ashley ding
Ashley Ding
csocd@worldmun.org
Ashley is a sophomore at Harvard originally from Orlando, Florida majoring in Applied Math in Economics. Outside of WorldMUN, she is involved with Harvard Smart Woman Securities, Organization of Asian American Sisters in Service, Harvard Consulting on Business and the Environment, and Harvard Project on Asian and International Relations. In her free time, Ashley loves traveling, card games, exploring nature, and spending time with friends!
Topic: Realizing the Right to the City - Social Inclusion and Urban Equity in the 21st Century
What kind of cities will 70% of humanity call home by 2050, and who will truly have a say in shaping them? Around the world, urban growth is creating hubs of innovation and opportunity, but it is also deepening divides: over a billion people live in informal settlements with precarious housing, limited services, and little voice in local decisions. The “Right to the City” reframes urban development as a question of inclusion and dignity, not just infrastructure and GDP. It asks whether every resident, especially women, youth, migrants, persons with disabilities, and the urban poor, can access housing, services, safe mobility, green space, and meaningful participation in governance.
This committee will examine how to make rapidly growing cities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable (SDG 11). Delegates will confront three linked challenges: upgrading housing and informal settlements without displacement, ensuring equitable access to core services and infrastructure, and strengthening participatory, people centered governance. Drawing on lessons from cities that have tried social urbanism, slum upgrading, and climate resilient planning, delegates will craft practical, rights based solutions that balance ambition with feasibility. Your task is to turn the Right to the City from a slogan into policy so that urbanization becomes a pathway to opportunity for all, not a map of exclusion.