World Cities Summit – A festival of ideas for an urban world

Here is a pop quiz – where in the world, over the course of five days, can you talk to the architects of the remarkable turnaround of the city of Medellin, have a conversation with over 100 mayors and city leaders from across the world on the future of cities, and have access to literally hundreds of companies operating at the cutting edge of urban technologies in areas like desalination, solid waste management, and urban analytics? If you answered the World Cities Summit in Singapore next week, you would be right.
 
The Summit is a biannual event that is one of the premier showcases of the state of urban development around the world. The fact that it is being hosted by Singapore – a city-state that epitomizes livability, inclusion and sustainability – is particularly fitting. The World Bank’s Infrastructure and Urban Development Hub team is proud to partner with the Center for Livable Cities in participating in several events during the World Cities Summit, such as the Mayors Forum, an ADB learning event on Cities and Middle Income Countries, and thematic sessions on culture, municipal finance, and innovation. One of the benefits of large global events such as the World Cities Summit is the opportunity to meet city leaders, counterparts, partner agencies, and colleagues from across the world to discuss ways and means on how the World Bank Group can continue to support them in their development objectives.
One of the side events that our team is most excited about is the launch on July 13 ^th (from 4 - 6 pm) of the World Bank’s Regenerating Urban Land guidebook at the World Bank’s Singapore office. This publication provides a menu of options for leveraging private sector investment in urban regeneration initiatives. The guidebook has case studies from Buenos Aires, Santiago, Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore, Ahmedabad, Washington DC, and Johannesburg that highlight how a city that possesses considerable land assets can use the appropriate tools to achieve regeneration goals.
 
I look forward to attending the World Cities Summit with other World Bank colleagues – our team will be tweeting, blogging, and video-blogging through the week, so stay tuned and follow the conversation using #WCS_16!