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.

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.

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.

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 State of the African Cities 2010 goes above and beyond the first report, which provided a general overview of housing and urban management issues in Africa.

Local governments are increasingly realizing the importance and benefits of addressing gender equality and equity in their decision making, policies, programmes and services. Many are rising to the challenge.

Only recently have world leaders paid attention to the crisis of slums. In 2000, one of the Millennium Development Goals called for ''improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers''. But the goal is far too modest. Already, since 2000, the population of slum dwellers has increased by the same figure. And it is estimated that 180,000 people are added to the urban population everyday.

Half the world's people live in urban areas, and roughly a third of these live in desperate poverty without access to basic amenities. Taking on the themes of the UN-HABITAT's Water and Sanitation in the Worlds Cities (2003), this new volume focuses on the deficiences in the provision of water and sanitation where most of the population of the developing world live : in towns and small cities.

Financing Urban Shelter presents the first global assessment of housing finance systems, placing shelter and urban development challenges within the overall context of macroeconomic policies.