State of the World’s Cities 2012/2013: Prosperity of Cities, 2012.
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UN HABITAT
The State of the World’s Cities Report 2012 presents some of the underlying factors behind the financial, economic, environmental, social and political crises that have strongly impacted on cities. Chapter 2.2 ‘Urban Infrastructure: Bedrock of Prosperity’ addresses the issue of ‘Water Supply: When Good Governance Changes the Equation’.
The gist of this Report is the need for transformative change towards people-centred, sustainable urban development, and this is what a revised notion of prosperity can provide. This focus on prosperity comes as institutional and policy backgrounds are in a state of flux around the world. Prosperity may appear to be a misplaced concern in the midst of multiple crises –financial, economic,environmental, social or political – that afflict the world today. It may appear as a luxury in the current economic predicament. However, what this Report shows with compelling evidence is that the current understandingof prosperity needs to be revised, and with it the policiesand actions deployed by public authorities. UN-Habitat suggests a fresh approach to prosperity, one that reaches beyond the sole economic dimension to take in other vitaldimensions such as quality of life, infrastructures, equity and environmental sustainability. The Report introduces a new statistical instrument, the City Prosperity Index, measuring the prosperity factors at work in an individual city, together with a general matrix, the Wheel of Urban Prosperity, which suggests areas for policy intervention.
