and local governments must reform legal and regulatory frameworks and integrate urban planning and design with measures that provide greater security to workers, especially those in the informal sector (UN-Habitat 2020). This is particularly relevant in the context of COVID-19, when many workers and workers in the informal economy have been severely affected, leading to a sharp growth in poverty levels (WIEGO 2020) Cities can leverage the momentum of transitions towards ‘post-pandemic’ recovery and environmental sustainability to support informal economic activities such as waste recycling and informal food provision, and develop training and skills development schemes to absorb labour (including new migrant labour) into green jobs (see chapter 5). An important first step here, in many contexts, involves recognising the contribution of these informal economic processes to long term urban equity and environmental sustainability.


Cities and city administrators can benefit from tools that help evaluate the different social and environmental benefits of changing planning priorities and practices to be more sustainable. However, this is not easy. It requires challenging the political economy of cities which tends to continue unequal and unsustainable business-as-usual development. Moreover, cities are restricted by several other


Figure 2.6: Effects of urban governance lock-ins


factors beyond their control, including jurisdiction, national and international interests, capacity deficits and the lack of flexible finance. Such barriers all help lock in a city’s political economy and these factors must be taken into account to catalyse transformative change.


2.3.3 Complex and fragmented urban governance


Cities are complex systems of interdependencies across geographic, institutional and governance scales, where numerous actors and processes interact (Bai et al. 2016). They are governed by a broad spectrum of institutions and policy instruments from local to national levels, including those shaped by international commitments to sustainable development and a better environment, such as the SDGs, the post-2020 targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.


Despite recent advances such as the Cities Race to Zero and Cities Race to Resilience initiatives alongside platforms such as CitiesWithNature, and the GEF Urban Shift program, the full potential of cities’ contribution to an environmentally sustainable and just transition has not yet been fully recognized nor realized. With urban areas accounting for


Urban


Cities are complex systems of interdependen- cies


governance lock-ins


Missed


opportunity for collaboration


Governed by: Actions shaped by:


Focused on international rankings and aesthetic visions


Can act as:


Broad spectrum of policies at national and federal levels


Front lines of


environmentally sustainable and inclusive


development Actors and


institutions beyond urban boundaries


32


GEO for Cities


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