The 2006/2007 edition of the State of the World’s Cities marks two important milestones: the dawn of the urban millennium in 2007 and the 30th anniversary of the first Habitat Conference held in Vancouver in June 1976, which placed “urbanisation” on the global development agenda. This publication also marks a less triumphal moment in history. Thirty years after the world’s governments first pledged to do more for cities, almost one-third of the world’s urban population lives in slums, most of them without access to decent housing or basic services and where disease, illiteracy and crime are rampant.