Cities are hubs of global change, and
their global influence continues to grow. Cities contribute
significantly to global challenges like climate change and
biodiversity loss. At the same time, cities experience
impacts like climate change first and with greatest
intensity. Further, cities are becoming leaders worldwide in
efforts to address global environmental and social problems.
Some of the most important smaller-scale agreements and

The current report is part of the work
on integrating poor areas and marginalized communities in
Romania. Specifically, the Bank's technical assistance
provided through this project focuses on three primary
components: (1) a methodology for defining different types
of urban disadvantaged communities based on a set of key
criteria and indicators; (2) detailed maps that present the
spatial distribution of these indicators and the

Housing matters to the livability of
cities and to the productivity of their economies. The
failure of cities to accommodate the housing needs of
growing urban populations can be seen in the proliferation
of poorly serviced, high-density informal settlements. Such
settlements are not new in the history of rapidly growing
cities, their persistence results as much from policies as
from economics and demographic transition. Slums have

Urbanization deserves urgent attention
from policy makers, academics, entrepreneurs, and social
reformers of all stripes. Nothing else will create as many
opportunities for social and economic progress. The
urbanization project began roughly 1,000 years after the
transition from the Pleistocene to the milder and more
stable Holocene interglacial. In 2010, the urban population
in developing countries stood at 2.5 billion. The developing

Urbanization is undoubtedly a key driver
of development - cities provide the national platform for
prosperity, job creation, and poverty reduction. But
urbanization also poses enormous challenges that one is
familiar with: congestion, air pollution, social divisions,
crime, the breakdown of public services and infrastructure,
and the slums that one billion urban resident's call
home. Urbanization is perhaps the single most important

Urbanization is the single most
important transformation that the African continent will
undergo this century. More than half of Africa's
population will live in its cities by 2040. In the face of
rapid urbanization, there is a narrow window of opportunity
to harness the potential of cities as engines of economic
growth, and use this as a powerful leverage to achieve
sustainable development and poverty reduction. Despite its

Poor people living in slums are at
particularly high risk from the impacts of climate change
and natural hazards. They live on the most vulnerable land
within cities, typically areas deemed undesirable by others
and thus affordable. This study analyzes the key challenges
facing the urban poor, given the risks associated with
climate change and disasters, particularly with regard to
the delivery of basic services, and identifies strategies

This report provides Mayors and other policymakers with a policy framework and diagnostic tools to anticipate and implement strategies that can avoid their cities from locking into irreversible physical and social structures. At the core of the policy framework are the three main dimensions of urban development.
· Planning— where the focus is on making land transactions easier, and making land use regulations more responsive to emerging needs especially to coordinate land use planning with infrastructure, natural resource management, and risks from hazards;

Two of the great stylized predictions of
development theory, and two of the great expectations of
policy makers as indicators of progress in development, are
inexorable urbanization and inexorable formalization.
Urbanization is indeed happening, beyond the "tipping
point" where half the world's population is now
urban. However, formalization has slowed down significantly
in the past quarter century. Indeed, informality has been

The accumulation of decent housing
matters both because of the difference it makes to living
standards and because of its centrality to economic
development. The consequences for living standards are
far-reaching. In addition to directly conferring utility,
decent housing improves health and enables children to do
homework. It frees up women's time and enables them to
participate in the labor market. More subtly, a home and its

Urbanization is undoubtedly a key driver
of development -- cities provide the national platform for
prosperity, job creation, and poverty reduction. But
urbanization also poses enormous challenges that one is
familiar with: congestion, air pollution, social divisions,
crime, the breakdown of public services and infrastructure,
and the slums that one billion urban resident's call
home. Urbanization is perhaps the single most important

This paper is a review of the experience of the Asian Coalition for Community Action (ACCA) Program operated by the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR).