Cities in an insecure world

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Some of the most intractable and enduring challenges of development are concerned with reducing insecurity. Early and very current development debates have been concerned with issues of food security.

Ensuring sustainable economic development and livelihoods in the context of volatile global markets is another enduring preoccupation of development, as are efforts to guarantee social security or protection. Concern about the relationship between national and human security has been at the centre of recent development debates.

All these aspects of security have particular implications for and manifestations in cities. Urban economies and livelihoods are inextricably tied into or bypassed by global economic forces. The food riots sparking off in cities around the world are testimony to the fact that urban food security is a critical issue for developing countries. And increasingly modern warfare is impacting on cities directly through contemporary combat or indirectly through displacement of people from conflict zones in the countryside.

These insecurities now accompany more familiar dimensions of urban vulnerability such as irregular or inadequate access to urban services such as water and sanitation and poor environmental conditions, resulting in health insecurities; vulnerability to violence and fear of violence as cities become increasingly subject to violent crime and rule by gangs and mafias; and other forms of physical insecurity related to natural and man made disasters, including climate change and extreme weather conditions to which cities and their vast populations are particularly vulnerable, especially in the absence of strong and effective urban governance.