There is something about cities: in music and literature they are places of hope, where fame and fortune are sought, where culture and art flourish, where love is lost and found. Globally, their allure and importance has never been clearer: about 56% of the world’s population lives in them and they are growing rapidly.

But for most people, cities are less about bright lights and possibility, and more about basic survival.

This week the UN is hosting the Habitat III conference, to come up with a sustainable vision and plan for urban centres across the globe. More than 36,000 people are in Quito, including mayors, NGOs, UN agencies, international financial institutions, urban planners, architects, developers, academics and many others. There is much to discuss: the three-day agenda is chock-full of impressive and diverse topics – from urban forests, to the regulation of real estate markets, the role and responsibilities of local governments, infrastructure, financing, public space, migration and housing.

The outcome of the conference is meant to guide sustainable urban development over the next 20 years. The new urban agenda has, in fact, already been drafted and merely awaits the dotting of Is and crossing of Ts before it becomes the blueprint for cities into the future.

Conferences like this have the potential to both overwhelm and underwhelm – and Habitat III is no exception. While the text of the new urban agenda is a neither here nor there document, it does commit governments to “work towards an urban paradigm shift”. To this end, in an unusual move, mayors from across the globe have been actively participating in all aspects of the conference. There appears to be energy from many involved to go beyond business as usual, and an appetite for learning how to do things differently.

But in light of the unprecedented challenges facing most cities, mainly related to housing, the “paradigm shift” suggested in the new urban agenda feels more like a nudge than the radical transformation required.

Millions of urban residents live on the edge. Some are homeless, others live in housing that is unaffordable or grossly inadequate, without security of tenure or access to basic services. Still more are being evicted, often en masse, to make way for shopping malls, major sporting events, resource extraction or the next luxury tower. To ensure they, too, can enjoy the city will require a fundamentally different way of thinking about housing.

So let’s get radical

The new urban agenda must undo what’s happened to housing in the last 20 years or more. Housing must now be recognised as a human right, no different than the right to vote or express yourself freely. This means understanding that housing cannot be viewed first and foremost as an economic driver or a commodity to add to an investment portfolio; that forced eviction is not development; that land has more than monetary value; and that the private market must be regulated.

It also means housing homeless people rather than making them criminals for trying to stay alive, and it means recognising that everyone has the right to live in the city regardless of socio-economic status.

If governments were to govern using this new paradigm, the lives of at least a billion people in inadequate housing would shift significantly. And, just maybe, the city could once again be a place of hope and possibility.

Leilani Farha is the special rapporteur on the right to housing, appointed by the UN human rights council.

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