NAIROBI: At least 3.4 billion people face some form of housing inadequacy, UN-Habitat's World Cities Report 2026 finds, up from 2.8 billion estimated in 2023, with around 1.1 billion urban residents in slums or informal settlements. The report's argument: the problem is not informality but inequality, service gaps and regulatory failure - and housing is climate policy, with buildings carrying roughly 34% of global energy use and 37% of CO₂ emissions.
The arithmetic is stark. A global deficit of 251 million homes in 2010 grew to 288 million by 2023, even as an estimated 64 million people were displaced from informal settlements by urban development itself. The report's prescription is reform - compact, connected and climate-resilient planning - rather than clearance, and it lands in a week when governments from Sacramento to Nairobi were rewriting housing rules on this very page. Research pages, Page 8.