This report is a comprehensive analysis and assessment of sustainable urban development in the Asia and Pacific region at a time of great disruption and uncertainty resulting from multiple interlinked global crises in a post pandemic era. This report aims to provide valuable insights into the spatial, economic, social, environmental and governance aspects of cities, offering holistic policy recommendations towards a sustainable urban recovery from these crises. Understanding the dynamics and characteristics of its cities is crucial for national and local governments, businesses, local communities, researchers and urban planners. With this report ESCAP and UN-Habitat continue their collaboration to provide an updated, reliable resource for decision-makers seeking to gain a deeper understanding of the trends, challenges, and future opportunities within the Asia-Pacific cities landscape. The report builds on three previous editions in this series, each of which explored the key existing and emerging trends in urban development within the region. This report continues the forward-looking perspective, capturing the transformative messages of the New Urban Agenda (2016) and continuing the thematic tracks established in the 2019 edition of this report. The current edition also set a much-needed agenda for a sustainable urban recovery across the region. The 2023 report is released in a year where progress against SDG 11 on 'sustainable cities and communities' is under review globally by the UN General Assembly.

This report is an important resource to explore critical and emerging policy opportunities to realize urban sustainability for the Asian and Pacific region. It informs policies and actions from a sustainable development perspective, putting cities at the centre of development policy debates. It identifies future policy pathways for urban decision makers and stakeholders to reimagine the built and natural environments in Asian and Pacific cities and offers policy solutions across different types of cities to achieve the global development agendas. The solutions address four major development challenges – natural resource management, climate change, disaster risk and inequalities – through a focus on the key means of implementation to accelerate the achievement of the 2030 Agenda.

The Future of Asian and Pacific Cities report 2019 makes the case for four priorities and four approaches to realize a sustainable urban future in Asia and the Pacific. A sustainable future occurs when urban and territorial planning lays a foundation; resilience guards against future risk; smart cities deploy the best technology for the job; and financing tools help pay for it all. Getting these essentials right in Asian and Pacific cities today is vital in order to adapt to the demands of tomorrow and to deliver on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda.

This open access book addresses the way in which urban and urbanizing regions profoundly impact and are impacted by climate change. The editors and authors show why cities must wage simultaneous battles to curb global climate change trends while adapting and transforming to address local climate impacts. This book addresses how cities develop anticipatory and long-range planning capacities for more resilient futures, earnest collaboration across disciplines, and radical reconfigurations of the power regimes that have institutionalized the disenfranchisement of minority groups. Although planning processes consider visions for the future, the editors highlight a more ambitious long-term positive visioning approach that accounts for unpredictability, system dynamics and equity in decision-making. This volume brings the science of urban transformation together with practices of professionals who govern and manage our social, ecological and technological systems to design processes by which cities may achieve resilient urban futures in the face of climate change.

The role of cities in addressing climate change is increasingly recognised in international arenas, including the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the New Urban Agenda. Asia is home to many of the countries that are most vulnerable to climate change impacts and, along with Africa, will be the site of most urban population growth over the coming decades. Bringing together a range of city experiences, Responding to Climate Change in Asian Cities provides valuable insights into how cities can overcome some of the barriers to building climate resilience, including addressing the needs of vulnerable populations. The chapters are centred on an overarching understanding that adaptive urban governance is necessary for climate resilience. This requires engaging with different actors to take into account their experiences, vulnerabilities and priorities; building knowledge, including collecting and using appropriate evidence; and understanding the institutions shaping interactions between actors, from the national to the local level. The chapters draw on a mix of research methodologies, demonstrating the variety of approaches to understanding and building urban resilience that can be applied in urban settings. Bringing together a range of expert contributors, this book will be of great interest to scholars of urban studies, sustainability and environmental studies, development studies and Asian studies.

This report is a reflection of current debates on issues raised by the dramatic changes that rapid urbanization has brought to bear on the citizens in the Asian and Pacific region. It comprised four papers. There was a need for a retrospective look at "Where we have come from : a historical perspective and major trends" followed by an examination of "How cities function and the need for a new approach to policy formulation." Current macroeconomic changes and their impact on the poor would be the subject of the third paper and the fourth would be a forward-looking paper dealing with institutional change "The new urban contract". (Adapté de la préface).