The New Urban Agenda presented by the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) aims to “end poverty and hunger in all its forms and dimensions, reduce inequalities, promoted sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in order to fully harness their vital contribution to sustainable development, improve human health and well-being, foster resilience, and protect the environment” (5). The methods for achieving these lofty goals are outlined like one would expect a document informed by United Nations seminal texts to be. It begins with a declaration, contains principles and commitments, a call to action, a plan for implementation and how to ensure its effectiveness, and concludes with a plan for follow-up and review. I think this structure enhances the argument’s effectiveness since it begins with broader topics before narrowing them down with the addition and consideration of nuance (particularities of a particular country, addressing different populations, etc), all while maintaining some type of linear progress.
Having read some other documents that emerged out of United Nations Conferences, I was prepared for some of the circularity present in the various arguments that are made in the Agenda. With the Principles and Commitments section and the Call to Action section, in particular, the discussion of leaving no one behind and ways to address environmental sustainability seem to use the same language with different sentence structure. In any case, there is a clear focus on the human, sustainability, and accessibility. I found the various uses of the word human to be interesting. In Article 27, it says that the countries in accordance with the agenda pledge that “no one will be left behind” and commit to “promoting equally the shared opportunities and benefits that urbanization can offer and that enable all inhabitants…to lead decent, dignified and rewarding lives and to achieve their full human potential” (page 11). There are other times when the term human is meant to collectivize actions, like when it says in Article 63 that “cities and human settlements face unprecedented threats from unsustainable consumption and production patterns, loss of biodiversity, pressure on ecosystems, pollution, natural and human-made disasters, and climate change and its related risks” (page 18). I think the purpose of using the term ‘human’ in this case is to remove direct responsibility from corporations, governments, and other groups that contribute significantly to the aforementioned threats.
I thought this document established pretty clear links to the other readings we’ve been doing in class. There’s a direct reference to the ‘right to the city’ in the discussion of vision of cities for all in Article 11 on page 5. I also thought it was interesting that the perceived advantage of gender equality is that it facilitates women and girls being able to contribute to sustainable development more effectively. This sentiment is echoed later in the document when it says in Article 35 that the “security of land tenure for women [is] key to their empowerment” (page 13). For me, this reminds me of our previous discussions in class about how capitalism and liberalism are ever-present in discussions of urbanism and urbanization, even if the focus is on social inequality.
Great close reading! I’m glad you picked up on the repetition and rephrasing of certain key points. In some ways, it might be possible to distill the recommendations to a much shorter document with a much more identifiably simple mission. But I also think doing so would reveal some of the ways in which the recommendations have the potential to contradict one another and serve more to guide a consensus opinion that prescribe distinct solutions. The liberal discourse of rights is very much woven into this document, which is why the human (in all the term’s different applications here) seems so central to the argument. Ultimately, the assertion is that any urban agenda has to put human rights at its center. I don’t think this is necessarily in contrast to corporations or even government, but rather to remind us that all incorporation or association (much like we read in Park and Wirth!) must prioritize the individual human at its center.