We have chosen the theme, Planning our Urban Future, for World
Habitat Day 2009 for a simple but very important reason: In many
parts of our world urban planning systems have changed very
little. Indeed, they are often contributors to urban problems
rather than tools for human and environmental improvement. It is
clear to us at UN-HABITAT and to our partners in government,
municipalities, and at community level that current approaches
to planning must change and that a new role for planning in
sustainable urban development has to be found. Yet to blame
urban planners and their plans for our urban problems is like
turning back the clock and going back in history to a time when
no-one could have foreseen the problems we now face. It is a
fact that slums are the worst manifestations of urban poverty,
deprivation, and exclusion in the modern world. And it is a fact
that today we have the technological know-how such as satellite-
based Geographical Information Systems – undreamed of until not
so long ago – the powe