World association of the major metropolises
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Megacities
Comission years
President
Context
There are two factors that are having the biggest impact on the field of city studies at present: first came at that point in the 20th century when the urban population caught up with the rural one in number of inhabitants, which rapidly made it possible to predict a definitive turning point with respect to human distribution on the planet. The second refers to the explosive growth of megacities, i.e., those with more than ten million inhabitants, which are increasingly appearing with greater profusion in developing countries, causing social, economic, and cultural imbalance due to their pronounced and chiefly uncontrolled concentration.
That is why it is necessary to focus attention on the problems deriving from previous conditions, beginning with the revision, application and improvement of urban policies in the field of contingencies, energy saving, social coexistence, and public space.
Objectives
Reducing Disaster Risks
The reason for making this issue a Commission priority is to expand the political space that governments devote to reducing disaster risks in all sectors.
The aim is to find a way to protect people and society from disasters caused by natural or human events, through actions that reduce or eliminate loss of human life, impact on production infrastructure, destruction of nature, and interruption to social life and its functions.
Energy Saving
The purpose of proposing energy saving as one of the priority actions for megacities is to expand the political stage to create new energy-saving instruments on three different scales. Energy saving at the metropolitan level, with policies geared toward the production and institutional sector; instruments that permit energy saving in social groups and green education programs; and finally family energy-saving programs.
Social Equity and Diversity
The aim of tackling Social Equity within the Commission’s priority topics is based on the search for public polices capable of reducing inequality via instruments that regulate economic forces in a local fashion and find ways to promote and allow local and social production within a global economic environment.
Public Space
The reason for discussing public space is to create a political scenario capable of orchestrating the public use of space as the origin of a democratic culture and the reflection of a society comprising different groups but with an urban background that permits harmonious social coexistence, without hiding or delimiting differences, and studying the possibility of establishing cultural programs in neighborhoods which show what public programs can do.
Body
Action Strategies
A. Knowledge Transfer
Knowledge transfer between the members of Commission 4: Megacities should be multidimensional. It should involve the transfer of methodologies, reports, and results to all the cities in order to disseminate information and foster awareness-raising.
At the local level there should be knowledge transfers within the academic and institutional structures of each city in order to provide visibility to the metropolitan interests produced via Metropolis.
Furthermore, the knowledge the Commission develops should translate into groundbreaking practices, public policies that enable the discovery of solutions to the specific problems of each urban environment.
B. Political Viability
The Commission’s technical results must be politically viable. This means that at a local level each city should promote a management model capable of carrying out, in a practical fashion, the possible regulatory and legal transformations that would permit an urban transformation deriving from Metropolis’ technical proposals.
C. City Evolution Guidance
The purpose of all the efforts of Commission 4: Megacities is to guide city evolution.
Work Methodology
- Joint work between the member cities of Commission 4: Megacities
- Links between experts from all the cities
- Knowledge and experience transfers
- Open channel of information and advisory services. Mexico City Government
- Multidisciplinary teams (universities, social, and non-governmental organizations, private initiative, and Government institutions)
Expected Results
- Generation of Instruments, Financial Plans and Implementation Programs with the aim of finding technical solutions to problems
- Leading urban development and complementing urban policies in relation to Risk Reduction, Energy Saving, Social Equity, and Public Space.
