Law and the New Urban Agenda

The New Urban Agenda (NUA), adopted in 2016 at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in Quito, Ecuador, represents a globally shared understanding of the vital link between urbanization and a sustainable future. At the heart of this new vision stand a myriad of legal challenges - and opportunities - that must be confronted for the world to make good on the NUA’s promise. In response, this book, which complements and expands on the editors’ previous volumes on urban law in this series, offers a constructive and critical evaluation of the legal dimensions of the NUA. As the volume’s authors make clear, from natural disasters and resulting urban migration in Honshu and Tacloban, to innovative collaborative governance in Barcelona and Turin, to accessibility of public space for informal workers in New Delhi and Accra, and power scales among Brazil’s metropolitan regions, there is a deep urgency for thoughtful research to understand how law can be harnessed to advance the NUA’s global mission of sustainable urbanism.

It thus creates a provocative and academic dialogue about the legal effects of the NUA, which will be of interest to academics and researchers with an interest in urban studies.

Nestor M. Davidson is the Albert A. Walsh Chair in Real Estate, Land Use and Property Law at Fordham Law School, and Faculty Director of the Fordham Urban Law Center. Professor Davidson has published widely in the fields of urban law, state and local government, property, and affordable housing. Professor Davidson practiced with the firm of Latham and Watkins and served as Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Professor Davidson earned his AB from Harvard College and his JD from Columbia Law School.

Geeta Tewari is the Director of the Fordham Urban Law Center. Tewari has practiced with the New York City Law Department and the Washington D.C. Office of the Attorney General, and also holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Columbia University. Her literary work has appeared in Granta magazine, New England Review , and other publications. She is a member of the New York Women’s Bar Association’s Advancing the Status of Women Committee and manages the Urban Law Center’s Women in Urban Law Leadership Initiative. In 2020, she will join the faculty of Widener University Delaware Law School as Assistant Professor of Law.