The 11th World Urban Forum (WUF) took place in Katowice, Poland, from June 26 to 30, 2022. It is the most important global conference on sustainable urbanization. We were there and tell you everything you need to knowabout the content and outcomes of the conference.
UN Habitat convenes the World Urban Forum every two years. This is where urban planners, architects, mayors and everyone else who works on the city meet to exchange new ideas for sustainable urban development. The conference is also an important milestone on the road to 2030 – the deadline for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda.
In June 2022, the 11th edition of the World Urban Forum took place in the Polish city of Katowice. Over 16,000 participants came together on site and online to discuss the topic of “Transforming our cities for a better urban future” over five days.
The three with a C: Climate, Conflict, Covid
According to Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director of UN Habitat, this year’s conference focused on the three Cs “Climate, Conflict and Covid-19”. In view of the situation in Ukraine, there was a Special Crisis Track with spontaneously organized events on the war in Poland’s neighbouring country. Architects in Ukraine are already thinking about how cities can be rebuilt as quickly as possible and what can be done better to ensure greater sustainability and resilience.
Climate change dominated almost every session at the World Urban Forum. No wonder, as cities are responsible for around 70 percent of global CO2 emissions. At the same time, at least 70 percent of all people will live in cities by 2050. Klara Geywitz, Federal Minister for Housing, Urban Development and Construction, emphasized the importance of national urban development policies during an event on the topic of “Liveable cities of the future” in the German pavilion. It was also about learning from each other and supporting countries such as Ukraine. The U7 group, among others, should contribute to this. This initiative runs parallel to G7 and aims to focus on the voices of local politicians and the integration of different political levels.
Post-Covid everyday life in cities was also an important topic. Ideas relating to the new everyday city life – from new jobs in public transport to virtual participation methods – were discussed and presented at the Urban Expo.
The World Cities Report
During the World Urban Forum, UN Habitat published a new flagship report, the World Cities Report 2022, which contains almost 400 pages of policy recommendations aimed at both mayors and other politicians. The report sets out three scenarios for the future of cities, from the worst-case scenario to business as usual and the optimistic scenario.
Coordinated, cohesive urban planning is needed to achieve the optimistic scenario. The experts emphasize in the report that housing plays a particularly important role here. This is because densification and greener buildings can create liveable, climate-friendly cities. Currently, 1.6 billion people worldwide still live in inadequate housing and one billion people live in slums.
The World Cities Report is not a concrete guide, but must be placed in the respective context. The recommendations can be adapted so that even simultaneous or overlapping scenarios can be addressed. Cooperation between different levels of government and a focus on resilience can be found in all recommendations.
“We only have 90 months – that’s around 2,700 days – to implement the national urban development policies. They need to be broken down into small pieces by the mayors and implemented on a daily basis,” says Maimunah Mohd Sharif.
Katowice as host and role model
Katowice is the capital of the Upper Silesia metropolitan region. A total of 2.3 million people live here. Katowice itself is home to just under 300,000 people. At around 170 years old, the city is very young. It was formed from a collection of small villages when large coal and zinc deposits were discovered in the region in the 19th century. This gave rise to numerous coal mines, which dominated the economy in Upper Silesia until the 1990s. When the coal mines were gradually closed after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Katowice was faced with major challenges: 70 percent of the inhabitants were suddenly unemployed, as there was no more work in the coal mines and related heavy industries and chemical factories. In addition, the city was so polluted that some rivers consisted of only 15 percent water and the rest of chemical waste.
But with a lot of patience, support from UN Habitat’s Sustainable Cities Program and major investment from the European Union from the 2010s onwards, Katowice was able to completely reinvent itself within just three decades. Today, the city offers the largest conference center in Poland. There are numerous jobs. Incomes are comparatively high and many young people stay in the region. With a new project on IT and gaming, Katowice is positioning itself in a promising sector.
From coal town to conference center
The transformation of Katowice is based on an intelligent approach that, among other things, took local culture into account, used participatory approaches and resulted in close links with the surrounding municipalities. Today, the city still faces a number of challenges. For example, there are major highways that run right up to the city center, which makes the city very difficult to navigate for pedestrians.
But the conference center, located next to the 1970s Spodek concert hall in the iconic shape of a UFO, symbolizes change. Together with the Silesian Museum and the Polish Radio Symphony building, the center stands on the site of a former coal mine. The cultural heart of the city beats here, just a few minutes’ walk from the city center.
The next challenge for Katowice is the transition to a 15-minute city. The World Urban Forum showed what this could look like. The eleven different zones, from the Music Zone and Relax Zone to the SDG Corner and Youth Stage, could all be reached on foot within 15 minutes. Many of the zones will remain in the city after the World Urban Forum in order to involve the citizens of Katowice and get them excited about the topic.
What comes after the World Urban Forum?
Of the more than 400 events at the World Urban Forum 11, most ended with an urgent call for swift action. After all, there are only eight years left to achieve all the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 11 by 2030. Currently, most cities are not advanced enough to meet the goal by 2030 as sustainable, inclusive, safe and resilient settlements. The Katowice Declared Actions, which are the culmination of the World Urban Forum, will drive the sustainable development agenda in cities until the next World Urban Forum in January 2024 in Cairo, Egypt.
