The Third World Urban Forum: 'Spaceship Earth' spiralling irreversibly into the urban era.

THE THIRD SESSION OF THE WORLD URBAN FORUM in Vancouver, Canada, held from 19 to 23 June 2006, drew more than 10,000 participants from over 100 countries, making it one of the largest non-legislative United Nations gatherings in recent years. It also marked the 30th anniversary of the UN Conference on Human Settlements that led to the establishment of UN-HABITAT, the agency charged with coordinating the urban agenda within the UN system. By all accounts, delegates agreed that the third session was one of the most successful recent UN meetings, which produced a series of important messages for Governments, municipalities and urban players to take home with them.

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In 1976, urbanization and its impacts were barely on the radar screen of the United Nations, which was created just three decades earlier when two thirds of humanity was still rural. But those who were meeting in Vancouver back then were only too aware that rapid urbanization was becoming a human settlements problem around the world. They were the generation who still remembered the Second World War, when the first effective UN-led shelter programme was the distribution of blankets to those huddling in the post-war ruins of European and Asian cities. Although the message was blurred partly by the cold war in the bipolar world of 1976, the clarion call of Vancouver rang down the years. Towns and cities are growing at unprecedented rates, setting the social, political, cultural and environmental trends worldwide, both good and bad. If…