Cities have complex relationships with gender. They challenge some models of traditional femininity and masculinity, and reinforce others. Our author Paula Meth explains how gendered relations play out in informal urban settlements.
José Morales, the former National Director of Housing and Human Settlements at the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing in Ecuador, gives his view on the country's housing situation and social inequality.
Inequality and insufficient political and social structures in developing countries and and in the megacities of the Global South are still a huge problem, and change only occurs slowly. To enable cities to share their experiences and their efforts to bring about change, Janice Perlman founded the Mega Cities Project.
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In a four-part series, URBANET takes a closer look at specific projects that contribute to making cities more liveable. In this first part, the focus lies on San Salvador, El Salvador's capital city, where the houses of thousands of families who live in slums are being reconstructed. Since they have gained access to regular water and electricity supply, the living conditions have improved significantly.
Slums and informal settlements are not just a matter of housing quality, they also affect the quality of life that people have, their health and their chances at a good education. At the Habitat III conference in Quito, URBANET talked to Sarah Nandudu, vice-chairperson of the National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda, about community building in slums, the responsibility of the New Urban Agenda, and what formal settlements can still learn from informal ones.
The "Urban Nexus" is a theoretical and technical approach to integrated urban development. It introduces innovative and environmentally-friendly engineering solutions to improve the physical infrastructure of cities, and also promotes people-centered development. Our authors Ruth Erlbeck and Ralph Trosse describe how a low-cost, climate change resilient pilot house was built in the Philippines as part of the Nexus project.
In modern-day cities, issues such as affordable and good housing, or the question of who designs neighborhoods are very relevant and often imply a conflict of interests. URBANET talked to Harvard Loeb Fellow Matthias Nohn about the challenges and chances that cities face, and about what really constitutes the "Right to the City".
At the German Habitat Forum in June 2016 URBANET talked to the African Centre for Cities Director Edgar Pieterse about cultural inclusion, informal settlements and why it is necessary that international institutions overcome their own limitations for the New Urban Agenda to have an impact.
The idea of partnerships plays an important role in the formulation of the New Urban Agenda. But how can local communities have a real chance to participate? In an interview with Urbanet, Rose Molokoane, Deputy President of Slum Dwellers International (SDI), shares her vision of a New Urban Agenda co-created by the urban poor.
Rapid urbanisation accelerated by rural-urban and North-South migration due to economic imbalances causes serious challenges for local authorities in Ghana. On behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Support for Decentralisation Reforms (SfDR) programme supports the implementation of the Ghanaian decentralisation reforms at regional, district and local level.
