Sustainable Cities

Did you know that experts estimate an additional three billion people will live in cities by 2050? What will the impact be on the current world population – half of which currently lives in cities and contributes to about three-fourths of global economic output? The opportunities are vast –but so, too, are the potential issues.

In Sustainable Cities , you will learn about the major challenges currently faced by urban areas around the world – including poverty, unemployment, poor housing infrastructure, and constraints on productivity – and the extraordinary potential of these areas to enable change in the future. From infrastructure to culture to economic opportunity, learn how harnessing the power of urban development for global progress is imperative.

This course examines how urban sustainability can be delivered with increasing productivity and reduced inequality; provision of universal basic services and infrastructure; protection of the urban environments; and other solutions and investments, both speculative and in action around the world.

You will emerge from this course understanding how governments, private stakeholders and other actors can improve urban development to heed the call of Sustainable Development Goal 11 – “making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable“ by 2030.

This course has been developed through a partnership between the SDG Academy and the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) , which is working to transform the current nature of urban education and practice in India.

This course is for:

• Anyone interested in the concept of sustainable cities – including those interested in the development of their own local community – who wants to understand the foundations of modern urban development
• Graduate students and advanced undergraduate students in architecture, real estate development, sustainable development, sustainable business, international development, public policy, and other related fields
• Sustainable development practitioners interested in the elements of sustainability that impact urban areas worldwide
• Private-sector actors , such as those who work in real estate development, technology, telecommunications, transportation, or energy – whose work can contribute to and redefine urban areas

Module 1: The urban opportunity

• The urban opportunity
• Cities: cultural and social transformation
• Challenge of urban politics, planning and governance
• Urban research methods
• Urban theory and history

Module 2: What makes a city function?

• Understanding urban systems
• Municipal, regional and national governance
• Urban utilities
• Urban public finance and taxation
• Law, order and conflict
• Land management and planning
• Lessons from London and Mumbai

Module 3: How can we reduce urban poverty and make cities inclusive and safe?

• What is urban poverty?
• Measuringurban poverty
• Poverty reduction in cities
• Affordable and adequate housing
• Who can deliver the housing we need?
• Safety and violence
• Urban vulnerabilities

Module 4:Making cities productive and reduce inequality

• City production and consumption
• Women in the informal economy
• Migration, mobility and the urban-rural continuum
• Wealth and inequality
• Case: SEWA, India
• Migration and the refugee crisis

Module 5: Improving human development in cities

• Addressing the challenges of urban public health
• Colutions for improving urban health
• Education and skills
• Higher education in cities
• Gender in the city
• Human rights and justice
• Law and equality
• Apartheid in South African cities

Module 6:Providinguniversal urban services and infrastructure

• Sustainable environmental services and infrastructure
• Sustainable transport planning
• ICT
• Sustainable urban energy systems
• Sustainable transport: Bangkok

Module 7: How can cities be resilient?

• Air, water, food and natural resources
• Urban ag for sustainable cities
• Cityrisk exposure
• Climate impacts, adaptation and mitigation
• Building urban resilience
• Environmental planning and the politics of change
• Sustainable environmental practices: Durban
• Urban disaster risk management
• Post-disaster recovery

Module 8: Governing sustainable cities

• SDGs and other global processes
• New institutions and governance
• Public participation and democracy
• Financing sustainable development
• Measuring and monitoring the SDGs
• Opportunities of secondary cities

Module 9: Implementing change

• Makingcities more sustainable
• United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and urban sustainability
• Urban innovation: community-based organisations and civil society (the case of SDI)
• UN-Habitat and international development and financing agencies
• Implementing urban sustainability
• International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and urban sustainability
• Local leadership: a case study of Melbourne
• International climate action: A case of Chinese cities