wfn.org | Population to Cause Housing Problem

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3033 notes).

Note 3031 by UMNS on June 25, 1996 at 16:13 Eastern (5535 characters).

SEARCH:   cities, population growth, Habitat, housing,
          sustainable, infrastructure

  UMNS stories may be accessed on the Internet World Wide Web at:
                   http://www.umc.org/umns.html

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

Contact:  Joretta Purdue                       317(10-21-71){3031}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722           June 25, 1996

Church looks ahead to ministry 
in more populous, urbanized world

     NEW YORK (UMNS) -- At the beginning of this century, most of
the world's population lived and worked in rural settings. By
century's end, the majority will be city residents -- many of them
residing in megacities of 10 million people or more.
     "Almost all the new megacities are in developing countries,"
said the Rev. Kim Jefferson, who headed the United Methodist
Church's Board of Global Ministries' delegation to a
United Nations conference called Habitat 2. The meeting's agenda
focused on housing issues related to rapid urbanization.
     Saying he acquired very valuable information, Jefferson
termed the June 3-14 conference in Istanbul, Turkey, "exciting"
and "innovative."
     "It went beyond other United Nations conferences," commented
Jefferson, who attended the first Habitat conference two decades
earlier in Vancouver. He said the conference emphasized the
importance of partnerships: national governments cannot do the job
alone.
     The urbanization process and the growth of these megacities
is expected to hit especially hard in third world, or developing,
countries, he reported.
     According to United Nations estimates, Tokyo with a current
population of 26.8 million will remain the world's largest city in
the year 2015, but New York and Los Angeles -- now third and
seventh in ranking -- will have disappeared from the list of the
10 biggest. 
     Then, the international agency predicts, the most populous
urban areas after Tokyo with 28.7 million will be Bombay, 27.4
million; Lagos (that had less than 300,000 in 1950) 24.4 million;
Shanghai, 23.4 million; Jakarta, 21.2 million; Sao Paulo, 20.8
million; Karachi, 20.6 million; Beijing, 19.4 million; Dhaka,
Bangladesh, 19 million; and Mexico City, 18.8 million.
     "In some of these cities they don't have safe water,"
Jefferson lamented. They do not have the infrastructure in place
to cope with the larger populations and do not have the financial
resources to create it, he said. "It could be very life-
threatening in some of these cases."
     Habitat 2 dealt with both the developing countries and
developed countries like the United States, Europe and Japan,
Jefferson noted.
     Widely billed as a cities summit, Jefferson said he was
pleased to see that much of the concern was applicable to rural
villages as well.
     Representatives of more than 150 countries negotiated a
document that called for "ensuring adequate shelter for all and
making human settlements safer, healthier, more livable,
equitable, sustainable and more productive."
     At the same time, another part of the conference held a
series of hearings with presentations or reports from business,
non-governmental organizations, academies of science and
technology, local governments, specialized U.N. agencies, and
others, including many that had gathered for a few days before
Habitat 2. 
     Summaries of those early meetings were presented to the
delegates and out of the discussion that ensued came talk about
the role each partner could play, Jefferson explained.
     "Governments tend to be in retreat, financially at least,
from the problems," he said, adding that it was exciting to see
the partnership idea taking shape. Jefferson said he believes
partnerships will be necessary to succeed in making a difference.
     From the consensus manner in which the declaration was
created and from the presentations and discussion he observed,
Jefferson said he saw the beginnings of a common framework and
some attempt to try to develop mechanisms of accountability.
     In a world where every nation has so much sovereignty,
Jefferson said, enforcing agreements will not be easy, but he
thinks public opinion is beginning to develop.
     Also in the board delegation were Ruth Lawson, who heads the
board's community developers and black ministries programs; Judy
Heffernan, director of the Heartland Rural Center in Columbia,
Mo., which works with laity and clergy on rural church and
community concerns; and Mesud Djozic, a muslim who is chief
housing engineer for the United Methodist Committee on Relief
(UMCOR) mission in Bosnia.
     "It will be extremely valuable for us as we work globally to
see what is happening around the world in places where the United
Methodist Church already may be at work or where we could be in
partnership with others trying to work for sustainable communities
-- sustainable economically, socially, environmentally, et
cetera," Jefferson declared.
     He said he was pleased to see, in a building of exhibits
where award-winning best practices were displayed through various
media, a video from the U.S. featured Beyond Shelter, a Los
Angeles project in which Faith United Methodist Church was one of
the partners.
     Both rural and urban models had been accorded prizes, he
added. Habitat for Humanity was one of the international models
recognized.
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