The human community: Once again, Vancouver will host a world conference that will deal with our settlements' problems and solutions

Charles Kelly

September 22, 2005

It began in Vancouver and has become a force that could change the world.

In 1976 in Vancouver, the United Nations held its first conference on the international actions needed to accommodate the earth's growing population in urban and rural communities.

It was an event that changed the lives of the small band of idealists that helped to organize it, and the thousands of Canadian and world citizens that participated in the forum at Jericho Beach. The Habitat Forum has become a model for international dialogue focused on improving the human condition.

Habitat: United Nations Conference on Human Settlements in 1976 established a unified concept of human settlements, bringing together many elements previously considered separately -- housing, building, planning -- and their relationship to environmental change and national and international social development.

Some of the giants of the urban movement attended Habitat. Margaret Mead, Mother Teresa, Barbara Ward, Buckminster Fuller, as well as Canadian political figures such as Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada's then prime minister and his wife, Margaret, who led a "walk for water" of more than 10,000 British Columbians in support of clean drinking water for the world's urban poor.

The Vancouver Declaration that concluded the conference defined human settlements in the totality of the human community -- whether city, town or village -- with all the social, material, organizational, spiritual and cultural elements that sustain it.

It was about the whole of life and all that mankind can achieve -- happiness, justice and dignity -- or all that mankind suffers -- rejection, despair and deepening violence.

The idealism of Habitat reflected in this statement is as relevant today as it was then -- perhaps even more so.

Since Habitat, the problems of human settlements not only have persisted, they have multiplied many fold in size, scope and complexity. If recent trends continue as projected to 2050, virtually all of the world's population growth will be in urban areas. In effect, the poor countries will have to build the equivalent of a city of more than one million people each week for the next 45 years.

The World Urban Forum, a biennial international gathering under the auspices of the United Nations Habitat Program that is a direct offshoot of the 1976 event, will take place in Vancouver in June 2006.

The theme for the forum is Urban Sustainability -- Ideas to Action. This will not be a policy conference. Rather, it will be an opportunity for the world's civil society and governments to examine pragmatic ideas that are actionable to deal with the urban problems facing us now and in the future.

Globally the challenges of urbanization are enormous. For many city dwellers, urbanization results in a frightening array of hazards such as infectious disease, unless adequate sanitation measures supply clean water and remove wastes.

We have seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina what can happen if these hazards and risks are not managed properly, and if the necessary infrastructure is not in place where and when it is needed.

Just as the challenges are great, so too are the opportunities. If half the urban infrastructure that will exist in the world of 2050 must be built in the next 45 years, the opportunity to design, construct, operate and maintain new cities better than old ones is enormous, exciting, and challenging. This is where Vancouver has the potential to show the world what is possible in terms of urban sustainability.

As host city to the World Urban Forum, Vancouver has a great deal to offer the thousands of visitors expected at WUF3. Vancouver has been internationally recognized as one of the best places in the world in which to live and work.

In addition to a quality of life second to none, Vancouver has received global acclaim for the excellence of its long range planning for urban design. The region is also noted for its singular focus on sustainability and for the provision of the physical and social service infrastructure so essential to preserve and protect quality of life in the urban context.

To reach out to a global community, the Canadian government and UN-HABITAT will host Habitat Jam Dec. 1-3, 2005 -- a unique Internet-based collaborative event.

More than 100,000 people from around to world will offer guidance on key urbanization issues that will be discussed at World Urban Forum 3.

Participants in the JAM sessions will include leaders and legislators, urban planners and architects, grassroots organizations and global non-governmental organizations, experts and academics, financiers and builders and ordinary citizens.

This inaugural online event promises to be one of the most innovative experiments in creating a mechanism for a truly global dialogue, and it could become yet another model for the world courtesy of Vancouver.

While the need for more sustainable cities is worldwide, the ideas that will help shift the paradigm of the global urbanization agenda towards true sustainability began here in Vancouver 30 years ago.

Perhaps it is only fitting that -- as we prepare to host the 2010 Olympic Games, the first truly sustainable games -- once again we show the world what cities of the future can look like if we work together.

Charles Kelly is the commissioner general for World Urban Forum 3 Canada. He was one of the young idealists whose life was changed forever at Habitat in 1976.