9:10 PM Apr 25, 1996

SECOND UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON HUMAN SETTLEMENTS

But the results of a forum sponsored here this week by Habitat II and the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) suggests there is no consensus among U.N. officials, urban experts, and mayors on whether urban problems should even be improved dramatically.

Surprisingly, some analysts at the round table talks, entitled `Cities for People in a Globalising World,' wondered whether the focus on cities could be dropped from the Istanbul conference, dubbed `The City Summit', being held from June 3 to 14.

"I think we're stuck (dealing) with cities," a bemused Frances Stewart, director of the British-based Queen Elizabeth House of the International Development Centre, said in response to calls to drop the urban focus.

For some experts, however, making cities more attractive only boosts migration from rural areas, dooming whole countries to a Sisyphean task of improving urban areas that again swiftly expand and deteriorate.

"We do not want cities that are significantly richer, with significantly better protection and a lower level of poverty, than in the country," argued Azizur Rahman Khan, professor of economics at the University of California-Riverside.

Whether in China or Africa, he said, such glittering cities simply become magnets for rural people, and thus ever-expanding and unsustainable entities which only serve the elite in the long run.

"For whom are we building cities?" adds Sujit Chowdhury, chair of the World Youth Leadership Training Summit at Canada's York University. The benefits from traditional urban assistance programmes, he argued "will only reach 10 percent of the people."

"We should not create tiny, protected islands of privilege," Khan said. "As much as possible, we should base programmes on universality"-- which, he added, meant more aid for rural areas.

That advice sticks close to the World Bank recipe to combat urban poverty primarily by boosting rural development. But the World Bank strategy has its critics -- particularly urban mayors faced with little assistance, but with cities that expand anyway.

For a time, argued Amar Nuno-Amarteifo, mayor of Accra, Ghana, "the World Bank believed that all virtue resided in the countryside."But Bank strategies, he said, had their own contradiction: often, providing electricity and education to rural centres would only allow rural residents to watch on television the glamour of the cities, and to desire to go there.

Until recently, argued Janice Perlman, director of the New York-based MegaCities Project, the World Bank invested 90 percent of its aid to the South in rural development projects. "This has not proven itself a way to stem the growth of mega-cities," she said, noting the growth in the Third World of cities with more than ten million inhabitants.

In recent years, falling commodity prices and cutbacks in subsidies have prompted a decline in rural living in many Southern nations. Combined with political crises, that factor has ensured that cities continue to expand -- and to need help.

"Cities are attracting more people from the rural population, and those people have the right to seek a better life with a better income," asserted Awn al-Shawa, mayor of Gaza City in Palestinian-ruled Gaza. The challenge, al-Shawa added, then becomes to provide better infrastructure and services so cities do not crumble.

Some mayors and municipal leaders, however, do not want their cities to grow beyond a certain level. Lale Aytaman, deputy of Mugla -- the chief municipal authority for Marmaris -- argued against building too many mega-projects and mega-cities. "Where is the human being in all this 'mega'?"she asked.

For small-scale cities like Mugla, Aytaman said, too much growth could destroy the appeal of living conditions for most residents. "We have to stay small to stay special," she argued.

Many cities, however, have no choice but to deal with 'mega' problems. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) estimates that, in 20 years, there will be more people living in urban centres in developing nations than in rural areas.

However, SIDA adds, fewer than three percent of the people in developing countries live in mega-cities of 10 million or more people. Many of the Third World's largest cities, particularly in Latin America, have ceased expanding dramatically, the group says.

But many experts still worry that key cities in the South -- including Mexico City, Karachi, Rio de Janeiro and Lagos -- may face breakdowns as their infrastructure expands to meet the challenge of millions of new inhabitants.

Carolyn Stephens of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine predicted that many urban centres will face crises in tuberculosis, AIDS, cholera, and tropical diseases as their hard- pressed services seek to accommodate more people. Violence, and traumatic injury and death, are on the rise in cities as diverse as Manila, Lusaka, Sao Paulo, and Washington, she added.

Because of such crises, many participants here urged the Habitat II summit to find new ways to provide adequate services in cities, particularly for the poorest groups.

Ultimately, said Frances Stewart, governments should accept that urban people have "a right to certain services; the job is to operationalise those rights."The Istanbul summit, others agreed, may deal with human settlements -- but its central focus will still be cities.