Introduction
1 Introduction The number of people living in urban areas does not stop increasing, and it is estimated that 60% of the global population will live in cities by 2030, and the percentage will rise, to almost 67% by 2050 according to the current urbanization trends. Normally, in developing countries, high rates of urbanization cause stagnate economies and poor planning and governance, creating in turn, poor areas within bigger cities (UN-Habitat, 2018). The UN estimates that more than a billion people live in deprived conditions, meaning that one in every eight people live in these circumstances all over the world, being most of them located in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia (370 million), Sub-Saharan Africa (238 million) and Central and Southern Asia (226 million) (United Nations, n.d.).
Figure 1.0.1: Percentage population living in DUA in selected regions, excludes Australia and New Zealand, 2018. Source: (United Nations, n.d.) The needs and concerns of people who live in deprived urban areas (DUAs) are almost never taken into consideration when making urban planning, financing and policymaking, thus leaving a massive percentage of the global population behind. The amount of people living in these situations will continue to increase in most developing countries unless important action is taken by Governments at all levels, in collaboration with civil society and development partners (Nations, 2021), having the following prediction for 2050.
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