Housing, infrastructure, and public services
The backbone for rising productivity and living standards in a city.
Housing, transport and public services form the backbone for rising productivity and living standards in a city. Without significant investments in these to meet the needs of citizens, rapidly growing cities become centres of congestion, crime, and contagious disease.
Constraints to formal housing provision and unsuitable regulations have contributed to the proliferation of informal settlements. Regulatory changes to reduce the high costs of housing production, and proactive infrastructure provision for urban expansion offer significant potential for housing rapidly growing urban populations.
Transport connects the city. If people and goods are unable to move easily across a city, workers may not access job opportunities that best match their skills, firms get locked into small-scale unproductive activities, and citizens cannot access basic goods and services. Policymakers face difficult trade-offs in improving systems of mobility, both in addressing growing demands for private transport, and in investing in public transport links and integrating this with existing informal providers.
Adequate water and waste management services ensure that urban centres become healthier and more sustainable places to live. For many cities, improving these services will mean addressing long-term financial, behavioural, and institutional challenges.
