World Cities Day focusing on community work
The 2020 World Cities Day, a legacy of the 2010 World Expo Shanghai, will be held in Shanghai and Fuzhou in southeast Fujian Province on Saturday.
The United Nations designated October 31 as World Cities Day in 2013, which was initiated in the declaration of the city government on October 31, 2010, closing day of the Shanghai World Expo.
Theme of the 2020 event will be "Valuing Our Communities and Cities."
The impact of COVID-19 has reshaped urban life around the world. Local communities have played a key role in contributing to keeping people safe and maintaining some economic activities, according to UN-Habitat, the United Nations agency for human settlements.
The day is expected to greatly promote the international community’s interest in global urbanization, push forward cooperation among countries in meeting opportunities and addressing challenges of urbanization, and contributing to sustainable urban development around the world, UN-Habitat said.
Participants at World Cities Day in Yekaterinburg, Russia last year.
An English version of the 2020 “Shanghai Manual — A guide for sustainable urban development in the 21st century” will be released at the event in Shanghai.
Featuring the best urban practices across the world, the manual explains the connection between community construction and urban quality as well as their influence on sustainable development.
Experiences in solving the housing difficulties of Shanghai and Singapore will be shared at a forum during the event. Global city representatives and experts will make speeches at the event online due to the pandemic.
During a visit to Shanghai last November, President Xi Jinping said: “The cities are built by the people and for the people.” He said urban planning and development must be committed to a people-centered approach and focus on people’s needs.
Fuzhou will release a declaration on the day to implement the concept of the president.
Since the first World Cities Day was launched in Shanghai in 2014 to highlight the theme of the World Expo 2010 — Better City, Better Life — the annual event has been held in Italy's Milan, Ecuador's Quito, China's Guangzhou, Liverpool in the UK and Yekaterinburg in Russia. Events were also held in the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Xiamen, Xuzhou and Tangshan.
