Whether good or bad, sustainable cities agenda is finally driving the news

This week saw a dire warning from #city mayors about the threat from #climatechange and a report proclaiming five European cities as the most #sustainable in the world.  Both contains elements of their own truth but, more importantly, show that the focus is firmly on the need for cities to be viable — and must remain so.

An annual survey of leaders of the world’s largest cities delivered a gloomy warning.  More than four fifths (83 per cent) of the 1,131 cities reporting their environmental data through CDP-ICLEI Track in 2023 said they faced significant climate hazards. Over half of them (56 per cent) said they were already significantly impacted by these threats.

More than half of the reporting cities (58 per cent) said flooding was a hazard for their jurisdiction, making it the most widely reported danger affecting the world’s cities. This was followed by extreme heat (54 per cent of cities), drought (38 per cent), heavy rain (35 per cent) and the risk of wildfires (22 per cent).

Looking at the risk of flooding, the regions that saw this as most of a concern were North America and Europe where four out of five cities saw it as a hazard. Even larger numbers in those two regions also saw extreme heat as a hazard. Coming in the same week that saw flash floods in southern China, New Mexico and Kansas City, it seemed to echo the fear that the effects of the climate breakdown are devastating for cities and their residents.

It might seem incongruous to see in the same week that the annual Arcadis Index of Sustainable Cities had found that European cities dominate its overall ranking. Amsterdam topped the poll, following by its Dutch neighbour Rotterdam, with Copenhagen in Denmark and the German cities of Frankfurt and Munich taking third, fourth and fifth places, respectively.

This is, of course, a wholly different exercise from CDP’s, using measures under three categories of planet, people and profit that correspond to the pillars of environment, society and economy that the United Nations’ Habitat body set out some three decades ago. Its focus can be seen as being on liveability for certain classes of citizens with subcategories such as access to broadband and Wi-Fi and business infrastructure and ease of doing business. There is less attention on universal access to the services and to issue such as quality and availability of housing.

Nevertheless, the highly ranked cities have taken great strides to mitigate and adapt to climate change. For the first time, Arcadis included a new pillar of “progress” that measures cities’ evolution over the past decade that the survey has covered. The top five are all in the Global South, led by Jakarta in Indonesia, Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Chinese megacities of Chengdu, Wuhan and Guangzhou.

It also highlights cities with what it calls “sustained momentum” such as Rotterdam which came 10th in the Progress category thanks to its work on reducing air pollution and CO2 emissions, and handling waste management, and Amsterdam (11th) in light of its increase in the share of sustainable energy sources. It also calls out cities with “falling” momentum such as New York and Hong Kong where progress has slowed over the last decade and those “lacking” momentum that include many US cities such as Denver and Detroit.

North and South

This focus on the sustainability of cities is essential: more than half (56 per cent) of people live in cities, according to the World Bank — a total forecast to rise to seven out of 10 by 2020. City leaders and mayors need to both monitor and enhance their resilience against threats while at the same time focus on ensuring that the areas they govern are easy to live in.

A third survey emerged last week, an annual look by the European Commission at the quality of life in European cities including those in non-EU states such as the UK and Turkey. Perhaps unsurprisingly, especially against the backdrop of the Arcadis survey, the north-western Europe was host to the most content cities while the south-eastern quadrant was more malcontented.

While almost nine out of 10 people report to be satisfied with living in their city, levels of satisfaction have fallen compared with 2019. While much of that seems to be driven by greater levels of loneliness in the wake of the Covid-19 lockdowns, it points to work to be done in terms of increasing access to shared quality spaces such as libraries and community centres.

Of course, Europe is host to some of the most well-endowed cities when it comes to urban living and has substantial national and pan-European budgets. So the main challenge in terms of boosting urban sustainability will be in the Global South and especially in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and some Asia countries, where it will be harder to achieve.