UTC: New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

UTC

08

New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need 24 October 2015 New York City, USA

2 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

Urban Thinkers Campus Partner Organizations

Disclaimer: The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication pages do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries regarding its economic system or degree of development. Excerpts may be reproduced without authorization, on condition that the source is indicated. Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-Habitat, the United Nations and its member states.

3 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

Table of Contents Urban Thinkers Campus in figures.............................................................................................................................................. 4 Introduction to the Urban Thinkers Campus............................................................................................................................... 5 The City We Need principle(s) addressed.................................................................................................................................. 6 Matrix of linkages - TCWN 1.0 vs. new recommendations....................................................................................................... 7 Key outcomes of the UTC........................................................................................................................................................... 8 Key recommendations................................................................................................................................................................ 9 Key actors................................................................................................................................................................................. 10 Outstanding issues................................................................................................................................................................... 10 Speakers................................................................................................................................................................................... 11 List of organizations present................................................................................................................................................... 11

4 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

Urban Thinkers Campus in figures

25

209

COUNTRIES

PARTICIPANTS

REPRESENTED

10

CONSTITUENT GROUPS REPRESENTED

75

ORGANIZATIONS

5 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

Introduction to the Urban Thinkers Campus

The Urban Thinkers Campus is a special initiative of the World Urban Campaign and UN-Habitat, developed to gather ideas from people around the world who are passionate about the future of cities. The ideas developed at the Urban Thinkers Campuses will feed into the World Urban Campaign’s The City We Need process, and the agenda and outcome document of the Habitat III Conference: The New Urban Agenda. Co-hosted by The Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) and The New School, the New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Road Map to the City We Need took place on Saturday, 24 October 2015, directly following the 2015 MAS Summit for New York City. It consisted of a combination of plenary presentations, discussions and Urban Labs. Other partner organizations included The Sherwood Institute, The Huairou Commission, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, The Ford Foundation, The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, The International Accountability Project, the UN Major Group for Children and Youth, The Nature of Cities, and the J Max Bond Center on Design for a Just City. Media partners included Next City and Citiscope. As the World Urban Campaign works to complete The City We Need 2.0, the New York City Urban Thinkers Campus brought together representatives from constituencies across New York City, the United States and the world to discuss critical urban challenges and emerging practices that can positively contribute to the New Urban Agenda. The objectives of the New York City Urban Thinkers Campus were to develop additional consensus on The City We Need principles, inform attendees about the U.S. National Report for Habitat III and

share best practices related to The City We Need key principles. Partners expressed interest in exploring the following topics: i. Resilient urban infrastructure, with a focus on water, and its crossover with public space. ii. Policies that support community-based approaches to building livable, resilient and just cities. iii. Zoning rules and regulations that support innovation and economically vibrant cities. iv. The Urban Commons: the ways in which open space and nature can serve as a common resource. v. How can policy makers, practitioners and scientists interact more effectively with city building? vi. Urban thinking that includes all types of cities: north and south, big and small, rich and poor, growing and shrinking. vii. Two-way sustainability: integrating the city with global energy, food and resource models.

6 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

viii. Art and livability: policy and practice that supports art in the public space discourse.

xii. Participatory governance and budgeting mechanisms that work for grassroots women, informal economy workers and slum dwellers.

ix. Justice and fairness: who has access to the benefits of the city? x. Planning new cities: how do we keep from repeating mistakes and be sure to provide equal opportunities to all residents? xi. Women’s empowerment and gender responsive urban service delivery.

MAS Cities @MASCities

24 Oct 2015

An honor to have these children perform a play on climate change at the NYC #UrbanThinkers Campus! @ MASNYC https://twitter.com/MASCities/status/658040053550157824

The City We Need principle(s) addressed 1. The city we needs is socially inclusive.

2. The city we need is well planned, walkable and transit-friendly.

3. The city we need is a regenerative city.

4. The city we need is economically vibrant and inclusive.

5. The city we need has a singular identify and a sense of place.

6. The city we need is a safe city.

7. The city we need is a healthy city.

8. The city we need is affordable and equitable.

9. The city we need is managed at the metropolitan level.

7 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

Matrix of linkages - TCWN 1.0 vs. new recommendations Principle

Detail

Linkage

The city we need is socially inclusive

It provides spaces for all segments and age groups of the population to partake in social and cultural expressions. It eliminates all physical and spatial forms of segregation and exclusion.

Women and youth need to be more readily involved in the planning process. Cities should recognize and support women as key actors in planning, and promote plans that promote their involvement and scale up their ability to participate, through education and wage equity. Native languages for specific communities should be taken into account during the planning process. Full participation is critical for successful urban planning. Policies should be created that allow for political representation of diverse sectors in decision and policy-making.

The city we need is well planned, walkable, and transit-friendly

Schools are within walking or biking distance from homes. Offices are located no farther than a few transit stops away from homes.

Shopping for daily necessities is within walking distance of residential buildings and located near transit stops. Open space for recreation is near schools, work, and home.

In order to create well planned, walkable and transit friendly cities, new means of funding urban infrastructure need to be created. Investments in the built environment should be adaptable to changing economic and climate change needs to promote urban resilience.

The city we need is a regenerative city

It is designed to be resilient by being energy efficient, lowcarbon, and increasingly resilient on renewable energy sources.

It replenishes the resources it consumes and recycles and reuses waste. It uses water, land, and energy in a coordinated manner and in harmony with its surrounding hinterland in support of urban and peri-urban agriculture.

Resilient infrastructure needs to be multi-functional, adaptable, support local ecology and provide public space that improves the livability of urban areas. New value creation models should be created to advance integrated ecological systems.

The city we need is economically vibrant and inclusive

It encourages and fosters local economic development from the smallest entrepreneur to the largest corporations. It provides a one-stop-shop for streamlined licensing and other administrative services. It recognizes and protects the specific needs of the informal sector of the economy in its economic development policies and strategies.

Cities need to be both physically and economically resilient. Cities should promote access to capacity building for municipal fiscal health to design creative innovative financial strategies. Jobless growth should be anticipated and planned for, along with rising inequality.

The city we need has a singular identity and a sense of place

It recognizes culture as key to human dignity and to sustainability.

It involves cultural actors to unlock the creative potential of all citizens. It strengthens the bonds between city and its surrounding hinterlands.

Policy making needs to be bottom-up in addition to working with multi-level governmental organizations. Civil society needs to be a part of this process. An enabling environment should be created to maximize their contribution to sustainable urban development.

The city we need is a safe city

The city is welcoming night and day, inviting all people to use the streets, parks, and transit without fear. Public officials - the police, the fire department, and health, welfare, transit, and environmental services - and neighborhood residents and community groups communicate frequently and speak with one voice.

Policies also need to be created that strengthen the right to operate free from unwarranted state interference, including the right to communicate and cooperate openly. Human rights and social justice need to be institutionalized to ensure access and commitment to prosperity.

The city we need is a healthy city

The city’s parks and gardens are havens of peace and tranquility and harbor local flora and fauna and biodiversity. All public and private entities providing public services (water, waste, energy, transport) work together with the city’s residents and have public and environmental health as a common performance indicator.

When creating public open spaces, urban farming should be taken into account. Vacant spaces should be utilized so that residents can both source their food locally and learn the process of food production and healthy cooking.

The city we need is affordable and equitable

Land, infrastructure, housing, and basic services are planned with low income groups in mind. Public services are planned together with the communities they serve and consciously include the needs of women, youth, and vulnerable populations.

Human rights and social justice should be institutionalized, ensuring access to economic opportunity, health, and housing services. Transparent data and metrics systems should be used to establish a robust framework for monitoring and accountability.

The city we need is managed at the metropolitan level

It coordinates sectorial policies and actions (economy, mobility, biodiversity, energy, water, and waste) within a comprehensive and coherent local framework. Communities and neighborhoods are active participants in metropolitan decision making.

Multi-level government collaboration is necessary for future investment in infastructure, along with other multiactor investment strategies. Specific structures of governance that are precluding participation and creating displacement need to be identified and addressed.

8 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

Key outcomes of the UTC While constituents were global in nature, the springboard for the conversation at the New York City Urban Thinkers Campus was the U.S. Habitat III National Report, which was submitted in April 2015. Salin Geevarghese, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) referred to the report as a draft, noting that the format required by the United Nations did not allow for “a full capture of the U.S. story in the last 20 years,� emphasizing the challenge of creating a comprehensive picture for a country as diverse as the United States. New School Professor Morrish critiqued the report largely for disregarding the issues of race and inequality when analyzing the past two decades of urban development. He argued that this lack of a comprehensive picture is partly based on the fact that the U.S. Federal Government has not sustained a coherent and integrated national urban agenda. He concluded that coupled with declining political and funding support for basic city services, the current urban agenda patchwork does not provide sufficient resources and leadership to maintain the basic needs of cities. The Urban Labs each produced several recommendations, and certain thematic concerns appeared in each session.

Participants emphasized that bottom-up, community-based organizing and engagement is critical for the implementation of the New Urban Agenda.

To achieve this, linkages and communication will need to be strengthened between local citizens, community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions and local, state and international governmental bodies. The City We Need is about the freedom to form and the capacity to sustain critical social, economic, political and ecological ties.

Implementation of the New Urban Agenda was a prime concern, with participants noting the ease of describing what work needs to be done and the critical obstacles to implementing change. Participants defined the need for innovative financial tools to implement the New Urban Agenda and concluded that a framework for assessment must be created to ensure proper implementation. Participants emphasized the need for assessment of past fulfillments since Habitat II. Without understanding what did and did not work in the past, member states run the risk of repeating the same mistakes in the future. As the national reports are insufficient in truly analyzing urban trends over the past two decades, participants examined the need for alternative means of assessment. The New York City Urban Thinkers Campus provided an opportunity for partners and constituent groups to establish new partnerships and build relationships, which will aid in this challenge.

9 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

Key recommendations Each Urban Lab at the New York City Urban Thinkers Campus produced the following key policy recommendations for the New Urban Agenda. a. Designing Community-Based Water Infrastructure • Promote multi-functional and adaptable water infrastructure that simultaneously supports ecology and provides public spaces bringing multiple benefits to urban dwellers and providing structures for more resilient cities.

• Support new value creation models advancing integrated ecological systems for regenerative benefits.

b. Envisioning the Just City • Recognize intra-urban inequalities to create open, transparent data and metrics for justice and establish a framework for monitoring and accountability.

• Institutionalize a human rights and social justice agenda that ensures access and commitment to economic opportunity, health, housing and services for all.

c. Whose City? Grassroots Movements and Community Action to Build an Equitable City • Change the Area Median Income formula in the United States in order to include all people.

• Change city charters in order for them to become representative of people in their neighborhoods. Community boards should be elected directly by their constituents.

MAS Cities @MASCities

21 Dec 2015

Today @MASNYC and @TheNewSchool host the NYC Urban Thinkers Campus for #HabitatIII @urbancampaign #UrbanThinkers https://twitter.com/MASCities/status/657910970828877824

d. Lessons of Leadership and the New Urban Agenda • Recognize and support women as key actors in city planning. Include women centered development data plans. Scale up women’s literacy, labor and wage equity.

• Support Literacy in ‘Native Languages’ in school systems for families.

e. Resilient Design for Sustainable Urbanization • Create collaborative councils for learning and development that incorporate multi-purpose spaces for people and holistic thinking that is inclusive.

• Change antiquated quantitative codes of standard at all levels to qualitative criteria recognizing sustainable urbanization goals.

f. Strengthening Participatory Mechanisms in Urban Governance and Development • Provide, promote and monitor an enabling environment for civil society organizations that maximizes their contribution to sustainable urban development.

• Strengthen the right to operate free from unwarranted state interference, the right to communicate and cooperate, the right to seek and secure funding and the state’s duty to protect.

10 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

g. Urban Farming and the New Urban Agenda • Create policies that allow for the political representation of diverse sectors in decision and policy-making. Policy reinforcement should be pushed on a regular basis so improvements are not hampered.

• Explore the structures of governance that are precluding the participation of communities and creating displacement. Address the global processes of space allocation for use in communities.

h. Municipal Fiscal Health and Land Policy • Promote access to creative finance strategies, particularly landbased finance including value capture, to enable effective and innovative implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals by local governments around the world.

• Support collaboration at multiple levels of government on national and regional infrastructure investment strategies, including infrastructure banks.

i. Critical Assessment of Assessment: How to Avoid Mistakes from the Past and Address Future Obstacles • Strengthen linkages between civil society and government to inform city design and management, include multiple voices, and negotiate across competing needs.

• Confront jobless growth, rising inequality and climate change; aspire to a city that addresses these challenges through progressive policy reforms and bottom-up modeling.

Key actors Recommendations from the New York City Urban Thinkers Campus focused on multi-level government collaboration, building enabling environments for civil society organizations to maximize their input, and promoting urban equity and social justice. Key actors identified include: • Government and Institutions: Local, national and international governments and institutions will play a leading role in implementing the New Urban Agenda. Communication between various governments and institutions should be strengthened in order to promote efficient and effective implementation.

• Civil Society: Non-governmental organizations and community-based organizations are a critical part of implementing the New Urban Agenda. Enabling environments should be built to maximize their input.

• Women: Commonly overlooked, women are significant for the urban planning process in cities across the world. Policies should be put into place to encourage their involvement.

• Youth: The future of our cities will be managed by today’s youth.

We should promote urban literacy programs that will encourage their involvement.

Outstanding issues Several outstanding issues were identified during the New York City Urban Thinkers Campus Urban Labs, including: • Pre-Conditioned Opportunities: Minority groups face biases and prejudice in cities across the world, including women, youth and urban poor communities. These pre-conditioned starting points are actual differences in material lives, incomes, and opportunities and must be overcome in order for the New Urban Agenda to build truly equitable and socially inclusive cities.

• Need for Higher Levels of Civic Education: Local communities need to learn more about civic engagement and urban planning and management processes. Lack of understanding of how these systems work in individual cities can create fatigue and a lack of involvement.

• Political Representation: How communities are represented in cities varies depending on how political systems are organized within each state. Political representation should be local as well as national in order to encourage citizen involvement. Moreover, political systems should respond to needs of its citizens and not be influenced by monetary interests.

• Measuring Success and Indicators: Further research is needed in order to ascertain the best methods of measuring success of the New Urban Agenda, including research into data tools.

• Implementation: Additional research is required in order to understand how implementation of the New Urban Agenda will occur. Financing the New Urban Agenda is a critical challenge, and municipalities will need to develop innovative funding models to achieve their goals.

11 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

Speakers Mary Rowe, Executive Vice President, The Municipal Art Society of New York

Michael Cohen, Director, Studley Graduate Program in International Affairs, The New School

Mary Watson, Executive Dean, The New School of Public Engagement

Jan Peterson, Chair of Coordinating Council, Huairou Commission

Brent Toderian, TODERIAN UrbanWORKS

Salin Geevarghese, Deputy Assistant Secretary, International and Philantropic Innovation, HUD

Genie Birch, Chair, World Urban Campaign Steering Committee Ana Moreno, Global Coordinator, Habitat III Secretariat Greg Scruggs, Habitat III Correspondent, Citiscope

William Morrish, Professor of Urban Ecologies, The New School Tom Dallessio, President, CEO and Publisher, NextCity

12 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

List of organizations present 1. AARP 2. American Society of Landscape Architects 3. Bauhaus University 4. Belgian Consulate, Flemish Designation 5. Bloustein School, Rutgers University 6. Botts 7. Bureau of Urbanism 8. Camguilhem 9. Citiscope 10. City of Melbourne 11. City University of New York 12. CNBC 13. Columbia University 14. Community Access 15. Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization 16. Cornell University 17. Deutsche Bank 18. FIABC, The International Real Estate Federation 19. Flad Architects 20. Fluxus LLC 21. Ford Foundation 22. Friends of Sunset Park 23. Fulbright-Nehru Scholar 24. Future Cape Town 25. Future Green Studio 26. Habitat III Secretariat 27. Habitat International Coalition (HIC) 28. High Water NYC 29. Huairou Commission 30. International Council of Women 31. J Max Bond Center on Design for Just City 32. JD Edwards 33. Johns Hopkins University 34. London School of Economics 35. Marin Buitrago 36. MEDIARadar 37. Metropolitan College of New York 38. MIC

39. National Academy of Housing and Cities 40. National Affordable Housing Trust 41. National Center for Atmospheric Research 42. National Economic and Social Rights Initiative 43. National Grid 44. New York Academy of Medicine 45. New York City Department of City Planning 46. New York City Department of Small Business Services 47. New York City New Service 48. NextCity 49. NYU Lutheran Family Health Centers 50. Parsons, The New School of Design 51. Project for Public Spaces 52. Purchase College 53. Roosevelt Institute 54. Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration 55. Rutgers University 56. School Food Access 57. Seton Hall University 58. Sherwood Institute 59. tech21cents 60. The Community Preservation Corporation 61. The International Accountability Project 62. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy 63. The Municipal Art Society of New York 64. The Nature Conservancy 65. The Nature of Cities 66. The New School 67. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development 68. TODERIAN UrbanWorks 69. UN Major Group for Children and Youth 70. UN-Habitat 71. United Cities and Local Government 72. Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canari 73. WeAct 74. Women Strong International 75. World Urban Campaign Steering Committee

13 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

14 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

15 Urban Thinkers Campus: 08 – New York City Urban Thinkers Campus: Roadmap to The City We Need

www.mas.org/programs/urbanthinkerscampus/

United Nations Human Settlements Programme P.O. Box 30030 Nairobi 00100, Kenya World Urban Campaign Secretariat www.worldurbancampaign.org Email: wuc@unhabitat.org Tel.: +254 20 762 1234

www.unhabitat.org