By Gregory Scruggs
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 7 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The United Nations chief in charge of cities says urbanisation is about much more than building skyscrapers.
It is people that really get her going.
In her first media interview since becoming head of the U.N.’s urban agency, the ex-mayor said it was city dwellers who make for good urban outcomes, not buildings, and her mantra was to listen to the people so as to design better lives for them.
“Building skyscrapers is not urbanisation,” Maimunah Mohd Sharif told Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Urbanisation is a process.”
And it is a process that can improve lives – provided local governments follow recently adopted United Nations guidelines, said the new UN-Habitat executive director.
The former Malaysian mayor assumed the post last month, at a time when rapid city growth around the globe squeezes resources – from homes to hospitals – and widens the gulf between the urban rich and rural poor.
“Urbanisation can be an opportunity for development and a tool for development,” she said at the Ninth World Urban Forum, which opened in the Malaysian capital on Feb.7.
But infrastructure alone does not make for a sustainable city, said the former mayor of Penang Island and a career town planner.
She described her ideal outcome as one where both urban and rural areas had access to the same facilities, be it schools or healthcare. “”At the end of the day we want to have a good quality of life for our stakeholders,” she said.
