National governments neglecting development needs of cities: report

Only one quarter of the world's governments have urban development policies and most are not enough to make cities sustainable

National governments around the world are neglecting the needs of their major cities with non-existent or inadequate development policies, a new report has found.

National governments are key to making cities more sustainable, because cities are limited in the policy measures they can take for themselves, the report points out. However, only a quarter of the world's governments have urban development policies at all, and most of those that do exist are not sufficient to make cities sustainable.