Changing Cities: Climate, Youth, and Land Markets in Urban Areas
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The number of urban slum dwellers worldwide is staggering. According to UN-Habitat, 827.6 million people live in slums around the world. Despite meeting a Millennium Development Goal to significantly improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020, the total number of people living in these areas still increased by 55 million between 2000 and 2010. By 2020, the world slum population is projected to reach 889 million. With the majority of people now living in cities, urban priorities are synonymous with human security and environmental sustainability and must be accounted for in the global development agenda. The result of the third annual paper competition co-sponsored by CUSP, USAID, IHC, the World Bank, and Cities Alliance, the chapters in this publication highlight the new research and innovative thinking of the next generation of urban planners, practitioners, and policymakers.
Issues in this Series
Changing Cities: Climate, Youth, and Land Markets in Urban Areas
Recognizing a need to strengthen the ties between urban policymaking and scholarly work on urban development, and to disseminate evidence-based programming, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Comparative Urban Studies Project, USAID’s Urban Programs Team, the International Housing Coalition, Cities Alliance, and the World Bank came together in 2010 to co-sponsor an academic paper competition for graduate students studying urban issues.
The success of the 2010 competition led to the expansion of the competition in 2011 and publication of the top papers. In this third year, the focus is on three topics: climate change, youth, and land markets. A panel of urban experts representing the sponsoring institutions reviewed over 70 abstract submissions, from which 15 were invited to write full-length papers. Of these, eight were selected for this publication.