Green and Thriving Neighbourhoods in Latin America and around the World

Led by Washington Fajardo, Cities LAB Coordinator at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Helene Chartier, Director of Urban Planning and Design at C40, this session invites leading city officials, global organisations and academics to discuss the power of neighbourhood planning and community engagement to advance the climate agenda.
The way we have built cities has resulted in the growth of sprawling urban areas with disconnected, single-purpose neighbourhoods. This has led to issues like heavy reliance on cars, long commutes, air pollution and limited access to essential services and green spaces in many places. It is urgent to harness a better model that prioritises the well-being of people and the environment.
We also know that the next decade will be critical to reduce GHG emissions worldwide. Rather than waiting for a top-down approach from central governments, the session will argue that planning on the neighbourhood scale is ideal for creating blueprints for low-carbon, inclusive urban development that accounts for cities' realities.
Taking advantage of the balance between scale and agility, neighbourhoods are sufficiently large to aggregate the interrelated elements that compose a city, yet small enough for tangible changes to be achieved in a relatively short period. Acting as “innovation labs”, neighbourhood projects can set high ambitions, pioneer policies and trial innovative partnerships. They have also proven to be the best approach for engaging with local communities to co-design solutions tailored to their needs, including supporting local economy, expanding green spaces and reimagining public spaces.
Considering the above, C40 and IDB see neighbourhood-scale projects as a key approach to respond to the climate urgency and develop replicable solutions that can be widely deployed.
In 2021, C40 and Arup created a Green and Thriving Neighbourhood framework to support cities develop net-zero, people-centred neighbourhoods that showcase today the future we want to see. The framework has been taking towards implementation, with 22 out of the 97 C40 cities having a Green and Thriving Neighbourhoods pilot in progress. An ambitious partnership between C40 and IDB Cities Lab is now accelerating actions, providing increased support to Latin American cities to implement their neighbourhood pilots, focusing on vulnerable communities.
The session will share the guiding principles behind the programme and invite officials from Bogota, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to present their projects. The exchanges will highlight key lessons learned and share recommendations for other cities to follow this approach.
Valuing the inter-regional exchange, three European projects, in Milan, Venice and Dundee, will join the conversation. These projects born through collaborations between cities and local universities will present innovative public participation approaches to advance resilience by using nature-based solutions and citizen science.