The City is the Home of Prosperity. It is the place where human beings find satisfaction of basic needs and access to essential public goods. The city is also where ambitions, aspirations and other material and immaterial aspects of life are realized, providing contentment and happiness. It is a locus at which the prospects of prosperity and individual and collective well-being can be increased.

Climate change is one of the most dangerous threats ever faced by humankind. Fuelled by two powerful human-Induced forces that have been unleashed by development and manipulation of the environment in the industrial age, the effects of urbanization and climate change are converging in ways which threaten to have unprecedented negative impacts on urban quality of life, and economic and social stability.

The world's urban population now exceeds the world's rural population. What does this mean for the state of our cities, given the strain this global demographic shift is placing upon current urban infrastructures?

UN-Habitat’s research shows that a total of 227 million people in the world have moved out of slum conditions since 2000. However, the absolute number of slum dwellers has actually increased from 776.7 million in 2000 to some 827.6 million in 2010.

In our rapidly urbanizing global society, solid waste management will be a key challenge facing all the world's cities. Solid Waste Management in the World's Cities provides a fresh perspective and new data on one of the biggest issues in urban development.

The Arab world has played a very important role in the history of urbanization. It is the region where urban civilization was born and where urban matters have been addressed for centuries. The Arab urban civilization, as it has evolved over the past millennium, has generated some of the most beautiful cities in the world.

This series is designed to cover all aspects of sound financial management for local governments in developed and developing countries and economies in transition. Concepts of good governance, transparency and accountability are woven into the text of every chapter, and the needs and potential obstacles to greater decentralization and democracy are highlighted. Each volume is self-contained with its own Trainer’s Guide, exercises and web resources.

With 80% of its population living in cities, Latin America and the Caribbean is the most urbanized region on the planet. Located here are some of the largest and best-known cities, like Mexico City, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Bogota, Lima and Santiago. The region also boasts hundreds of smaller cities that stand out because of their dynamism and creativity.

Countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region were the first in the developing world to go through rapid urbanisation. Today, the region is the second most urbanised region in the world.

The report throws new light on current issues and challenges which national and local governments, the business sector and organised civil society are facing. On top of putting forward a number of recommendations, this report testifies to the wealth of good, innovative practice that countries of all sizes and development stages have accumulated across the region.

The first in-depth examination of a broad range of urban security issues, focusing on three key aspects of urban safety and security: crime and violence; security of tenure and protection against forced eviction; and natural and human-made disasters • The UN Human Settlements Programme’s Global Report – the most authoritative source of information on the conditions and trends in the world’s cities • An essential tool and reference for researchers, academics, public authorities and civil society organizations around the world.

The Challenge of Slums presents the first global assessment of slums, emphasizing their problems and prospects. Using a newly formulated operational definition of slums, it presents estimates of the number of urban slum dwellers and examines the factors at all level, from local to global, that underlie the formation of slums as well as their social, spatial and economic characteristics and dynamics. It goes on to evaluate the principal policy responses to the slum challenge of the last few decades.