especially in flood-prone cities, has led to the adoption of mega-infrastructure solutions, such as sea walls, dykes and levees, instead of nature-based solutions, such as planting mangroves (Jongman 2018). These grey infrastructure projects are cost intensive and often harm the relationship of vulnerable communities with their city and with nature. In the fishing communities of southern India, for example, breakwaters and seawalls have been built along almost 60 per cent of the coast of Kerala, increasing the risk of soil erosion in villages along the northern coast and reshaping people’s relationship with the sea (Abraham 2018).


The scope and vision of infrastructure decisions – currently dominated by grey infrastructure projects – must be broadened to include blue-green systems as hybrid solutions for risk mitigation and adaptation (Alves et al. 2020; Mulligan et al. 2020), based on ecologically and socially restorative approaches (further discussed in chapters 4 and 5). Some cities in Latin America and the Caribbean are integrating natural capital thinking in their road design and development process to counter dependencies and impacts on associated ecosystems (Mandle et al. 2016). International coalitions and platforms like the UNEP Cool Coalition, the CitiesWithNature and Cities4Forests platforms enable cross-city learning and support cities to move away from traditional grey infrastructure plans, encouraging hybrid solutions to reduce ambient daytime temperatures (UNEP 2019b).


For cities to truly move onto more environmentally sustainable and socially just trajectories, it will be essential that our understanding of infrastructure expands beyond hard infrastructure to include the construction and maintenance of robust social infrastructure in our cities. Social infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and other health care facilities, public spaces that support social and physical well-being, and infrastructure to support cultural production, nurtures healthy communities and is a key to


undoing city lock-ins. As the world battles the COVID-19 pandemic, infrastructure decisions have become even more critical. Millions of people who live in informal settlements and other forms of vulnerable neighbourhoods with poor access to basic services have been left most exposed (Du, King and Chanchani 2020). The lack of social infrastructure, particularly in the cities of the Global South, has created severe challenges for people who live in poverty in cities, and largely depend on informal social networks for livelihoods and basic services like water, electricity and health care (Roy 2020). Conversely, social welfare networks in several parts of the world have formally or informally organized to fill critical gaps in their cities’ social and health infrastructure systems (Ajibo 2020; Menon et al. 2020). There is a clear need to learn from this experience, to nurture and extend these networks at the same time as developing robust social infrastructure to meet the needs of all urban inhabitants.


Economic development Economic development has the potential to radically shift cities from deeply unsustainable approaches towards environmentally transformative and socially just pathways. However, economic priorities and budget allocations are frequently driven by national and state agendas that do not engage with the specific circumstances of cities (see section 2.3.3).


There is significant scope for cities to think about the connections between planning and economic development, paying greater attention to labour absorption, skills development and worker productivity. As the world’s population becomes more urban, the share of informal labour in cities in developing countries is increasing substantially (UNEP 2019a). Informal employment represents roughly 60 percent of all global employment, and 90 percent of employment in developing countries (International Labour Organization [ILO] 2018). National


Urban Dynamics for Environmental Action 31


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