Century of the City: No Time to Lose

Yesterday the Rockefeller Foundation released its latest book on urbanization, written by Neal R. Peirce and Curtis W. Johnson. Our friends at the International Housing Coalition (IHC) hosted a book launch in Washington, where the authors discussed the major findings of their study.

The book’s content derives from discussions at The Rockefeller Foundation Global Urban Summit, which convened leaders from across sectors in Bellagio, Italy to discuss the challenges and opportunities of rapid global urbanization. With eight conferences over four weeks, participants examined issues for the Global South such as financing urban infrastructure for delivery of basic services like water and sanitation; building climate change resilience; promoting urban population health; and developing urban planning and design. The Summit also covered urbanization issues for the U.S. like transportation reform and regional policy planning.

In his remarks at IHC, Mr. Peirce emphasized the need to break down “silos” in policy and practice—he called for an integrated approach that brings together the work of environmentalists, public health experts, finance experts, and others to address urban challenges. As the subtitle of the book states that we have “no time to lose,” Mr. Pierce shared a startling statistic: To keep pace with current rural-to-city migration trends (and natural population growth in urban areas), the world will have to build one city of 1 million people every five days for the next 42 years.

For more information about the Century of the City, click here.