Local Governance in the New Urban Agenda: An Introduction

Abstract

The chapter provides an overview of the process that lead to the Habitat III Conference in 2016 and to the New Urban Agenda. Among other aspects of this half-century long process, the book shows how local government became increasingly a critical tier of government in the implementation of the global urban and development agendas. This centrality in the policy process of these global agendas requires a local government system with significant levels of local autonomy. This organizational, functional, and financial autonomy of local government do not exist in numerous countries, in particular in developing countries, while in others, namely in developed countries, there are signs of a move back towards recentralization, which places in risk the implementation of the principles and goals of the New Urban Agenda. This introductory chapter ends with a brief presentation of the book structure, its main parts, and chapters in each of them, highlighting the rationale behind the organization of the book.