How do sustainable cities confront the housing crisis and climate change?

Sustainable citiesToday, they represent a fundamental axis in shaping the future of humanity, at a time when more than half of the world’s population lives in cities, a number that is expected to rise by about 2.4 billion people by the year 2050. This rapid expansion makes cities the center of economic and social life, but at the same time it puts them in direct confrontation with increasing challenges, most notably climate change, widening social gaps, and increasing pressures. Economic.

In this context, the concept ofSustainable Citiesemerges as a framework for managing this rapid growth, balancing economic development, social justice, and environmental protection, by providing adequate housing and basic services, and enhancing the ability of cities to adapt to climate change. However, the transition to this model does not happen automatically. It passes through a deeper understanding of the problems facing cities today, and how sustainable cities can provide a practical alternative to these crises.

Based on this, this article discusses the main challenges facing cities in light of rapid growth, starting from unplanned expansion, through social and economic pressures, to the role of public policies, housing, and basic services in transforming cities from hotbeds of crises into spaces of solution.

Sustainable cities in the face of unregulated expansion

The expansion of cities is no longer just a natural consequence of population growth. In many cases, it has turned into a complex crisis. The increasing need for housing has led to the spread of unplanned urbanization within cities, and the expansion of unplanned areas in which more than 1.1 billion people around the world live, often in environments that lack planning and basic services.

The growth of cities increases climate risks, especially since the buildings and housing sector is responsible for about 40% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, green spaces within cities are constantly declining, decreasing from about 19.5% to less than 14% in 2020 – according to the World Cities Report 2024, issued by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme – without noticeable improvement in the following years.

This decline reduces the ability of cities to absorb heat, and increases the severity of heat waves, droughts, and floods, and the poorest groups and residents of unplanned areas often bear the brunt. Which highlights the gap between rapid urbanization and the need to build cities capable of protecting their residents.

In the face of these challenges, sustainable cities emerge as a practical approach to reducing the effects of unplanned urbanization and climate risks, through integrated land use planning, protecting green areas, and encouraging energy-efficient building patterns. These models also contribute to reducing emissions by increasing the efficiency of buildings and transportation, and enhancing the ability of cities to adapt to heat waves and floods. But the effects of this urban expansion extend to reveal deeper challenges within society and the economy and do not stop at the environment and climate only.

Accumulated social and economic pressures within cities

In addition to environmental risks, cities face increasing economic and social losses. Estimates indicate that annual losses resulting from natural disasters may exceed $1 trillion by the middle of the century, which imposes significant burdens on local and national economies.

At the same time, the world is suffering from a housing crisis affecting more than 2.8 billion people, in light of the decline in investments in social housing, with most regions allocating less than 0.5% of their gross domestic product to this sector. This situation exacerbates gaps within cities, and makes obtaining adequate housing an increasing challenge for large segments of the population.

These pressures increase with the escalation of internal migration resulting from conflicts andnatural disasters, as large numbers of migrants move to cities that are already suffering from severe pressure on their resources and services, which increases the complexity of the scene within cities and deepens the existing challenges facing the transition to sustainable cities. In the face of this reality, the question becomes: How can sustainable cities confront these crises instead of turning into spaces for their accumulation?

Housing and basic services as a practical approach to the solution

Housing represents an essential starting point for sustainable cities to address many urban crises. In addition to being a social right, housing plays an important economic role by creating job opportunities and revitalizing the local economy, especially when relying on sustainable building materials such as recycled steel, bamboo, and high-efficiency insulation.

Integrating clean energy, water, sanitation, and transportation services into planning within the vision ofSustainable Cities enhances the ability of communities to adapt to climate change, and improves the quality of residents’ daily lives. Multiple experiences confirm that investing in housing and infrastructure represents an opportunity to expand economic activity and achieve long-term returns. Creating 100 affordable housing units can create more than 160 local job opportunities within one year. However, achieving these results requires broader policies that reorganize the way cities themselves are managed.

Rethinking city and land use policies

Cities cannot transform into more equitable and sustainable spaces without a comprehensive review of policies governing land use, legislation, and financing mechanisms. This includes improving land use within cities to achieve a balance between environmental, economic and social gains, reducing emissions and improving access to services.

Here highlights the importance of integrating unplanned areas into the fabric of cities rather than treating them as marginal spaces, and also as major centers of informal economic activity. In many countries of the Global South (meaning Africa and parts of Asia and Latin America), informal activity constitutes a large part of the economy, and International Labor Organization data indicate that about 98.5% of the labor force in Niger, and 97.5% in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, work in this sector.

This reflects the need for more realistic policies that recognize these activities and integrate them into planning within cities, as this integration is one of the practical paths to buildingsustainable cities capable of reducing social gaps, strengthening the local economy, and transforming marginalized areas into an effective part of the urban fabric. This includes improving housing services and facilities, and providing flexible legal frameworks that allow the integration of the informal economy into the formal system, thus expanding the tax base, enhancing social stability, and transforming these areas from hotbeds of fragility into development engines within the city.

Finally,This reading reveals that the future of cities is inseparable from their ability to manage growth in an equitable and inclusive manner. Cities that invest in housing and basic services, reorganize land use, and put people at the heart of planning become more able to confront climate change, reduce social gaps, and enhance economic stability.

In this sense,The Earth Guards Foundationsees that buildingsustainable citieshas become a development necessity to ensure that cities turn into fair spaces that provide opportunities for all, instead of deepening exclusion and inequality. Cities that are designed around human needs, and balance economic growth, social justice, and environmental protection, are the most capable of achieving sustainable development and creating a comprehensive future that does not exclude anyone.