ISTANBUL — This fabled world city has a remarkable story to tell. Recently the European Union awarded it the highly competitive “European City of Culture 2010,” title, the first for a non-EU member. More important, Istanbul is becoming a viable model for the 21st century megacity — places of 10 million or more inhabitants, likely (cumulatively) by 2050 to house 20 percent of the world’s urban population.

With its 11 million people, Istanbul is the fifth most populous city in the world, following Shanghai, Mumbai, Karachi and Delhi. It’s emblematic of megacities, now largely concentrated in Asia. But it’s no newcomer: it’s been occupied for 8,000 continuous years. It sits in an earthquake zone, it has flood-prone geography and municipal boundaries that span Europe and Asia; the internationally-governed, heavily-trafficked Bosporus River divides its territory.

Huge (5,400 square kilometers) and dense (2,400 people per square kilometer) Istanbul for the last five years has absorbed about 250,000 rural migrants and new babies annually. A stream of fresh population has flowed continuously for the past 50 years at an annual growth rate of 4.5 percent. (For comparison, figures for the largest city in the continental US, Jacksonville, are 2,292 square kilometers [area] and 354 people/square kilometer [density] and 5% [annual growth rate]).

By 1980, Istanbul had been overwhelmed by these changes. It was hard-pressed to offer basic city services. Heavy industries polluted its famed water body, the Golden Horn. Gecekondu (squatters) occupied any vacant land available — the hills, the periphery, the old city, even university campuses.

Today, much has changed. Istanbul has become a world city, praised for its effective modernization. While all is not perfect — colossal traffic congestion and squatter settlements are still present — improvements are tangible. The Golden Horn is cleaned up and bordered by parks and cultural facilities. Housing production for all income groups has exploded, accompanied by increased home ownership rates — now 60 percent — that include former squatters. A new integrated mass transit system is operational with 23 miles of subway completed and more to come. There are surface tramways that connect to heritage sites where underground tunneling is impossible; funiculars that negotiate steep hills, and ferries that connect to the European and Asian sides of the city. A passenger can use a single ticket — actually a handy computer chip that he buys and swipes for passage. The city is becoming polycentric with public/private investment in several mixed-use central business districts and has many upgraded slums and better cared-for heritage venues. Port facilities and industry have been relocated to more appropriate sites, freeing up centrally located land.

So what fueled these changes? The Turkish bid to enter the European Union has stimulated national fiscal reform resulting in decentralization policies that empower municipal governments. Resulting city improvements began in the late 1980s but accelerated after the 2002 victory of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, former Istanbul mayor. His party, AKP (Justice and Development Party), now controls the national and Istanbul governments . The continuity of AKP leadership in Istanbul’s municipal leadership (now under Mayor Kadir Topbas, a charismatic, visionary architect — a modern-day Jaime Lerner) has been a big plus, offering a unified vision well as sympathetic treatment from the national government.

But other national and municipal legislation and public/private investment, some quite startling, are equally important. There have been three key sets of legislation. One allowed the consolidation of the municipal and provincial political boundaries and creation of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM), a regional management entity charged with overall city planning, infrastructure provision (water and sewer, mass transit), plus project implementation and management. (Created simultaneously, 39 subregional governments under district mayors deal with day-to-day operations.) Second was the creation and then strengthening of TOKI (Mass Housing Authority) that reports to the prime minister and actually has power to exercise eminent domain, supersede local zoning and commands substantial financing for housing, and can engage in public private partnerships. Third came the legalization of tenure on illegally occupied land, authorization of municipal “urban transformation projects” (large scale development) even within heritage districts, a broadening of housing finance (allowing extension of mortgages to more people), and permitting foreign real estate ownership.

So far the story may sound too glib and “top-down” — and it is. In reality, Istanbul is in a death struggle in its effort to model the exemplary 21st century mega-city. There’s no way around extraordinarily high densities (even if they also permit poverty reduction and relieve development pressure on heritage sites). Preserving ecosystems competes with the demand for land at the periphery. Transparency and public participation are weaker than in slow- or no-growth places. So the reader is forgiven if he or she shudders at this paean to Istanbul.

Still, the reader should remember that cities like Istanbul are confronting population increases the equivalent of adding a medium-sized city every year. Managing this explosive growth is a special challenge. Mobility, shelter, environmental clean-up become the overwhelming priorities — and some would argue the only way to plan a 21st century mega-city.

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The fifth World Urban Forum (WUF5), held last week in Rio was pulsing with energy. More than 13,000 attendants attended plenaries featuring popular Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Ana Tibaijuka, director of UN-HABITAT, Shaun Donovan, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Deputy HUD Secretary Ron Sims, Assistant Secretary of State Esther Brimmer, Director Adolfo Carrion of the White House Office of Urban Affairs, Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, and many others.

New knowledge abounded at this meeting. Slum Dwellers International told how its members are conducting census enumerations of informal settlements. The World Bank reported on its new urban outreach and new diagnostics to test the success of its urban investments. Scholars presented papers, including Janice Perlman who has tracked the way that houses are bought and sold in Rio’s favelas given that nobody owns the land beneath them.

In many instances, the presenters were putting forward best practices in one form or another. And a team of doctoral students from the University of Pennsylvania – our “Global Urban Commons Research Group” — was in attendance, lapping it all up. They have spent the past seven months evaluating the theory and application of the concept of best practices, analysing the UN-HABITAT Best Practices Database and contributing to thinking about a new form of communicating information, “Living Practices,” that UN-HABITAT launched in beta form at WUF5.

Indeed, after reviewing more than 75 journal articles, 10 reports and conducting 15 interviews, the team was armed with fact and perspective as it presented its findings to a packed room at WUF5. The team members will soon have a white paper to share. Here the essence of what they have found:

First, best practice has a long history in the United States. It originated with agricultural extension programs to improve farming. Then it emerged in 1934 as a way to address urban issues when the American Society of Planning Officials created the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) to advance the practice of city planning (as the profession switched its focus from private consultancies to public service in the New Deal). Others, especially business, medicine/nursing and education have since engaged in promoting best practices in their fields.

Second, UN-HABITAT launched a global approach to collecting and promoting urban best practices in 1996 after Habitat II in Istanbul – a step called for in the Habitat Agenda (a precursor to the Millennium Development Goals). Under the leadership of Nicholas You, a skilled staff member, Habitat initiated its Best Practices and Local Leadership Program starting an on-line Best Practices Database and inaugurating the biannual Dubai Award for Best Practices to Improve the Living Environment, enhanced by well-funded prizes for 10 or 12 lucky winners.

The program blossomed, guided by a steering committee drawn from around the world with representatives from the Brazilian Institute for Municipal Administration (IBAM), several universities including Pratt Institute and Harvard, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and others. By 2009, the database had more than 2,000 entries; with every announcement of the Dubai award hundreds more poured in. The Dubai Award had been given seven times to much fanfare. In addition, the program gave rise to several regional best practices hubs to spread the word and offer supplementary programs. The Vienna-based effort is exemplary. In addition, from the database, UN-HABITAT commissioned best practices briefs, some case books and case studies used at conferences and training sessions.

Third, while the general literature suggested that to be really effective, best practices data need to fill a few basic requirements, many best practices databases – UN-HABITAT’s included – did not comply. Lacking were neutral third party validations: no one was checking to determine whether the activities reported were actually occurring, with defensible and comparable metrics of success and contextual discussions of the political, social and financial conditions and resources that enabled the work. Further, the best practices tended to be static – once described, that was the end of the story — and they were in only one voice, that of the nominator or author. In other words, while the UN Best Practices database was a huge step forward in presenting information from around the world, the system was not perfect.

None of this was lost on Nick You. He had already concluded that more could be done and he had a big job in front of him because in September, just as the students were beginning their research, Ms. Tibaijuku had charged him with devising a World Urban Campaign to be launched at WUF5. Describing him to the UN-HABITAT governing board as being “a man of new ideas…a free spirit, sometimes difficult to find and follow, but someone whose capacity to work defied imagination,” she had full confidence that he could deliver.

And that proved to be true. Between September and March he assembled and convened an advisory team not only spelled out steps to a continuing, impact-designed World Urban Campaign, but gave its blessing to such companion efforts as the Citistates Group’s new project – www.citiscope.org – to highlight city advances reported by journalists worldwide, and a new 100 Cities Initiative (www.100citiesinitiative.org) to tap and motivate city government and civic initiatives. The 100 cities initiative aims to create a new process being called “Living Practices,” an evolution from best practices to a dynamic, Internet-based information exchange. Each living practice story highlights the ongoing progress of selected initiatives and has a third party “champion,” who regularly verifies and updates the work.

So armed with their research and participants in developing the 100 Cities initiative, the Penn students then successfully nominated Philadelphia as one of the 100 cities and began to develop the web presence according to desired standards. They have a team of undergraduates who are working with city and civic officials to flesh out six, notable “green” initiatives ranging from stormwater management to creating community gardens to provision of local fresh food to disadvantaged communities. They will help develop success metrics and find a variety of stakeholders who through video interviews will add their voices to story, providing depth and context. As the students complete their dissertations and move on with their careers, our Penn Institute for Urban Research will take up the role of monitoring the Philadelphia story. We’re motivated to stick to the exciting task of assisting on the research side to help develop sustainable communities of lasting value – serving, we believe, the cause at the bottom of the UN-HABITAT mission.

Genie Birch’s e-mail address is elbirch@design.upenn.edu

China: 1.3 billion people, 60-plus cities with more than 1 million people, three with over 10 million. Yet we really don’t have a grip on what’s happening in China’s cities, or the competitive dimensions of Chinese national urban policy. The question’s especially timing right now as we shape our first-in-decades national urban policy, including the avowed focus on metropolitan areas that President Obama, chief White House urban affairs officers Adolfo Carrion and Derek Douglas and other top officials underscored at a White House Urban Policy Roundtable last week.

A few authors have focused on Chinese cities. Tom Campanella’s brilliant The Concrete Dragon, China’s Urban Revolution and What it Means to the World (2008) takes us to places one wouldn’t have imagined two decades ago. He tells us of the South China Mall that at 7 million square feet is bigger than the Pentagon. About Grand Epoch City, a 540 acre hotel, conference center, Buddhist Temple just outside of Beijing. And China’s 25,480 miles of national trunk highways–a project that has built more than 15,000 miles of interstate-like roads in just four years, including phenomenal engineering feats to increase vehicular mobility in cities–yet at great expense to the neighborhoods.

Views of last year’s Olympics let us see Beijing transformed. The historic core of Shanghai has seen 400 20-story-and-higher skyscrapers built since 1990. News accounts of civil unrest focus suddenly on Urumqi, a city of a million on the country’s western edge. Yet an I.M. Pei-designed museum in Suchow is emblematic of the culture–and investment wealth–of oversees Chinese “coming home.” Workers’ demonstrations in the Pearl River Delta cities of Shenzen and Dongguan remind us of China’s role in globalization. And the opening of the giant hydroelectric dam at Three Gorges evokes a vision of nearby Chongqing, one of China’s four autonomous municipalities, which I visited this month, a two and a half hour plane flight from Beijing.

Let’s pause at Chongqing for a moment because it represents urban policy at work in a smaller (by Chinese standards) city. With a population of 5 million in its core and about 30 million within its bounds, located at the confluence of the Yangzi and Jailing Rivers, it reminds us it was China’s national capital for a few years after the Japanese invaded in the 1930s. Chiang Kai Chek, Mao, and many other luminaries fled to its green hills. Today, it’s the commercial center for central China, specializing in manufacturing (iron, steel, motorcycles), shipbuilding, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and tobacco production. And it’s preparing for even more growth in its government-sponsored satellite city for 700,000 located on the other side of a mountain that their traffic engineers just pierced with a four-lane highway.

So what’s happening in this new urban place? Some of the usual things–modern space for offices and plants, housing, shopping centers and the like. But here is the key item: 11 universities will have campuses here. Two or three “science cities” will be built adjacent to the academic areas. Chonqing University has opened a new 3,000-acre campus (built, incidentally, in a year); it will have 50,000 students, many destined for advanced study in the city.

We know about the great economic disparities among and within China’s rural and urban populations. But China and its municipalities are clearly on target with their focus on knowledge production, building critical infrastructure, and developing industries to help the country grow its competitive edge.

So where are we in the United States with regard to urban policy?

In a nation overwhelmingly metropolitan in its population and economic foundations, we need the kind of focus that Brookings Institution Vice President Bruce Katz articulated at the White House’s recent Urban Policy Roundtable–the four interrelated challenges of advancing innovation, human capital, infrastructure, and quality of place. Taken seriously, it’s a formula that could leverage our cities far into the future. The White House Office of Urban Affairs is trying to define how it moves federal initiatives in that direction. At the roundtable, Secretaries Shaun Donovan (HUD), Ray LaHood (Transportation), Hilda Solis (Labor), and other high-ranking federal officials including Karen Mills (SBA), Lisa Jackson (EPA), Xavier Briggs (OMB) all pledged to support the inter-agency task force now being formed to direct federal mandates and funding towards collaborative, urban-focused policy.

But it won’t be easy: entrenched forces favor status-quo arrangements. Examples: the devastating evidence that federal stimulus funds for transportation infrastructure projects, apportioned out by state governments, are seriously shortchanging cities. And the reversals of states’ funding to education–California, for example, has just announced an $800 million cut in its support for its ten universities.

With China at our back, its national and local government investing seriously for an urban future, our margin of error is eroding rapidly.

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