PrepCity: Cities in Dialogue Responding to Habitat III 2016

Cities are central to the future of the planet. Given the challenges that we face, we need a New Urban Agenda that is relevant for all, while responding to basic challenges that go beyond the demands of immediate politics. The following recommendations are developed out of the PrepCity process over 2015 to 2016. Five major messages for further developing the New Urban Agenda: Appreciate cities as complex actors, not just as municipalities or demarcated urban zones; Acknowledge the importance of a renewed social contract, summarized in the notions of the 'Right to the City' and social commoning; Include positive cultural engagement as transformative commitment - not just as a point of leverage - linked in an integrated way to ecological, economic, and political considerations; Focus on the enabling conditions of urban sustainability development, defined at different levels of governance - local, municipal, regional, national and global; and Spell out mechanisms for both follow-up and review of the implementation policies and practices for sustainable urban development that flow from the New Urban Agenda.