Habitat—Home Comments on U.N. (or United Nations) Habitat Forum on Human Settlements, Vancouver, 1976

Abstract

The event of a United Nations Habitat Conference and Forum on Human Settlements, two gatherings held simultaneously in Canada in May-June, 1976, must bring to mind the question—WHY? These are assemblies of enormous numbers of people and governments; they cost a lot and they entail much concentrated preparation and thought. To warrant them there must be great issues at stake—something, in this case, must be wrong with the living conditions of people in the world; there must be something which needs to be known about or, if already known, reemphasized; and something which needs to be done? Each of these conjectures is right and they all in fact answer the question of why human settlements have become a major project for ongoing U.N. and world attention.