United Nation's World Urban Campaign

Deserves a mention of its own:

United Nation's World Urban Campaign

From the webpage:

The World Urban Campaign is a platform for public, private and civil society actors to elevate policies and share practical tools for sustainable urbanization. The success of the Campaign will be measured by more sustainable urban policies at the national level and increased investment and capital flows in support of those policies. For this reason it focuses on providing governments and partner networks with an advocacy instrument to articulate a shared vision for a better urban future and to advance the urban agenda within their respective constituencies.

This applies as much to organizations of the urban poor as it does to associations of local authorities, business forums, youth associations, media outlets, professional associations, women’s groups, Parliamentarians, ministerial conferences, and inter-governmental bodies. The Campaign in this way seeks to position sustainable urbanization as a priority issue of the international community and as a national policy priority for individual member States.

I read an article recently about how Harvard Law School is changing their curriculum in three significant ways. One is to incorporate a recognition that law is global, not just from the standpoint of "international law" and relations between countries, but in a globally-connected world, the understanding of law has to be broader, less focused on court decisions and more about institutions and practices.

The same goes for cities. Knowing what happens in cities in other places only strengthens your practice at home.