The executive director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (U.N.-Habitat), economist Anacláudia Rossbach, 55, met with this newspaper in Madrid, having just arrived from Seville, where she participated in the IV International Conference on Financing for Development.
“My overall impression was very positive,” says Rossbach about the event, which focused on debating and rethinking cooperation funds for a planet in crisis. The U.N.-Habitat leader says she sensed “a spirit of building alliances, thinking together, and working collectively” when addressing the need for “systemic changes to expand access to development financing.”
“In my field, when it comes to urban needs, I think of the 1 billion people living in informal settlements or the nearly 2 billion without access to water. The needs are enormous, and so are the figures required.”
However, Rossbach also saw “many ideas and potential” in Seville. “For example, to expand mechanisms we already know, like property taxes. I witnessed a lot of creativity, especially in African municipalities, considering parafiscal instruments for raising funds, but they still need the support of their national governments to increase their autonomy,” she adds.
Question. In May, U.N.-Habitat warned about the “global housing crisis.” Is it becoming increasingly difficult to guarantee this right?
Answer. We have a global housing crisis. More than 300 million people live on the streets, more than 1 billion in informal settlements, 3 billion in inadequate housing, and we have a crisis of affordability. It is a structural problem in the Global South, where housing and real estate markets have always been more limited to a small percentage of the population. But today, the difficulty of acquiring a home or paying rent is present everywhere, particularly in large cities. One hundred and five member countries voted in favor of our Strategic Plan and agree that U.N.-Habitat’s focus for the next four years must be on access to housing, land, and basic services.
Q. There are 105 countries concerned about the housing crisis. Yet many don’t implement policies, or there’s a decline in available public housing. What concrete measures should be taken?
A. We have to have access to materials. Many countries lack domestic production of the necessary housing supplies. In others, cities don’t have strong land policies or policies focused on housing development. So they can take measures like expanding investments or subsidies, but these won’t reach where they’re needed. And that will lead to what we saw in the past: production of peripheral public housing, which causes social, urban, and economic segregation. We need to have well-located land supply mechanisms and align political will with citizen support. What’s more, housing is expensive, and many countries have limited fiscal capacity. There’s also a dependence on people’s ability to pay. [A housing policy is] a long-term investment. We can’t think that we’re going to start it today and in three months [the housing problem] will be solved.
Q. What do you think about the housing situation in Spain?
A. The Spanish case is very similar to what’s happening in other European countries and the United States. One key issue is the aging housing stock and the need to adapt it to new climate and environmental regulations, and other norms. This has a cost. In tourist cities, there is a decline in housing supply due to short-term rentals. Perhaps there is also a slowdown in public production that limits that supply. And on the other hand, perhaps limited regulation of financial capital has led to investment practices and speculative situations that also impact housing availability.
On the demand side, [we have] demographic changes and the affordability gap, which is much more structural. And there’s a need to think in a more structured way about how cities will develop, how unused land or spaces will be used. In São Paulo, for example, there’s a property tax mechanism for vacant properties. We need to think about how the national government can design and implement — and I think there’s already progress here — mechanisms to expand the housing supply.
Q. How can we make cities more resilient to the climate crisis?
A. Today, we’re growing more in area than in population, at least 50% more. Everyone aspires to have a small house with a garden. I don’t think that’s going to be possible anymore. We have to think about and limit this growth, which affects the ecosystem, the environment of cities, water, and urban biodiversity. Another point is measures to minimize the impact [of the climate crisis], for example, by expanding green spaces.
Q. What does a sustainable city mean to you?
A. A compact city, with significant vegetation cover, biodiversity, where we can hear the birds. Built sustainably, with local materials that adhere to sustainability standards. A city that respects green spaces, but also respects people. A sustainable city is an inclusive city.
Q. How can people living in cities be protected?
A. On the one hand, by ensuring that they can move around safely at night and are safe on public transportation. There’s also a very interesting urban trend — the city of the caregivers, which is a policy that has been implemented in Bogotá and Iztapalapa, Mexico. It’s a city that has infrastructure for caregivers so that people, primarily women, can leave their children and elderly relatives in a safe place when they go to work. Policies for caregivers and the proximity of services are very important to guarantee social inclusion.
Q. What are the benefits of investing in these policies?
A. What happens in one area will have an effect on the entire city. But if you think more pragmatically, if women are offered safe mechanisms and a caregiver structure so they can go to work, we have the opportunity to include this entire contingent in the labor market and expand the country’s GDP. And, on the other hand, there’s the city’s productivity. If you think about economic development, growth, opportunities, and business, we need to have productive cities. Cities that are safer, where getting from one place to another is done efficiently. If it takes someone three hours to get from one neighborhood to another, that’s not productivity. Three hours to go, three hours to come back, and eight hours working. How productive can a person be under those conditions?
Q. Two-thirds of humanity will live in cities by 2050. Are they ready?
A. There’s a lot to do, especially if you look at the regions that will experience the strongest growth, which are Africa and Asia. On the African continent, today, more than 50% of the population lives in informal settlements. And if we don’t change this, we’ll have hundreds of millions of people arriving in cities that already have significant infrastructure gaps. In Africa, we’re also going to have a very significant contingent of young people. Cities must be prepared to provide housing, infrastructure, and opportunities for all these young people who will arrive and need jobs.
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