Land, Habitat and Our Commitment to Change
Statement of the Habitat International Coalition onInternational Housing and Land Rights Day 2010
Land is essential to realizing the human rights to adequate housing and livelihood, and, thus, to human dignity and well-being. For many communities, their tenure on their land means no less than life itself. In our world on this International Housing and Land Rights Day (Habitat Day), we face the deepening chalenge of urban expansion on the land, while rural and productive land becomes the subject of ever-greater commodification, contention and conflict.
This chalenge is taking an ominous turn from the past. In previous decades, governments promised that land tenure reforms would generate a surplus in agricultural production to feed and finance greater urbanization and industrial production. Today, the world’s population is already over half urban,1 and a global land rush is upon us, intensifying competition over tenure across borders and regions, as well as between social groups. Meanwhile, the food crisis of 2007–08 and the subsequent financial meltdown, largely triggered by another rush—for unaffordable private housing ownership—have not curbed the greed for quick and questionable profits, nor discouraged the trend of irresponsible over comsumption and development that concentrate in our cities. Some of the most absurd formations of urban development are taking place where ever-denser urban populations have far exceeded the carrying capacity of the land, and where adequate food production and water extraction are unsustainable.
This chalenge is taking an ominous turn from the past. In previous decades, governments promised that land tenure reforms would generate a surplus in agricultural production to feed and finance greater urbanization and industrial production. Today, the world’s population is already over half urban,1 and a global land rush is upon us, intensifying competition over tenure across borders and regions, as well as between social groups. Meanwhile, the food crisis of 2007–08 and the subsequent financial meltdown, largely triggered by another rush—for unaffordable private housing ownership—have not curbed the greed for quick and questionable profits, nor discouraged the trend of irresponsible over comsumption and development that concentrate in our cities. Some of the most absurd formations of urban development are taking place where ever-denser urban populations have far exceeded the carrying capacity of the land, and where adequate food production and water extraction are unsustainable.




