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World Urban Forum 3
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- Filed in City
- June 19, 2006
The 3rd session of the UN's World Urban Forum opened officially in Vancouver today. The forum, or WUF3 as it's being called, is the United Nation's initiative to address the growing urbanization of the world. A much thrown around statistic this week is that by 2007 - NEXT YEAR - half of the world's population will be living in cities. This represents a growing trend away from our rural, agricultural or nomadic roots, and a focus on megaloposis, huge sprawling cities heavily dependent on resources. The idea behind the UN-Habitat's urban forum is that this kind of shift will require a lot of innovative ideas and planning, and unless we shift our thinking to an urban politics, we will be in a lot of trouble. NGO's, youth, delegate, ciitizen participants, and world leaders (Stephen Harper will be there, as well as Mayor Sam Sullivan, and Premier Gordon Campell) will be on hand to look at a variety of urban issues.
From the WUF3 site:
"The World Urban Forum was established by the United Nations to examine one of the most pressing issues facing the world today: rapid urbanisation and its impact on communities, cities, economies and policies. It is projected that in the next fifty years, two-thirds of humanity will be living in towns and cities. A major challenge is to minimize burgeoning poverty in cities, improve the urban poor's access to basic facilities such as shelter, clean water and sanitation and achieve environment-friendly, sustainable urban growth and development."
This week delegates from all over the world will meet to address issues from slums to sustainability with a view to the human condition. In an admirable attempt to get everything covered, there is a full program of sessions with everything from keynote speakers to themed networking events. And for those who are interested but not registered (closed last week with some 19,000 people registered), there are some free sessions offered by UBC as well as an arts and cultural Earth: the World Urban Festival which will take a lighter look at urban culture through visual arts, hip hop and theatre.
Some more links you may find useful:
Earthblog, a 4 person blog for WUF3 discussion
Commissioner Gerneral Charles Kelly's blog
WUF3 press releases
facts and figures on urbanization from the UN
News and updates courtesy of IISD Reporting Services (IISD RS)
WUF3 flickr group
WUF3 in the blogophere
CIRS, a sustainability lab that will be built on the Great Northern Way campus.
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