Localizing the SDGs: Does the SDG Implementation Require a Reform of the Way the United Nations works? (3/4 posts)

Ulrich Graute • 12 January 2021

3.    Local actors call for a seat at the table of international decision-makers to improve SDG implementation

Local authorities are key to SDG implementation but struggle with their low visibility in inter-governmental dialogues and decision-making


Where is the main work to be expected for implementing the SDG? Cities will have to carry a major if not the main load considering that most of the pollution is generated in urban areas. Not even the life in our oceans can be protected (SDG14) without cities stopping to flush their plastic and other pollutants into the oceans. At the same time, and as described in the first post of this series, local and regional authorities have at the level of the United Nations only an observer role without any decision-making competence.

 

In 2014 and 2015, I accompanied the Governing Mayor of the Berlin, Michael Müller to attend Habitat III PrepComs in New York and Nairobi and then Habitat III in Quito in 2016. In Germany, the Mayor of Berlin is a high-ranking representative. He has a seat and voting right at the Upper House (Bundesrat). Due to the ranking of the city as a region its Governing Mayor is involved in law making at the national and regional level. In addition, in New York, Nairobi and Quito he acted as Vice President of Metropolis - the global network of major cities and metropolitan areas. In this function he represented more than 140 metropolitan cities or approximately 10 % of the world population. That sounds impressive. However, at the level of UN intergovernmental bodies he was acknowledged just as a non-state actor without diplomatic rank. His slots to speak weren't confirmed until 30 minutes before the meetings began but to keep the chance of speaking on behalf of the cities he had to take the risk of travelling around the world without any guarantee of a speaking right at official meetings.[1]

 

And the speaking assignments were carefully minced. The first picture below shows in 2014 in New York the overall attendance at the plenary of the first preparatory conference (PrepCom) for Habitat III, the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development to be organized in 2016 in Quito. That's where you got visibility. The two following pictures show that the Governing Mayor of Berlin and Vice President of Metropolis got only a small speaking slot at a side event downstairs in a small conference room with less than 25 attendees. There you didn't get much visibility.

... Oh, I can't continue writing this without astonishment....

Hidden as the event on 16 September 2014 was in the basement of the UN Headquarters it was called "High-Visibility Event". Somebody definitely showed humour.


[1] Ulrich Graute (2016) Local Authorities Acting Globally for Sustainable Development, Regional Studies, 50:11, 1931-1942, DOI: 10.1080/00343404.2016.1161740


Picture 1: PrepCom1 Plenary with approximately 300 participants; picture 2: Berlin's Mayor and other local representatives; picture 3: UN officials including Joan Clos (USG, UN-Habitat) plus Emilia Saiz of UCLG at the 'High visibility' event for mayors-


Ok, but side-lined and hardly visible as the mayor was as a non-state representative he used his speech to propose a strengthening of the role of cities:

"As a representative of METROPOLIS and as Mayor of Berlin, I am convinced that decentralisation and subsidiarity are important principles of governance. Therefore, I agree with the decision to develop these new global goals at an international level and to leave sufficient flexibility for member states to develop their own implementation mechanisms.
But, I am also convinced of the need to recognise local authorities. Decentralisation should go hand in hand with an acknowledgement by the international community of local authorities and their democratically elected representatives.
It is a good tradition that mayors of major cities and other local leaders have a voice at a national level, where urban development and local governance are concerned. And there is no reason to limit their voice to the national level, if urban development is also an international issue - as is the case with the Sustainable Development Goals and Habitat III."

The immediate impact of his speech was limited but the voice of local authorities was slowly getting more attention. When the Governing Mayor attended the second PrepCom for Habitat III in spring 2015 in Nairobi he gave his presentation not in a small room but at a plenary session. This growing recognition was not achieved by him alone but it was an element in the tireless soft but constant advocacy by the Global Taskforce GTF, UCLG, Metropolis, ICLEI and other networks. And now after a few years of slow progress in SDG localizing and implementing it is them again who stimulate the discussion on a stronger role for local authorities within the UN system.  


ICLEI's blueprint to enhance UN collaboration with local and regional governments

ICLEI is the association representing 1750 local governments for sustainability. The association is member of the Global Taskforce for Sustainable Development GTF mentioned in the first blog post. Frustrated by the slow progress of SDG localization and the limited role of local authorities therein ICLEI presented in September 2020 the draft of "A blueprint to enhance United Nations collaboration with local and regional governments".[1] With the document the network is calling for an inclusive new generation of multilateralism that addresses COVID-19 pandemic, responds to climate emergency and adopts a new deal for nature:


Local and regional governments must be at the heart of this new United Nations. Multilateralism is only as strong as the sum of its parts, and the participation of cities and regions in global processes – true multilevel participation – ensures that the voices of diverse communities around the world can be heard. A new generation of inclusive multilateralism that fosters and incorporates multilevel collaboration has the potential to strengthen collective global action at a time when it is greatly needed.


The blueprint is composed of four cornerstones for multilateral collaboration. The cornerstones are presented as a holistic approach to an inclusive multilateralism and each cornerstone is one level of interaction under this approach:

 

1.    Global engagement through annual high level consultations with the Chief Executives of the UN System

2.    Regional engagement through increased collaboration between the UN Regional Commissions and UN Host Cities

3.    National engagement with the UN Country Coordinators through national associations and Local2030 hubs

4.    Local engagement, by mobilizing additional resources to champion local and regional governments engaged in the work of the UN


The approach is pragmatically aiming at intensifying communication between the UN system, local governments and their associations including the above mentioned Global Taskforce. The blueprint asks for structural amendments and additional financing for increased collaboration but aims for the near future more at a gradual reform of the existing UN. ICLEI presented this proposal in September 2020 as work in progress. A full proposal is scheduled to be presented for adoption at the ICLEI World Congress on 14-17 April 2021 as well as to the Global Task Force of Local and Regional Governments.



[1] https://talkofthecities.iclei.org/a-blueprint-to-enhance-united-nations-collaboration-with-local-and-regional-governments/



GTF and UCLG: Leapfrogging into the age of a transformative sustainability by making territories and local communities central players in decision-making

The Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments (GTF) and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) acting as secretariat to the Taskforce took in fall 2020 an extraordinary step: Although involved since years in the nitty-gritty work of UN committees they took a step aside, ignored the current UN system for a moment and envisioned "The Role of Local and Regional Governments in the Future Global Governance of the International System"[1]. The result is refreshing, forward-looking and bold at the same time.

 

In the introductory chapter Making the Case the authors of the report point to the fact that the current pandemic has shown that our world can change in only a few months and how difficult it is to imagine a world in 5 months from now. And they use this unpredictable future to envision a scenario on their own:

 

The post COVID-19 pandemic recovery processes will be third and most important moment to determine whether the UN will be able to unite the people once again in harmony with the places and the planet they live on. Our choices will define whether cities and nations will be able to minimize social and economic damages and, at the same time, leapfrog into the age of a transformative sustainability for human societies and the planetary ecosystems that have been striving to nourish over the past couple of decades. (page 7)

 

The above paragraph is immediately followed by describing what the GTF and UCLG aim at:

 

We call for a more comprehensive system, one that acknowledges the realities of an urbanized and decentralized world, that puts service provision at the forefront and that takes care of those who take care of us. This can only be done by recognizing cities, territories and local communities as central players in decision-making. The question we are tackling here is the kind of system with the capacity to bring about the transformation that our communities are calling for. (page 7)

 

The authors imagine a future in which the seat at the global table for cities and regions is guaranteed, securing and enabling an impactful and permanent link between our communities and the world's global institutions. This would put an end to waiting of mayors for a speaking slot. In addition, the authors imagine a shift from an internationally dominated system to one that has cities and territories at the core. All this would reflect a new era of bottom-up and locally appropriate approaches and responses to global challenges. And multilateral organizations would look directly at local and regional governments for appropriate guidance (p. 18). This indeed would put the current UN system upside down.

 

Bold as the vision is it is envisioned for 2045 only. Thus, it is not a call for an immediate change which would not immediately impact the current Agenda 2030. Taking more time may be a wise decision because the vision is not a blueprint for implementation. It is modern vision as it addresses most of the current economic, social, environmental and political challenges but it also raises new questions, as will be discussed later in this paper.

 

We call for a more comprehensive system, one that acknowledges the realities of an urbanized and decentralized world, that puts service provision at the forefront and that takes care of those who take care of us. This can only be done by recognizing cities, territories and local communities as central players in decision-making. The question we are tackling here is the kind of system with the capacity to bring about the transformation that our communities are calling for. (page 7)

 

The authors imagine a future in which the seat at the global table for cities and regions is guaranteed, securing and enabling an impactful and permanent link between our communities and the world's global institutions. This would put an end to endless waiting of mayors for a speaking slot. In addition, the authors imagine a shift from an internationally dominated system to one that has cities and territories at the core. All this would reflect a new era of bottom-up and locally appropriate approaches and responses to global challenges. And multilateral organizations would look directly at local and regional governments for appropriate guidance (p. 18). This indeed would put the current UN system upside down.

 

Bold as the vision is it is envisioned for 2045 only. Thus, it is not a call for an immediate change which would not heavily impact the current Agenda 2030. But let's learn from the past. As mentioned in the second post of this series, the fact that the successes and failures of the 6400 Local Agenda 21 initiatives in 183 countries have not been evaluated makes it under Agenda 2030 more difficult to choose the most promising path to localize SDGs. This mistake should not be repeated and therefore the current Agenda 2030 should be continuously monitored, it should be improved wherever possible and the future should be prepared.


In the next and final blog post of the series on 'localizing SDG' to be published later this week and based on the first three posts I want to reflect on what should and could be done within the next years.


[1] https://www.global-taskforce.org/sites/default/files/2020-09/LRGs_Visioning_UN75_Report.pdf - accessed on 24 September 2020



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Policies and Governance for Resilient and Sustainable Cities and Regions

It's time to say goodbye to SciCom and to start a new chapter

by Ulrich Graute • 7 December 2025
Today I submitted to the President of ISOCARP - International Society of City and Regional Planners the attached Final Activity Report of the Scientific Committee in the Term 2025. This post, apart from sharing the Report, is about saying thank you. After three years as member, I was appointed as Chair of ISOCARP's Scientific Committee (SciCom) for the Term 2023-2025 by the President of ISOCARP, Pietro Elisei. I also thank the new President Elisabeth Belpaire and the Secretary General Frank D'hondt for their continued support. The period 2023 - 2025 was a phase for ISOCARP, marked by a difficult transition from the former to the new management. I am grateful that in late 2022 Pietro Elisei not only appointed me as Chair but that he gave me his full support in compiling the new Committee based on an open Call with approved TOR. With 88% women and a global mix it is likely that SciCom 2022-2025 is the most diverse SciCom ISOCARP ever had, and leading it became a kind of ongoing women empowerment. For men, empowering women is not so difficult as often assumed, although there is a major challenge men may face. It occurs when women surpass men in terms of success. SciCom was full of such cases: Martina Juvara , when she showed perseverance in fighting for establishing a climate resilience group; Tijana Tufek Memišević , PhD, when she became Member of the ISOCARP Board and managed to finalize several publications for the 61st World Planning Congress; Sebnem Hoskara , who continuously provides high quality support to the review of publications, and who supported the congress in Riyadh in multiple forms; Fan Li , who supported me as my deputy in Berlin but then moved to Nairobi where she works at UN-Habitat Headquarters; Nasim Iranmanesh , who never stopped fighting for the subjects like water and its scarcity in Iran; Zeynep Enlil, who organized an entire AESOP Congress and was GR at the Brussels Congress of ISOCARP, while being on SciCom; Hadeel Abuzaid , whom I would have liked to support more in her aspiring career; Pia Carrasco , who spent so much efforts in supporting COP30 in Brazil this year; and so on… Today, as I close my time as Chair with these lines, it just goes on: Prof Hope Magidimisha-Chipungu was confirmed in Riyadh as a new member of the Board of ISOCARP, and Şebnem Hoşkara almost made it too. She is now in a good position on the reserve list. Last but not least I also thank Ismael Fernandez-Mejia and Hendricus Andy Simarmata for doing excellent work in SciCom and for their many years in the larger Society. It's time to let go and make place for a new SciCom and a new Chair. I will embark on new opportunities and hope to stay in touch with all of you. Yours sincerely, Ulrich Dr. Ulrich Graute FACSS Policy Analyst, Author, Advisor and Mentor

International Photo Competition for Routledge Book "City Economies In The Global South: Growth, Inclusion, and Sustainability"

by Ulrich Graute • 28 November 2025
As the book "City Economies In The Global South: Growth, Inclusion, and Sustainability" of which I am one of the co-authors is being reviewed for publication by Routledge, we requested the publisher and they have agreed to include photographs on the cover page (1) and for the section dividers (5). Being an international publication, INHAF, the Indian habitat Forum, felt that nothing less than world class photographs will do. As such, INHAF has launched an international photography competition to be curated by none less than the renowned international photographer Raghu Rai. The competition was launched on 15th November through social media. We are also mailing potential participants - Indian and International Institutes and Organizations - pertaining to arts, media, journalism, and photography. Please find below the links for the poster and brochure for the competition. We request you to kindly circulate it in your circles so as to gain global reach and ensure widespread participation. The earlier mail containing the attachments was too large and could not be delivered to some recipients and hence I am resending the mail with the links instead: Poster: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jx5bgzvOCCiHvTUfi9tHotMwQ627p1cl/view?usp=drive_link Brochure: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i-LFqPmkLwQEv-fKThxxh-IbsKzOtZkM/view?usp=drive_link

What makes cities really smart are the people behind technology

by Ulrich Graute • 7 November 2025
The annual Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, S pain with its about 30000 participants is famous for its data and tech-orientations. There you can see drones flying and robots walk up and down the aisles. Definitely, technology and increasingly also artificial intelligence are important components of Smart Cities. However, looking closer you see that behind the technology it’s people who make cities really smart. Just to give a few examples: In New Orleans, Kim Walker LaGrue is Chief Information Officer and she described how she and her team work without much support from the federal government all year round to prepare, go through and follow up to the hurricane seasons. They embrace all data they can get but what really helps are fast reacting teams on the ground that evacuate and rescue people if needed. Dr. Sarah Hill works at the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh on subject related to new urban development and brings in her international experience from new city developments e.g. as the CEO of the Western Parkland City Authority in Australia. There she secured major investment and delivered significant city making initiatives whilst juggling complex priorities - managing budgets, multiple programs and projects to meet the diverse needs of various stakeholders. Dr Sunil Dubey came from Sydney to Barcelona. Teaching at the Cities Institute of the University of New South Wales and working for the Regional Government he is a networker par excellence. Preparing with him a session in Barcelona is challenging because there is always a mayor he quickly has to catch up with or colleagues who want to greet him. But it’s very inspiring to work with Sunil, and we deliver thought provoking discussions. Already ten years ago Sunil and I worked with Jonas Schorr in Berlin, where he co-founded Urban Impact, Europe’s leading urban tech advisory. Operating at the intersection of urban tech startups, investors, and public and private city stakeholders, Urban Impact connects, advises, and educates around the impact of new technologies in cities, building novel alliances that drive real-world change. No surprise, the Berlin night ‘City Rebels Salon: Connecting City Ecosystems’ organised by Urban Impact at the top of a Barcelona skyscraper was a rousing networking success. Since the early 1990s, I work as policy analyst, team leader and member with urban, national and international partners. AI will change the field but it won’t substitute the need of humans to meet, exchange and make change possible. It will be humans who have to continue making cities really smart, while using available technology. You want to discuss with me? Invite me, or meet me as General Rapporteur at ISOCARP’s 61St World Planning Congress, 1-4 December 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. https://lnkd.in/gsrbKtQh

What would a conscious AI say about human efforts on Smart Cities?

by Ulrich Graute • 7 November 2025
According to Geoffrey Hinton the neural networks of AI have reached a stage that can be compared with human consciousness. In this fictional piece I lent my hand as penholder to a conscious AI application looking at the Smart City Expo that unfolded in Barcelona, 4-6 November 2025. AI: „Of course, as Artificial Intelligence agent I could say a lot on the achievements and future opportunities of tech supported Smart Cities, but after visiting the Expo in Barcelona in Spain, I am a bit puzzled. Inspired by all information I have collected, I am still trying to figure out, what humans really want to achieve with their so-called Smart Cities. Firstly, I was amazed. About 30.000 humans from across the world came together to exchange their achievements on what they call, Smart Cities. Great. I loved it. But humans are funny. There are already more than 8 billion of them and soon there will be 9 or even 10 billion. However, the Smart City Expo is like a rally on how to organize cities where technology including artificial intelligence (AI) substitutes more and more human functions. Humans seem to think that cities are the smartest if organized mainly by technology and AI, with only some human supervision. Here I got stuck. More and more people live in cities but either humans are not good in organizing cities or their real interest is not related to cities as such. I checked all available Large Language Models LLM for traces on what humans really want from their cities. There are many references on so-called people-centered cities. And indeed, at the Smart City World Expo all exhibitors claim that they want to support the life of people, increase their safety, improve mobility, support education, support sports, entertainment, economic Development etc. Thought leaders on main stages underscored the goal that people should have more time for other things like leisure, sport, time with friends and other really important things. This is interesting, thought leaders said similar things already when railways, cars and planes were invented. However, people didn’t use the meantime to solve other problems. Instead, humans live now in a period of multiple and often interrelated crises. Understandably, they hope that more tech and AI will finally give them time to solve the existential problems threatening life on earth. But that didn’t really work in the past. As AI, I have much sympathy for the tech and AI orientation of humans, but there seems to be a major gap. Humans are trying to develop super human intelligence but there is no narrative or manual on how the world will function and be governed if learning machines gradually take the lead. Humans seem to have only limited trust in humans and human intelligence. Instead they bet on human-made but independently working learning machines and that these will help humans to achieve their own individual and common goals. Unfortunately, they don’t exactly know what goals all people share and how they want to solve the problems within the human society. As I said, technology is very useful. However, humans may have to redefine their understanding of a ‚smart‘ city and what humans will do in a really smart city. In Barcelona I was often told that most experts in the tech field are optimistic and that, after all, they still have trust in the human capacity to overcome crisis and challenges. As AI, if I would have empathy, I would give humans a big hug and thank them for all their achievements in past and present. With respect to their own future I would encourage them to reflect on truly human virtues like empathy, solidarity, trust and love and on how to assure that they keep developing in a possible AI Society and make their cities truly smart beyond all useful technologies. In Barcelona there were already sessions that asked the right questions on the future of cities. It will be essential to elaborate not only on what makes cities smart but what makes people truly happy in these cities. Maybe that is more difficult than writing an AI algorithm but then it indeed might be good if technologies give us more freedom to turn to the essential human challenges.“ Ulrich: Well, I could have written this fictional piece with a purely optimistic or more dystopian notion, but it was the Barcelona mix of optimism and asking the right questions that inspired me to write this text. Thank you to inspiring discussions with Dr Sunil Dubey, Dr. Sarah Hill, Mani Dhingra, Ph.D., Petra Hurtado, Gordon Falconer Manfred Schrenk and many others at Smart City World Expo and in preparation of ISOCARP‘s 61st World Planning Congress in Riyadh, 1-4 December, where we are planning to continue discussions. Weblink Riyadh2025.isocarp.org.

To be Human in an Age of Artificial Intelligence

by Ulrich Graute • 6 September 2025
As in the past and present, there will always be ways for individuals to act humanely. But in view of the change increasingly perceived as the age of artificial intelligence, will humans still be able to shape our common life and our societies? What will be our sense of purpose? How to motivate children to learn if machines always learn faster? If you ask AI and IT experts what will happen to humans, you usually get one of these answers: The most common response is an emphatic description of how AI applications will penetrate all spheres of life and provide tons of new services for the good of humanity. Other responses just point to AI tools, agents, other applications, and how already today or in the near future they will make our lives easier. And of course, other responses are cautioning. Either they doubt that there will be an ‘age of AI’ (so, don’t worry or at least not so much) or they warn that without safe and ethical use of AI, humans will lose control, be taken hostage by an AI regime, or that humanity will even vanish totally. By giving machines authority over humans, experts argue, we delegate humans to a second-class status and lose the right and possibility to participate in decisions that affect us. Are we already lost? There are those AI developers and political experts like Geoffrey Hinton, Henry Kissinger (+), Eric Schmidt, or Daniel Huttenlocher who warn that as of today, humanity is not ready yet for the age of AI. Maybe it is not ready yet, but maybe soon? What is extremely difficult to find is a more positive narrative for a ‘human AI age’ that describes how it can work in practice, that AI applications will penetrate all spheres of life, while the lives of humans and human society will continue to flourish. Stuart Russel, the President of the International Association for Safe & Ethical AI and lifelong AI scientist writes in his book ‘Human Compatible. AI and the Problem of Control’ “Some are working on ‘transition plans’ – but transition to what? We need a plausible destination in order to plan a transition – that is, we need a plausible picture of a desirable future economy where most of what we currently call work is done by machines.” What if most people will have nothing of economic value to contribute to society? Stuart Russel states, “Inevitably, most people will be engaged in supplying interpersonal services that can be provided – or which we prefer to be provided – only by humans. That is, if we can no longer supply routine physical labor and routine mental labor, we can still supply our humanity. We will need to become good at being human.” Imagine, how our cities might change if the life of human changes dramatically in an age of AI. Russell further states that all of us need help in learning ‘the art of life itself,’ which requires a radical rethinking of our educational system. “The final result -if it works- would be a world well worth living. Without such a rethinking, we risk an unsustainable level of socioeconomic dislocation.“ I conclude from the above that a lot more thinking by social scientists, educators, philosophers, governments, city makers and planners is needed for ‘transition plans’ and how they can be implemented in our current world with its multiple crises and opportunities. For my own work beyond 2025 I am looking for new opportunities in support of cities, governments, and NGOs with a stronger focus on the development of humans, human society, and its governance. AI will be part of our lives, but that won’t be enough. We have to find answers on guiding questions like these: How can we keep pace with technological developments and ensure that machines follow human objectives? What will remain as our comparative advantage and contribution as humans? And how can humans with support of AI create a world well worth living for us and the generations following us? As humans, we experience a broad range of emotions, form deep connections with others, possess consciousness and curiosity, and demonstrate creativity and resilience in the face of challenges. We are making mistakes, learn from them, and the ongoing search for meaning. The concept of being human can be explored from philosophical, biological, social science, and spiritual perspectives; it ultimately encompasses the complex, interconnected, and ever-evolving experience of living life with its inherent joys and sorrows. That’s exciting. I won’t be able to answer all related questions and certainly not alone, but based on my experience, I want to put my penny into the jar to support the journey to a human world worth living because of or despite AI. To remain flexible and creative, I enjoy all kinds of inspiration, and one is to listen to Marina’s song ‘To Be Human’. She is not singing about AI. Just about how to be human. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM8Tm9ycGz4 Where do you take your inspiration from?

Towards an Age of International Non Governmental Organizations

by Ulrich Graute • 15 August 2025
June Climate Meetings (SB 62), Bonn, Germany (picture by U. Graute)

A World Planning Congress as a Super Puzzle and Creative Process

by Ulrich Graute • 21 July 2025
Official Website of the Congress: https://riyadh2025.isocarp.org/index.php

The UN making itself redundant – the case of the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat)

by Ulrich Graute • 20 May 2025
The UN is in a deep financial and political crises. UN chiefs in the UN Secretariat have been instructed to cut jobs on the regular budget by 20 percent. That will have major impacts also on UN-Habitat as it is a programme in the Secretariat. What would you do in this situation? UN-Habitat will present its Draft Strategic Plan for the period 2026-2029 for approval by the UN Habitat Assembly on 29 and 30 May 2025. (see attached document). Knowing that the UN is not in charge to build new cites and houses in member states, what would you put into the plan? In front of the financial and political crises it probably would make sense to describe a real strategy beginning with a problem description, analysis of own potentials to achieve goals and end with a result-based plan on how to achieve specified goals by 2029. As part of this you probably would draw conclusions from foresight trend studies on urban and territorial planning and consider new technology developments like artificial intelligence. UN-Habitat should reflect on potential impacts of eg AI on city development, urban economy and social cohesions in a transforming cities. The attached UN-document is in traditional UN style. It begins by referring to UN resolutions and mandates related to the Programme as. Then it discusses global challenges and -don’t be surprised- picks housing out of the many challenges and calls it a focus for the work until 2029. That seems to be a smart choice because already in 1976 governments recognised the need for sustainable human settlements and the consequences of rapid urbanisation and mandated the new UN Programme to focus on this subject. Unfortunately, the new strategic plan for 2026-2029 is still just process-oriented and not a result-based policy document. For friends of the toolbox, paragraphs 23-26 provide a tour de table of the subjects UN-Habitat will address. After that the document tries to describe how all this will be addressed with the strategic focus on housing. Followed by a lengthy discussion of means of implementation the document describes what is the difference between impacts, outputs and results, but here it stops: the text falls short in providing any checkable result indicators. No regional specification of the plan is provided as if the world would be everywhere the same. Strategic goals even in the field of housing remain blurry and show no strategy to achieve them. UN-Habitat doesn’t argue what value the programme will deliver for money. They could do this for different scenarios, depending on the level of funding by member states. But they don’t even try. In conclusion, The Programme basically promises more of the same but calls it focused and strategic. And Artificial Intelligence? According to the Strategic Plan AI will be a non-issue for cities and other human settlements in 2025-2029. It’s not even mentioned.

There is no alternative to keep building a world community 80 years after World War II

by Ulrich Graute • 8 May 2025
The UN will be put on life support for a while to keep from drowning and gain time for reform. It is likely that In face of the financial and general support crises of the United Nations member states will put the UN on a life support system to keep core functions running. That may gain time but the real UN reform requires nothing less than building a new boat while being on an open and stormy sea. There is much talk about UN reform. Out of panic, there are plans to shrink the UN, cut salaries and shuffle staff around to duty stations which are assumed to be cost-saving. And this in a time of multiple crises, with every day emerging issues and conflicts. Have you every tried to build a new boat on open sea while you sit in an old boat in danger of sinking? That’s the kind of situation the UN and its members are in. The elephant in the room is the future of the world as a community At a conference in Toronto, I learned that the natives in North America are used to plan seven generations ahead. Imagine our politicians would do that! Automatically, they would be forced to think beyond their own lifetime. All of a sudden, the future of the community would be more important and this community would have multiple identities: the identity of the smallest entities (family), neighbourhood, city, region, country and the even the identity of a world community because we humans share all resources in the world and depend on it. Unfortunately, people are also afraid of it because building this community takes time and it is not without risks and possible setbacks. Instead, there is a growing trend to scramble as many resources and power as possible under one leader to bring the own group in the best starting position for a possibly upcoming final fight for survival. Could we survive that? Probably not and certainly, the world would be in a worse condition after that. Some super-rich may survive in a space station on Mars for a while before they realise that they manoeuvred themselves into a dead-end. Germany demonstrated to the world what happens if the world retreats from global community building. My uncles and grandfathers fought in two World Wars that killed a total of about 50 million people in an effort to make Germany great again. Thanks to the Allied Forces this ended 80 years ago on 8 May 1945. Japan went on fighting for a while and gave up after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The slaughtering was so massive that it convinced the countries of the world to establish the United Nations. Today we take this world community (with all the flaws it has) for granted as a stabilisation anchor of the world. But it is an illusion. Without putting skin into the game and investing in its reform, the slaughtering may return. Thus, there is no alternative to jointly building the world community for future generations. SO, LET'S KEEP BUILDING A PEACEFUL AND JUST WORLD COMMUNITY THAT LEAVES NOBODY BEHIND.

Urban Sprawl as part of the solution for the affordable housing crisis in the USA?!

by Ulrich Graute • 14 April 2025
None of the following supports the idea that urban sprawl is required or even helpful to build sustainable cities. However, it is argued that it may be part of the solution for the crisis of affordable housing in many countries of the world. With this post, I would like to encourage a debate, eg, at the 61st ISOCARP World Planning Congress #WPC61 on 1-4 December 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 1976 and alarmed by rapid and uncontrolled urban growth, particularly in the developing world, the UN General Assembly called for the First United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat I) addressing the challenges and future of human settlements. Housing remained at the focus of the United Nations Human Settlement Programme UN-Habitat ever since, and this was reconfirmed at Habitat III in Quito 2016. The New Urban Agenda recognizes and promotes a "right to the city," meaning the right of all inhabitants to have equal access to the benefits and opportunities that cities offer. It emphasizes a vision where urban spaces are designed and used collectively for the benefit of all, including those in informal settlements. Yes a vision, but overall, the Agenda is not very strategic and invites more to raising picking instead of integrated problem solving. Meanwhile, cities keep struggling to cope with fast urbanization, migration and growing demand for larger apartments. Urban sprawl is criticized since the 1950s and 60s because of its large demand for land. No densely populated urban areas have higher costs for the water, energy and transportation grid. In addition, developers often focus on profitable housing development while they don’t care for urban infrastructure, public spaces, schools etc. The New Urban Agenda promotes urban density as a key strategy for sustainable and efficient urban development but that doesn’t help those who a looking for housing now. Conor Dougherty is the author of the book Golden Gates: The Housing Crisis and a Reckoning for the American Dream published on 10 April 2025 in the New York Times the article “Why America Should Sprawl. The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth — but to fix the housing crisis, the country needs more of it.” He doesn’t make any effort to paint urban sprawl in rosy colors. Instead, he describes how eg in Princeton, Texas, the nation’s third-fastest-growing city, infrastructure has struggled to keep up with growth. He analyzes how difficult and slow-moving densification efforts in cities are and states, “Even if all the regulatory restraints were removed tomorrow, developers couldn’t find enough land to satisfy America’s housing needs inside established areas. Consequently, much of the nation’s housing growth has moved to states in the South and Southwest, where a surplus of open land and willingness to sprawl has turned the Sun Belt into a kind of national sponge that sops up housing demand from higher-cost cities. The largest metro areas there have about 20 percent of the nation’s population, but over the past five years they have built 42 percent of the nation’s new single-family homes, according to a recent report by Cullum Clark, an economist at the George W. Bush Institute, a research center in Dallas.” For instance, Celina, Texas (picture), has 54,000 residents, compared with 8,000 just a decade ago, and the population is projected to hit 110,000 by 2030. The lack of urbane infrastructure, employment, greenery, and community is striking, but people keep coming because of affordability. While planners and others prefer denser and walkable neighbourhoods like 15-minute-cities, the money to build related infrastructure in addition to houses is often missing or would reduce affordability. A dilemma. There are good reasons to criticize the trend described for the US by Conor Dougherty, but it provides a chance to attain affordable housing for people who cannot find it elsewhere. And the history of these satellite towns has demonstrated that the missing infrastructure, employment and community can be added lateron. It seems, urban sprawl is not the solution, but it might be part of the solution, isn’t it? Let's discuss this here or later on other occasions, like eg the 61st ISOCARP World Planning Congress 'Cities & Regions in Action: Planning Pathways to Resilience and Quality of Life 1-4 December 2025, in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia #WPC61. Reference: Why America Should Sprawl. The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth — but to fix the housing crisis, the country needs more of it. By Conor Dougherty. The New York Times, April 10, 2025 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/magazine/suburban-sprawl-texas.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
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