by Dieter Zinnbauer
Creative, inclusive and just. Safe, healthy and green. Adaptive, resilient and sustainable. Urbanists frequently articulate these visions for cities, but an important element is missing: integrity.
By integrity I mean transparent governance with preventative measures for controlling corruption — a necessary condition for improving the quality of life in cities.
Corruption is not a "weapon of the weak" that greases the wheels of creaky government systems. It is also not a petty nuisance to be ignored. Corruption systemically undermines livelihoods, justice, health, resilience, safety and democracy.
Does this sound like an exaggeration? Let’s take a closer look.
Entrusted with the power to enforce laws, police who abuse their authority become a source of chronic injustice. Unfortunately, this is a common situation in cities around the world.
In a recent household survey across a representative sample of over 100 countries, 42 percent of urban residents who had interacted with the police indicated that they were coerced into paying a bribe. The figures are even more startling in rapidly urbanizing countries: 67 percent in India, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 80 percent in Bangladesh and Nigeria.
Urban justice is unattainable when law enforcement is for sale to the highest bidder.
Thoroughly documented corruption in the healthcare sector disproportionately affects low-income communities. Doctors on the public payroll don't show up for work so they can bring in extra income from private practice. Medicines are unaffordable or unavailable due to illegal sales. Hospital workers overcharge, embezzle funds and peddle off counterfeit drugs to unsuspecting patients.
Source: The Guardian
Access to safe drinking water becomes all but impossible when 20 to 40 percent of water budgets go missing due to corruption, or when water mafias work with corrupt officials to keep low-income settlements off the public water networks so that private vendors can step in. Illegal dumping of toxic waste has long been a lucrative business for organized criminal networks, exposing many communities to health hazards.
Efforts to improve public health depend largely on controlling corruption, especially in urban environments where health risks are already at crisis levels.
Urban aspirations, and the many ways that corruption impedes them, are inexhaustible. I have documented an extensive list with empirical evidence in a new Transparency International working paper on corruption in cities.
The data point to a need for cooperation between urbanists and anti-corruption practitioners. A current disconnect between these communities hinders cross-fertilization, mutual learning and collaborative advocacy.
A recent working paper on ambient accountability investigates ways for architects, planners and concerned citizens to collaborate strategically in fighting urban corruption. I plan to discuss specific strategies in a future post. Critical feedback and ideas are always welcome.
Dieter Zinnbauer is a specialist in policy and innovation for Transparency International. More of his work can be found on the Social Science Research Network and Ambient Accountability websites.
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Creative, inclusive and just. Safe, healthy and green. Adaptive, resilient and sustainable. Urbanists frequently articulate these visions for cities, but an important element is missing: integrity.
By integrity I mean transparent governance with preventative measures for controlling corruption — a necessary condition for improving the quality of life in cities.
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| Source: Rodrigo Abd via the Associated Press |
Does this sound like an exaggeration? Let’s take a closer look.
Entrusted with the power to enforce laws, police who abuse their authority become a source of chronic injustice. Unfortunately, this is a common situation in cities around the world.
In a recent household survey across a representative sample of over 100 countries, 42 percent of urban residents who had interacted with the police indicated that they were coerced into paying a bribe. The figures are even more startling in rapidly urbanizing countries: 67 percent in India, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 80 percent in Bangladesh and Nigeria.
Urban justice is unattainable when law enforcement is for sale to the highest bidder.
Thoroughly documented corruption in the healthcare sector disproportionately affects low-income communities. Doctors on the public payroll don't show up for work so they can bring in extra income from private practice. Medicines are unaffordable or unavailable due to illegal sales. Hospital workers overcharge, embezzle funds and peddle off counterfeit drugs to unsuspecting patients.
Source: The Guardian
Access to safe drinking water becomes all but impossible when 20 to 40 percent of water budgets go missing due to corruption, or when water mafias work with corrupt officials to keep low-income settlements off the public water networks so that private vendors can step in. Illegal dumping of toxic waste has long been a lucrative business for organized criminal networks, exposing many communities to health hazards.
Efforts to improve public health depend largely on controlling corruption, especially in urban environments where health risks are already at crisis levels.
Urban aspirations, and the many ways that corruption impedes them, are inexhaustible. I have documented an extensive list with empirical evidence in a new Transparency International working paper on corruption in cities.
The data point to a need for cooperation between urbanists and anti-corruption practitioners. A current disconnect between these communities hinders cross-fertilization, mutual learning and collaborative advocacy.
A recent working paper on ambient accountability investigates ways for architects, planners and concerned citizens to collaborate strategically in fighting urban corruption. I plan to discuss specific strategies in a future post. Critical feedback and ideas are always welcome.
Dieter Zinnbauer is a specialist in policy and innovation for Transparency International. More of his work can be found on the Social Science Research Network and Ambient Accountability websites.
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