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The World Metropolitan Day is the leading global campaign promoting collective action to build more equitable, resilient and prosperous metropolises

Join Metropolis and UN-Habitat for a series of virtual debates and activities during the first week of October to promote the ideation and exchange of solutions to create more caring and resilient metropolitan spaces.

In this edition, the World Metropolitan Day theme will be Resilience for all: creating caring metropolises beyond COVID-19. A year after the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, metropolitan challenges and inequalities are on the rise. The health and social crisis has highlighted the importance of creating a caring society that places people's needs at the heart of decision-making and reflects the diversity of our metropolitan spaces. Building resilience is key to creating thriving communities.

The World Metropolitan Day is a call to action!

Urban communities, particularly vulnerable groups, lack access to adequate housing, public and green spaces, services and infrastructure. Better access to urban spaces and services is key for creating equitable and healthier urban communities that provide opportunities for all whilst ensuring physical and mental wellbeing. Metropolitan spaces are uniquely positioned to bring about change and ensure prosperity and sustainability. Yet metropolises face unprecedented challenges, such as responding to the urgent needs of the population whilst planning for medium and long-term measures to mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, the climate emergency, the weakening of democracy, gender disparities and spatial segregation, among others.

At a time when capacity within local and metropolitan governments is under stress and there are reduced means for service delivery, governance and innovation hold the key to unlocking the full potential of our metropolitan spaces. To move towards a more equitable society, local and metropolitan governments need to ensure that spaces and services place a greater emphasis on the people who use them. Changing the ways we deliver public services can ensure good living conditions for all and support the implementation of the SDGs, thus creating resilience to future shocks.

Metropolis and UN-Habitat invite local, regional and metropolitan governments, private companies, academic institutions, civil society, international organisations, city networks, urban leaders and experts worldwide to join the movement by organising events and promoting ideas that create resilience and advance social justice in all our metropolitan spaces.

Get involved!