Improving urban economies Section IV C. Sustainable human settlements development in an urbanizing world 9. Improving urban economies 155. Urban economies are integral to the process of economic transformation and development. They are a prerequisite for the creation of a diversified economic base capable of generating employment opportunities. Many new jobs will need to be created in urban areas.
Cities currently generate more than half of national economic activities worldwide.
If other factors, such as growth of the population of cities and migration to cities, are addressed effectively through, inter alia, urban planning and control of the negative impacts of urbanization, cities could develop the capacity to maintain their productivity, to improve the living conditions of their residents and to manage natural resources in an ecologically sustainable way. Industry, together with trade and services, provides the main impetus to this process. Cities have traditionally served as economic centres and have become the primary providers of services. As engines of economic growth and development they function within a network of supporting economic activities located in their peri-urban and surrounding rural areas. For this reason, specific actions also need to be taken to develop and maintain efficient and affordable transport, information and communications systems and linkages with other urban centres and with rural areas and to seek reasonably balanced patterns of development, both geographically and economically.