Sustainable City Management: Challenges and Solutions

1. City Management & Administration Introduction Dr. Adnan Alshiha

2. What is City Management • City Management is understood within the political & administrative context. • It is concern with providing public goods and services within its jurisdiction. • City management is considered in some political systems as the executive branch of local government. Where its role is to implement local council policies.

3. What is City Management • Urban management means that city governments together with other urban stakeholders - civil society, private sector, and local communities - assume an active role in mobilization, management and coordination of resources to support the objectives of urban development and ensure the vitality of cities.

4. City Limit • Determine the local government boundaries within which it is obligated to provide the service. • At the same time it determines who lives within the city boundaries and therefore should pay tax. • It also used for statistical purposes.

5. What is a city • Concentration of people in space • Urban area is different than rural area • Complex economy and society • Specialization and defragmentation

6. What is a sustainable city • A city, is sustainable if it can provide all its inhabitants the environmental, social, cultural and economic needs without threatening natural, built or societal systems on which the safeguarding of these needs is based.

7. The Challenge of Urban Managementin Developing Countries Rapid urban growth created major social, economic, and physical problems: • Urban poverty • Inadequate housing & basic services • Social alienation • Proliferation of slums • Inadequate transportation system • Poor urban infrastructure

8. How to make cities a more sustainable place? • Increasing local planning capacities. • Improving financial resources. • Guiding urban development processes in an action-oriented manner. • Establishing institutional mechanisms and procedures for participation. • Democratization of local decision-making processes.

9. What to do to face the Challenge? • Urban planning and management tools will have to be adjusted to meet these fundamental challenges in order to enhance the capacity to manage urban growth and development.

10. Future Changes • According to the Worldwatch Institute’s recent briefing on “Reinventing Cities” changes in at least six areas are needed : • water • waste • Food • Energy • Transportation • Land use

11. Two alternative approaches to deal with these problems First: is to reduce the population pressure by: • Controlling rural – urban migration • Encourage lower birth rates Second: is to improve urban management by: • promote policies and tools dealing with land management • The provision and maintenance of infrastructure • Informal sector • Municipal finance • Urban environment

12. To improve urban places • Many national governments pursue a strategy to shift the responsibility for municipal management from states to cities, and local capacity building as well as community participation must be enhanced to support this process.

13. To improve urban places • There are five essential areas that require the attention as imminent training needs for urban management: 1-Establishing effective channels of communication to mobilize citizens’ participation, providing transparency and accountability; strengthening stakeholder participation to enhance commitment to and resource mobilization for jointly elaborated urban strategies;

14. To improve urban places 2-Improving the design of spatial policies to cope with rapid urban growth, of inter-sectoral programs to resolve urban problems, and of technical infrastructure and social projects sensitive to the needs of urban communities;

15. To improve urban places 3-Resolving urban environmental issues to create a healthier urban environment; reduce the pressure of cities on natural resources and decrease the environmental impact of cities;

16. To improve urban places 4-Empowering the urban poor by giving assets to them which in turn enhance their living conditions, e.g. through secure land titles; developing urban economies to provide opportunities to them, e.g. through channeling micro-finance to the urban informal sector;

17. To improve urban places 5-Mobilizing adequate finance in line with responsibilities taken over by municipalities in the fields of service provision and infrastructure maintenance, by pricing urban services, building partnerships with the private sector to manage and finance urban infrastructure.

18. Urbanization Trends in Developing Countries

19. Urbanization Trends in Developing Countries • In 1970 the world’s urban population was 1.4 billion • Expected to reach 5.1 billion by 2025 • Latin America is the most urbanized region • It is estimated ( in 2000) that about 42% of the population in Africa, 40% in Asia,76% in Latrine America will be living in urban area

20. Urbanization Trends in Developing Countries • By 2006 half the world’s population (3.2 billion people) will live in urban areas - a 20-fold increase from 1900. • Rapid urbanization in the 20th century has magnified the environmental impact of cities. Because of inadequate infrastructural systems, poor planning and weak urban management, cities disproportionately drive global warming, increase water scarcity and extend built-up space.

21. Urbanization Trends in Developing Countries • While rapid urbanization concentrates population and economic growth in cities, creating better opportunities for livelihood, at the same time cities face daunting challenges: overcrowding, poverty, environmental decay, inefficient systems of municipal service delivery, scarce finance and inefficient administration.

22. Main Cause of the rapid Growth • Rural –to- urban migration: cities perceived by rural population as to have better opportunities for rising household income levels. • Natural population increase

23. The Role of cities in the Economy • Performing crucial services and production • Cities account for about 2/3 of the national output. • Urbanization is related to increase in birth rates over time. • Cities facilitate the provision of diverse career and income - generating opportunity.

24. population distribution policies • Developing countries have adopted many population distribution policies. For example: • The Close City programs: reducing migration through tax incentive, limitation on investment, and demolition of scattered settlement. • PromotingIntermediate – size cities by extending support services to them. • Land Colonization programs to resettle residents from over populated rural areas to frontier regions or under utilized region.

25. The Inevitability of Urbanization • The experience shows that the above policies failed to affect population redistribution significantly. • Two reasons for the policies failure: • First: the objective of spatial strategies were not adequately reflected in government sectoral decisions. • Second: these policies couldn’t offset market forces that favored the concentration of social and economic activities in large urban centers.

26. The Challenge of Urban Management • The solution to urban problems depend on effective urban management . • The challenge of urban management is to respond effectively to the problem of cities.

27. The first issue: improve Financial structure and management Several revenue raising instruments: • User charge • Local Taxes • Tax sharing • Grants • Private sector • Administrative capacity and political support

28. The Second Issue:Providing Urban Shelter, Services, and infrastructure • Initially the focus was on public housing • The access of the urban poor to shelter, services, and infrastructure was constrained by many factors: • High prices of land • Inadequate access to financial institution • Lack of participation in planning and implementing shelter project • Inadequate cost recovery of government investment program • Inflexible building codes • High cost building materials

29. The Third Issue: Improving Urban Information System • Lack of adequate information has been a major impediment to the formulation and implementation of urban management policies and programs • Two types of barriers must be overcome: • First: Technical bariers,related to data avilablity • The second: is organizational, attued toward technological innovation

30. The Fourth Issue: Strengthening Urban Informal Sector • Two Types of policies: • First: supply – oriented policies: providing credit and technical assistance • Second: demand – oriented policies aimed at increasing the demand of informal sector products by private consumers

31. The Fifth Issue: Strengthening Urban Institutional Capacities • Lack of clarity in allocation of functions to agencies in urban areas