Community Forum - Intermediary cities

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call explicitly for role and functions of all types of cities to be more clearly defined, and for systems of cities to be managed more efficiently. These goals are vital for intermediary cities (i-cities), which support more than one-third of the world’s urban population. In developed economies, while many i-cities are facing economic uncertainty, others have grown into dynamic actors of the new global economy. In most developing economies, on the other hand, i-cities are growing rapidly and facing significant development pressures from urbanization.
In all world regions, intermediary cities – despite their significant potential – are struggling to manage the impacts of global economic transformations and urban development, as well as to take advantage of their human scale to offer a better quality of life to their citizens. Their pivotal role in the achievement of more balanced and sustainable urbanization processes and the reduction of territorial inequalities requires, in particular, that i-cities are given more attention within the global debate towards the New Urban Agenda.