Towards Sustainable Citiesand Habitats - Averting the Global Crisis

As countries celebrate yet another World Habitat Day on October 3, 2016, homelessness remains a critical global crisis with nearly 100 million people having no roof over their heads. An additional 1.6 billion people worldwide are living in substandard housing, according to the United Nations (UN) statistics. Nitin Jugran Bahuguna dwells into the present trends and challenges of rapid urbanization and highlights the initiatives that would go a long way to realize a sustainable, inclusive, and resilient urban future.

The United Nations’ World Habitat Day was first celebrated in 1986 in Nairobi with the theme ‘Shelter is My Right’. It has been subsequently held every year on the first Monday of October to remind governments across the globe of their commitment to provide their citizens with better, affordable, and adequate housing (‘Housing at the Centre’ has been chosen as the theme for the World Habitat Day this year). The other important objectives are to bring positive changes in the systems, including policies and attitudes of persons causing poverty housing, pay attention on the basic human rights for adequate shelter, and to increase worldwide awareness of joint responsibility for providing sustainable habitat to the future generations.

Rapid urbanization has become a global phenomenon due to a perceptible shift from agriculture in rural areas to manufacturing and services in urban areas. This has led to a large movement of the poor to cities as well as a rapid increase in the size of the middle class in cities. Today, more than half of the world’s inhabitants live in cities and this migration trend is expected to continue. By 2050, more than two-thirds of the world will be urban dwellers. India alone is expected to double the number of city dwellers by adding 404 million new people to cities over the next 34 years, according to UN figures.

Sustainable Development Goal 11