In 2015 the world will have 23 mega-cities with more than 10 million inhabitants each, and 19 will be in developing countries, said experts at the “Reinventing the City” forum, held in Montreal Jun 27 under the auspices of the Secretariat of Environmental Management for Latin America and the Caribbean (SEMA). Most of that growth will occur in less developed areas of Latin America and the Caribbean, where urban poverty is the highest in the world. According to the World Bank, 39 percent of the families in the region's cities live below the poverty line.

Representatives of government, the private sector and civil society discussed innovative practices for sustainable development and began drawing up international standards based on different urban experiences.