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ON THE ROAD TO ISTANBUL
UNESCO'S CONTRIBUTION TO HABITAT II
MEETING OF EXPERTS
UNESCO Paris, 11-12 October 1995
Table of Contents:
SYNTHESIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION
SUMMARY OF THE DISCUSSIONS
PUBLICATIONS
FOLLOW-UP
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
UNESCO brought together forty experts to discuss the city of solidarity and citizenship (Paris, 11-12 October 1995). The dialogue between this group of experts, who came from different parts of the world, as well as from different disciplines of the human and social sciences, and included politicians, professionals, representatives of non-governmental organizations, local authorities and international organizations, foreshadowed the kind of the team work that is needed for promoting solidarity and citizenship in the city of the twenty-first century (see list of participants). The documentation for this meeting included articles from the special issue of the International Social Science Journal for Habitat II.
Cities are far too often places of intolerance and exclusion, inhabited by city-dwellers in search of citizenship. Citizenship and city life once went closely together but no longer do. The notion of citizenship which is being trampled upon and city life which has become dislocated are the focus of global attention. Solidarity and citizenship, the goals of urban civilisation providing a key to other ways of sharing, then appear as a major goal on the eve of the twenty-first century.
In the period of transition that we are now undergoing (Jorge Wilheim, Peter Hall, Yue-man Yeung), this road " towards the city of solidarity and citizenship " is the reconquest of solidarity, a fundamental value of democracy and human rights, and the exercise of citizenship, a vector of humanism.
Reconquering solidarity is to:
act against exclusion and intolerance, by singling out strategies of solidarity at work;
humanizing the city, scene of citizenship in action - being a citizen of one's town and of the world.
Promote a forward-looking perspective on the new forms of solidarity necessitated by the evolution of society.
Devise action-oriented strategies to promote solidarity and citizenship in the city of the twenty-first century, particularly by supporting popular urban economy and encouraging a coherent policy for open spaces in cities
Find the key points for the synergising of international actions with national and local experience.
Support participative action-research projects on the initiatives and savoir-faire of the inhabitants with regard to their urban environment.
With a view to governance, conceived as relationships between actors, and fostering agents of democracy, establish public-private-citizen partnerships for urban innovation and identify, experiment, analyse, evaluate and disseminate successful partnerships.
Develop a pedagogy of innovative forms of solidarity and of citizenship by promoting a systematic recording of experience and practice, cumulative analysis and exchange of experience and savoir-faire through:
-micro social observatories;
-observatories of associative civic practices to contribute to building up civic links;
-collect and disseminate "Best practices of solidarity and citizenship", etc.
Recognize social and human sciences research as a socially useful task (percentage dedicated to research in each big programme and budget of municipal management), accompanied by ways of democratic development of the formulation of questions.
Clarify city related concepts and words in use.
Develop training, particularly education in citizenship, understood as the appropriation of all fundamental rights.
Encourage exchanges between city practictitioners - elected and social operators - and from universities.
Organize periodically " urban assemblies of solidarity and citizenship ".
Establish an annual " world festival of the city ", aimed at emphasizing citizenship.
Use UNESCO's MOST programme (Management of social transformations) as an appropriate means for implementing the above recommendations.
These recommendations could constitute elements for a
CHARTER OF SOLIDARITY AND CITIZENSHIP
The discussions focused on four themes:
1. Condemning the progression of intolerance, is to act against exclusion and the fragmented city, this growing gap between the 'city of the citizens' and the 'city of the excluded'. The spectre of a social, political and psychological divide haunts neo-liberal society which carries within it the threat of ghettoization, a combination of lack of social integration and cultural assimilation together with the rise of racism and the far right, urban violence: the underside of modernity.
This process can be seen in Sao Paulo, symbol of fragmentation of the public space (and not of sociability) through fortified enclaves and protective walls against urban violence (Teresa Caldeira), and Durban where the forces at work of fragmentation are particularly powerful (Michael Sutcliffe). It is not possible to aspire to a city, territory of solidarity and citizenship without struggling against an apartheid society (social, racial, economic and political) and a coherent policy of public space, because segregated cities are not a suitable environment for the exercise of citizenship. This means promoting a coherent policy of public space and an obligation to the value of public life (Jordi Borja).
2. Asserting solidarity as a basic value of democracy and human rights by inventing the city of solidarity, a cultural melting pot, centred on mechanisms of economic and social integration, which are the focal points of interlocking activities, sociability, respect for others, the art of affirming one's personality, a city that fosters and creates the intermingling of cultures, hence a city that is more attuned to the idea of the citizen. This melting-pot, this multicultural city would then be a vector of tolerance and cultural pluralism. The challenge that lies in wait for us is one of devising flexible policies of support for current initiatives and strategies of solidarity. Innovation through the building of new partnerships between the public sector, the private sector and citizen's initiative: this is the challenge of tomorrow's world. The city of Leicester, through an active policy with regard to ethnic minorities, reminds us that this is viable. An active multicultural and cross-cultural policy contributes to the reconquest and the awareness of solidarity and of citizenship (Paul Winstone, Aprodicio Laquiqn).
3. Promoting a culture of peace: human rights and freedoms in the city. The crisis of democracy is at its most acute in the cities which are also the potential arenas of its renaissance. The consequences of increasing global interdependence and the crisis of the Nation-State make it likely that the future of democracy, as a peaceful way of settling conflicts among citizens with a common aspiration for freedom, equality and fraternity will be played out in cities. The world-city, a place of national and international integration, may soon be the integrating framework that the nation used to be and invent new forms of everyday citizenship in daily life. For, the cities are schools of democracy for the twenty-firrst century and the precursors of a new social contract. Governability is at the heart of their future (Alfredo Rodriguez and Lucy Winchester).
4. From city-dwellers to citizens: education for citizenship. The quest for citizenship has become a world-wide phenomenon. Citizenship needs to be propounded in all its inflexions and expressed in many varied ways that respects its specific and unique links with the economic, political, social and cultural context in which it is exercised. But this must be achieved without losing sight of a universal principle: the individual, the citizen, must be returned to the centre of choices and decisions and thus help recreate the pluralistic city, the medium of culture. Allowing the emergence of this process of transformation, maturing and appropriation of the city by those who live in it is indispensable and potentially fruitful. Appropriating the city means designing a programme of education for and in citizenship for the different actors thus involved. Implicating city-dwellers, who thereby become citizens, in the designing of their city and their future will be the challenge of the era of cities. The modern utopia, by abolishing the symbolic meaning of places in its universal space, has brought havoc to social relationships and the quality of places. Citizenship, for its part, is built around social relationships that grow among the inhabitants of a territory and contribute to the fashioning of a city, a place where people wish to live together.
Democracy, is not simply respect of political rights but also the effective exercise of civic, social, cultural and economic rights. In " a caring society ", and anchored in the construction of public-private citizen partnerships, the appropriation of all these rights by all is fundamental. Education in citizenship is to know one's rights and duties (consciousness), but also recourse in the case of non-respect or violation of these rights. Barcelona is an illustration of management of social transformations with, at its heart, democratic values, coherent and voluntary policy with regard to public space, active participation of citizens in the life of their city, etc. (Jordi Borja). On the other hand it is impossible to talk of education in citizenship without democracy and access to justice. Social science research on the city, conceived as a social utility task, has a crucial role to play (Richard Stren, Mario Lungo).
Following this path means making a commitment to build the twenty-first century city, the territory of solidarity and citizenship in action. It means wanting to humanize the city. This is not just a wish: in places it is already a reality. Certain cities offer a public space that favours the exercise of citizenship and solidarity through urban living. This city, in the service of man and not of economics, is the business of all of us, through the designing of revivifying policies that foster the creativity of city-dwellers who thus become citizens!
Special issue of the International Social Science Journal, entitled " Cities of the Future: Managing Social Transformations", published on the occasion of Habitat II, no. 147, March 1996 (Table of Contents attached).
Towards the city of solidarity and citizenship, MOST Policy Papers, N° 4, (forthcoming).
" For a city of solidarity' in URBANISME, the international city magazine, N° 286, January-February 1996.
Dialogue for the 21st century, organized by UNESCO's MOST Programme, for the City Summit in Istanbul, 7 June 1996, on " Democracy and citizenship in the city of the twenty-first century ".
Action-research on policies of the city aiming to strengthen solidarity and citizenship, by means of MOST programme projects on the city and, in particular, " Socially sustainable Cities " and " Cities, management of social transformations and the environment ".
Using the MOST Clearing House on Internet.
(*Author of an article in the special issue of the ISSJ)
Serge ALLOU, Programme Solidarité Habitat, GRET, Paris
Marianne ANACHE, Technical Director, METROPOLIS (Association mondiale des grandes métropoles) and member of G4+, Paris
Maurice AYMARD, Administrator, Maison des sciences de l'homme, Paris
Laura BALBO, Professor, University of Ferrara, Italy
Martine BOITEUX, Ministère de la recherche et de l'enseignement supérieur, Paris
Jordi BORJA*, Ajutament de Barcelona and Consultores Europeos Asociados, Barcelona
Jacques BUGNICOURT, Director, Environnement et Développement du Tiers-Monde (ENDA), Dakar
Teresa CALDEIRA*, Professor, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) and Researcher, Centro Brasileiro de Analise e Planejamento (CEBRAP), Sao Paulo
Georges CAVALLIER, Coordinator of French contribution to Habitat II
Michael COHEN*, Senior Adviser, Office of the Vice-President, Environmentally Sustainable Development, The World Bank, Washington
Miguel DARCY de OLIVEIRA, Director, Instituto de Acao Cultural (IDAC), Rio de Janeiro and President of the Executive Committee of the CIVICUS (Alliance mondiale pour la participation des citoyens)
Vincent DELBOS, Chargé de mission, Interministerial delegation for the town, Paris
Mamadou DIOP, Mayor of Dakar, President of the Association of Mayors of Senegal
Patrick FOUILLARD, Fondation pour le progrès de l'homme
Francis GODARD, Deputy Director of PIR-Villes (Interdisciplinary research programme on cities), CNRS
Claude JACQUIER, CIVIL, University Pierre Mendès-France, Grenoble
Leszek KOSINSKI, Secretary-General, International Social Science Council
Jean-Michel LABATUT, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa
Davinder LAMBA, Executive Director, Mazingira Institute and Secretary, African Research Network for Urban Management (ARNUM), Nairobi
Alain LE SAUX, Scientific Director, METROPOLIS, Paris
Gotz LINK, Director, Development Policy Forum, German Foundation for International Development (DSE), Berlin
Mario LUNGO*, FLACSO and Universidad Centroamericana " José Simeon Cantas ", San Salvador
Guido MARTINOTTI, Chairman, Standing Committee for the Social Sciences, European Science Foundation and Instituto Superiore di Sociologia, Milan
Voula MEGA, Research Director, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Dublin
El. H. Sidy NIANG, Technical Adviser, Association of the Mayors of Senegal
Enrique ORTIZ, Executive Secretary, Habitat International Coalition (HIC), Mexico
Thierry PAQUOT, School of Artchitecture of Paris and Editor, URBANISME
Paul PAVY, Direction des Affaires européennes et internationales, Caisse des dépôts et consignations, Paris 6.
Janice PERLMAN, Executive Director, MEGA-CITIES, New York
Parviz PIRAN, Professor, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran
Mario POLESE, Towns and Development, University of Quebec
Anne PONS, Programme Director, United Towns Organizations and member of G4+, Paris
Ignacy SACHS, Professor, Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris
Michael SAFIER, Cultural and Cosmopolitan Development Programme, Development Planning Unit (DPU), University College, London
David SATTERTHWAITE, Director, Human Settlements Programme, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Editor, Environment and Urbanization
Richard STREN*, Director, Center for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto and Director, Global Urban Research Initiative (GURI)
Michael SUTCLIFFE*, Member, African National Congress, Kwazulu Natal Province Parliament and Chairperson of Local Government Committeee, Durban
Paul VIRILIO, Urban Planner, Essayist, Ecole spéciale d'architecture, Paris
Jorge WILHEIM*, Deputy Secretary-General, Habitat II
Paul WINSTONE*, Chief Executive, Race Relations Unit, Leicester City Council
UNESCO
Federico MAYOR, Director-General
Francine FOURNIER, Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences
Ali KAZANCIGIL, Director, Division of Social Sciences, Research and Policy; Executive Secretary, MOST
Wolf TOCHTERMANN, Director, Human Settlements Unit
Geneviève DOMENACH-CHICH, Consultant on Cities for the MOST Programme
Céline SACHS-JEANTET*, Urban Planner, Consultant for UNESCO's contribution to Habitat II, General Rapporteur of the meeting.
Secretariat: Carmel ROCHET, Human Settlements Unit
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