The main objective of the Dialogue 2 is to identify the deep-rooted causes of urban inequality, poverty and slum incidence and their impact on cities through the presentation of evidences drawn from more than 200 cities as contained in the State of the World Cities Report 20010-2011.
The Dialogue 2 will provide opportunity for the presentation and discussions of the findings and recommendations of the SWCR and help to achieve a two-fold objective: to increase our understanding about different dimensions of urban inequality and to develop knowledge on policies and approaches that can overcome the urban divide.

The following topics are expected to be covered by this Dialogue:

Urban inequality, poverty and slum incidence and their impact on cities. Spatial disparities in urban standards of living; uneven distribution of urban services and social and spatial segregation; global and urban trends; urban income inequality.

Cities are constantly changing. They are built, rebuilt, destroyed, transformed, occupied by different groups, and used for different functions. In the search for better spatial organization for higher returns, more efficient economies of scale and other agglomeration benefits, cities generate different levels of residential differentiation. In most urban areas of the developed world, the separation of spaces for different uses is relatively visible, but still social heterogeneity and mixed uses are common. In many cities of the developing world, the separation of uses and levels of prosperity are so obvious that the rich live in well-serviced neighborhoods, gated communities and well-built formal parts, whereas the poor are confined to inner-city or peri-urban informal settlements and slum communities.
Cities are clearly composed of two “parts” along a spatial and social continuum: the “back” and the “front”; or the up and down, as the urban divide is known colloquially in many parts of the global south. The rich part is completely different from the poor, yet inhabitants from either part are no different from each other except with regard to socioeconomic status. The partitioning of urban and social space is not only a partition of wealth and poverty, but also of the consequences of it, such as incidence of diseases, number of children who die from curable illnesses and those that survive them, life expectancy, and the like.
The urban divide is the face of injustice and the symptom of a systemic dysfunction. A society cannot claim to be harmonious or united if large sections of its population are deprived of basic needs while other sections live in opulence. A city cannot be harmonious if some groups concentrate resources and opportunities while others remain impoverished and deprived.
The common view of urban problems and the urban divide as being essentially uniform across the developing world hampers the possibility of more adaptive responses to different urban contexts and dynamics. This dialogue will discuss urban trends and conditions as a way of presenting the diversity of urban contexts. The underlying premise is that city and country initiatives aiming to bridge the urban divide are unlikely to succeed without an adequate understanding of the differentiated ways in which cities are growing, prospering or declining. Such knowledge, especially an appreciation of the diversity of urban areas in terms their demographic trends, size, spatial form, geographic location, and level of economic development, is critical in the efforts to enhance the relevance and effectiveness of policy responses aiming to bridge the social and economic gap in cities.
The degree of concentration of income and wealth is a clear indicator of the level of fairness of the society that lives in an urban area. Income distribution disparities exist in most of the world’s cities; in some cases they are very large and in others they are relatively small. The problem is that instead of decreasing, evidence shows that income inequalities are growing in both developed and developing countries. In other words, cities are becoming more unequal, which means the urban divide is growing.
The concentration of income and wealth inevitably leads to an increasingly divided society. Some of the consequences are the physical and social partitioning of the urban structure, with poor people concentrated in some sectors of the city, and the richer living in the wealthier parts of the divided city. Other consequences are not only related to disparities of economic assets and income. In simple words, income inequalities never come alone, and often they generate disparities in education and health systems and related societal outcomes.
This Dialogue will discuss inequalities at the city level; the Dialogue will be based on Habitat sample of cities used in the 2008/9 edition of the State of the World’s Cities Report, in which UN-HABITAT compared for the first time levels of income and consumption inequality in approximately 120 cities from 70 countries. Building upon this seminal work, new comparative analyses will examine dynamics not just between cities and regions, but also among cities within the same country.
The Dialogue will discuss the relationship between economic growth in cities and countries and increased inequalities, as examples from various Asian countries and Africa and Latin America confirm. These findings result from the association of economic indicators at the city and country level with income inequalities at different points of time. The findings are strong enough to challenge the Kuznets theory and similar conventionally accepted views of economic inequality. UN-HABITAT’s Report shows that country-specific responses can neutralize the negative impact of growth on equity. It also argues that if inequalities are not addressed, they can hinder economic growth, particularly in developing countries.
The Dialogue will discuss the factors that contribute to worsening the distribution of income at the city level. Using UN-HABITAT Urban Inequities Surveys in selected cities, the study breaks down the sources of income and consumption in order to identify the main drivers of inequality in these cities. The study further pursues this analysis by comparing Gini coefficients in slum and non-slum parts of the city, and associating this information with educational attainment and other indicators. Through policy and contextual analysis in selected cities through the Urban Observatory network, the Dialogue will open room for discussion on traditional causes of inequality (racial discrimination, gender, spatial segregation, education) and compares them with new forms of inequality such as communication technology and the development of skill-intensive jobs that with higher wages tend to increase Gini.
The Dialogue proposes to expand discussion on the analysis of inequalities by including other non-income measures such as illiteracy rates, undernourishment rates among children, infant mortality, and the like, that can be systematically compared among cities and countries to capture other dimensions of inequality.
Access to transportation, infrastructure, land, housing and basic urban services such as water, sanitation and electricity are fundaments of socially inclusive and equitable urban development. Inadequate provision of these services not only gives signs of exclusion but also reveals different levels of inequality in cities. Some argue that this is an inevitable outcome of growth and economic development while others argue that some cities grow but maintain low levels of inequality. What are the conditions for this to happen? What kind of policies and approaches ensure that urban development, growth and equity go hand in hand?
One of the most critical evidences of inequality is the incidence of slums in cities. Data collected by the CWCR 2010-2011 reveals that the MDG 7, Target 11 have already been achieved but data from a significant number of cities in the world comparing slums and non-slum situations reveal a sharp urban divide. Residents of slums are worse off in terms of health, education, employment and housing than their non-slum and rural counterparts. This means that government policies are not only failing to enable individuals to access equal opportunities but fundamentally not being capable to ensure the realization of some of these basic rights. These shortcomings have serious implications for city development. Government policies need to be redressed if a socially and economically inclusive city is to be accomplished.
The dialogue will further enhance the debate on the types of policies, results and measures that recognizes these inequalities and address them with approaches that recognize rights, opportunities and responsibilities (the right to the city approach). This dialogue will focus on inequalities in cities and will go beyond its economic dimension and the rationale of income inequality and consumption issues and bring forward evidenced-based suggestions and policy recommendations on how to close the urban divide.

The following topics are expected to be covered by this Dialogue:
Urban inequality, poverty and slum incidence and their impact on cities. Spatial disparities in urban standards of living; uneven distribution of urban services and social and spatial segregation; global and urban trends; urban income inequality.

• Pamela Cox , World Bank’s Vice President for the Latin America and the Caribbean Region
• Judith Rodin , President, Rockefeller Foundation
• Hon. Robinson Njeru Githae , Minister for Nairobi Metropolitan Development, Kenya
• Ann M. Veneman, Executive Director UNICEF
• Christer Hallerby , State Secretary for Integration and Gender Equality, Sweden
• Somsook Boonyabancha , Asian Coalition for Housing Rigths, Bangkok, Thailand
• Ermínia Maricato , University of São Paulo, Deputy Minister of Cities (2003-2005), Brazil

Income Inequalities in Cities

• Recent trends of income inequalities within cities and among cities and regions
• Factors generating and/or exacerbating income inequalities
• Economic growth with or without inequalities?
• Small, big and large cities, where inequalities are higher and why
• Programmes and policies that work in reducing inequalities

Presentation of the SWCR’s findings 2010/11: Eduardo L. Moreno

• Abha Joshi Ghani , Manager of Urban Development, World Bank
• Joachim Prey , Member of the Committee of Executives, GTZ, Germany
• Edgar Pieterse, Director of the Centre for Cities in Africa, South Africa
• Ms. Bijal Bhatt, Co-ordinator of Self-Employed Women’s Association, Bank in Ahmedabad, India

While the need to include economic measures of inequality in the characterization of inequality is undisputable, the dominance of the so-called ‘income poverty paradigm’ has constrained the debate on inequality; this has, in effect, left out other important dimensions such as health, education, nutrition, as well as many more complex issues like freedom of expression and the ability to participate in political life, which all hinder the pursuit of individual and collective happiness.
The second debate, “Beyond Income and Consumption Inequalities” will gauge the range of the deprivations experienced by the urban poor against an expanded set of dimensions. Panelists and the audience will be invited to think about different “forms and places of deprivation” within and among cities. This session will identify public policies, welfare mechanisms and specific actions that allow for fairer distribution in the various dimensions of inequality of opportunities.

• The various dimensions of inequalities that are not reflected solely by income (health, education and others).
• Inequalities of space and groups – what they are?
• Drivers of inequalities: role of cultural and political exclusion, among others.
• Policies and actions that work in reducing various forms of inequalities

• Peter Lanjouw, Research Manager, Poverty Group, Development Economics Research Group, World Bank
• Arvinn E. Gadskill, Junior Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Norway
• Hon. Adam Kimbisa, Mayor of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
• Edín Martínez, Deputy Minister of Housing, San Salvador
• Prof. Peter Marcuse, Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning at Columbia University in New York City 
• Mr. Pasqualino Procacci, Director of the Italian Cooperation

English, Spanish and Portuguese, with simultaneous translation.

Eduardo López Moreno,
Head, City Monitoring Branch
Monitoring and Research Division
UN-HABITAT
Tel: (254-20) 762-3149
Fax: (254-20) 762-3080
Email: Eduardo.Moreno@unhabitat.org