Author(s): Seung Ra
Cities sit at the center of today’s most urgent challenges: climate change, inequality, insecurity, and pollution. These crises are deeply interconnected. Global organizations such as the United Nations, through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and UN-Habitat, through the Global Urban Monitoring Framework (2022), have developed systems to measure progress and compare cities worldwide.¹ These frameworks make coordination possible, yet they can also flatten the distinctive realities of individual places into generic data points, missing what communities consider most meaningful. Consider the SDG target for “access to clean water.” Across the world, progress is often measured in liters per person. While that metric appears straightforward, for many communities water is not only about quantity. It can be about control, access, and meaning. A sacred spring may hold spiritual significance. A river may carry memories of conflict or renewal. When those experiences are reduced to numbers, their cultural and political depth can disappear. When we measure to clarify, we can end up erasing what makes a place human.
Volume Editors
Reed Kroloff & Francisco J. Rodríguez-Suárez
ISBN
978-1-944214-52-4