More recommended reading for the New Year, this time a critical reflection  on the potential implications of the translation of the ‘urban SDG‘ (Goal 11 of the Sustainable Development Goals) into UN-Habitat III’s New Urban Agenda, by my Exeter colleague Federico Caprotti and 8 co-authors (I think it is in the nature of this whole field of global-level urban policy innovation that making sense of things means collaborating with plenty of others).  It is published in Urban Research and Practice.

Here is the abstract:

“The UN-HABITAT III conference held in Quito in late 2016 enshrined the first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) with an exclusively urban focus. SDG 11, as it became known, aims to make cities more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable through a range of metrics, indicators, and evaluation systems. It also became part of a post-Quito ‘New Urban Agenda’ that is still taking shape. This paper raises questions around the potential for reductionism in this new agenda, and argues for the reflexive need to be aware of the types of urban space that are potentially sidelined by the new trends in global urban policy.”