World Cities Day is commemorated on 31 October to help contribute to sustainable urban development worldwide and to promote both urbanisation and cooperation between countries.
At present, according to UN data, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban environments, a figure that is expected to grow to 70% by 2050, with a particular incidence in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
The growth in these geographic areas is due to the fact that 85% of the world’s youth population lives in developing countries. In fact, more than half of Africa’s inhabitants are under the age of 25.
Cities Day: origin in 2014
Resolution A/RES/68/239 of the General Assembly, one of the main UN bodies, established on 27 December 2013 that from the following year 31 October would become World Cities Day.
Literally, the resolution states that it ‘decides to designate 31 October of each year, starting in 2014, as World Cities Day’, inviting ‘States, the United Nations system, in particular UN-Habitat, relevant international organisations, civil society and other relevant stakeholders to celebrate and raise awareness of the Day’.
The day dedicated to cities, which is commemorated just one week after the UN’s own day on 24 October, stresses that urbanisation enables new forms of social inclusion such as access to services and new opportunities, as well as the commitment and mobilisation reflected in diversity.
The same resolution invites the 193 Member States as well as Habitat Agenda partners ‘to formulate and implement sustainable urban development policies that promote just, resilient and inclusive cities, taking into account the contributions of all relevant stakeholders, with particular emphasis on the needs of women and the most vulnerable’.
World Cities Day 2024
This year’s World Cities Day 2024 will be held under the theme ‘Youth leading local and climate action for cities’ and will focus on how to capture ambitious youth ideas and goals and turn them into achievements, according to UN-Habitat on its website.
Smart cities
In view of the large growth forecast for urban areas that we mentioned at the beginning of this article, the development of smart cities is seen as an unavoidable advance to guarantee better services and benefits to all those who live in urban spaces.
But how can a smart city be defined?
One possible definition would be that of a city that, with the potential of ICTs, promotes the improvement of the quality of life of its inhabitants in a sustainable and efficient way through complex and interconnected systems thanks to the application of new technologies.
Some of the issues that can benefit from the technological development of smart cities are real-time traffic measurements to improve traffic flow, fine-tuning public transport schedules and itineraries depending on the circumstances, a more efficient waste collection system, lighting management to reduce costs and consumption, and measurements of different pollution indices.
10 smartest cities in the world
According to data from the Smart City Index 2024, the top ten smart cities in the world are mostly made up of urban entities on the European continent.
Specifically, Zurich (Switzerland, number 1), Oslo (Norway, number 2), Geneva (again Switzerland, number 4), Copenhagen (Denmark, number 6), Lausanne (third Swiss city, number 7), London (United Kingdom, number 8) and Helsinki (Finland, number 9).
The only three top 10 cities outside Europe are Canberra (Australia, number 3), Singapore (number 5) and Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates, number 10).
