Habitat without settlement

Habitat without settlement IT IS easy, and tempting, to dismiss the United Nations Habitat conference in Vancouver as a waste of time, money, and energy. In the final turbulent hours all the hard work, dedication, and expertise that had gone into the quest for some solution to man’s greatest physical problem-his inability to compromise with the finite resources of his planet-seemed to have been sacrificed on the altar of short-term political expediency. There was no denying the drama. There were the all-night meetings, the agonised cables and telephone calls seeking diplomatic guidance. Professional civil servants, accustomed to a comfortable and strictly advisory role, suddenly found themselves thrust under the floodlights. Even the politicians were in trouble. Barney Danson, the Canadian Minister for Urban Affairs, a kind and gentle Jew who had been appointed President of the Assembly as a routine courtesy to the host country, all but broke down in the face of Arab intransigence. The US delegate solemnly warned that his country’s further participation in further UN gatherings was in jeopardy. In the end the West was reduced to its bedrock-the USA, the nine EEC countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and Israel-while the Palestinians, who had an undoubted case but pushed it to unreasonable extremes, exulted in a Pyrrhic victory. In several other respects the conference left much to be desired. While the official government delegates were taking it in turn to expound their achievements to an almost empty hall (“under the wise and benevolent leadership of our beloved President . . . the Republic of. . . has made great strides in solving its housing problem”), many more interesting and lively discussions were taking place at the non-governmental Forum at Jericho beach, three miles and a twenty-minute bus ride out in the suburbs. Twenty minutes might not seem much, but it was enough to prevent any regular contact between the two gatherings. Again, non-governmental or ungovernable. 2 At times the Forum seemed not so much a serious conference, more a hippie festival. The many estimable and reputable organisations taking part were frequently reduced to publicising their meetings by fly-posting bills and searching for elusive officials to eject the more eccentric interrupters. Those who had been expected to give some guidance to the whole proceedings-the coterie surrounding Habitat’s imminencegrise, Barbara Ward-maintained a selective silence on an upper floor of a luxury hotel in the city’s most expensive and exclusive district. And yet out of this weird and far from wonderful get-together something useful may yet prove to have emerged. Many delegates insisted that they had learned a great deal, not from the formal debates but from informal contacts, and, despite the formal protest votes against the Declaration of Principles and the Recommendations for National Action (because they contained clauses aimed at Israel and Zionism), Western governments are now evidently prepared to accept the substance and ignore the shadow. Paradoxically, moreover, there were signs of a growing rapport between the developed and developing nations. The poor may have found it politically expedient to denounce the rich in public but, in private, relations seemed much more harmonious than one might have expected. There seemed to be a common vocabulary and a recognition of common problems. Much good may yet come of this. While it is too early to describe Habitat as a success, it is equally too soon to write it off as an expensive failure.

FUTURES

August 1976