doll, JSPS-UNU Postdoctoral Fellow
Osman Balaban, UNU-IAS Postdoctoral Fellow
Deljana Iossifova, UNU-IAS PhD Fellow

For more information, contact: unuias [AT] ias.unu.edu