The world is in the grip of a housing crisis of historic proportions. The World Cities Report 2026 (UN-Habitat), launched at the World Urban Forum 13 (WUF13) earlier in May this year, left us genuinely struck by the scale: 3.4 billion people lack adequate housing, the global deficit grew from 251 to 288 million units between 2010 and 2023, and climate hazards could destroy 167 million more homes by 2040. Yet what moved us equally was seeing, across five days of the forum, the breadth of local solutions from every region of the world, approaches grounded in community, place and governance, yet pointing toward the same conclusion: that this crisis demands systemic change, not just technical fixes. It was against this backdrop that we arrived in Baku not only to witness the debate, but to contribute to shaping it.

Fernando Túlio Franco: Brownfields, Bus Corridors and the Climate–Housing Nexus

I arrived with a dual agenda: a WUF Academy keynote on The Climate-Housing Nexus Dialogue, exploring how decarbonisation and socio-territorial inequalities can be addressed together, and a C40/Arup/Urban Partners panel on brownfield regeneration, Europe’s most underused lever for tackling the housing and climate crises. My presentation drew on the Sarajevo Code design studio and a São Paulo case study, weaving together legal frameworks, social housing policies, participatory governance, and Land Value Capture mechanisms.

Mashael Yazdanie: Urban Energy, Sufficiency and Resilience

I brought an integrated urban energy, sufficiency, and resilience perspective to four WUF13 sessions, with a focus on housing, governance, and citizen participation: a UNDP-hosted dialogue on resilient housing systems; two sessions on citizen participation and disaster preparedness at the NGO Pavilion; and a session on translating global housing commitments into local action at the Azerbaijan Pavilion, co-convened with Tural Aliyev. My research asks a question rarely posed at large forums: how much is enough to live well within ecological limits? In Baku, I opened conversations about the governance and citizen engagement levers needed to make sufficiency a viable urban strategy.

Tural Aliyev: Governing the Housing Crisis Across Scales

I spoke across three panels on citizen participation, disaster preparedness, and cross-scale housing governance. Being in Baku carried a particular resonance: as a Swiss researcher with Azerbaijani origins at ETH Zurich, I embody the bridge between local knowledge and international academic excellence that WUF13 sought to build.

What Comes Next

A further highlight was the Swiss Ambassador reception, bringing together SECO representatives, senior UN officials, and researchers: a vivid example of science–policy–practice in action.

WUF13 is not an endpoint. The Baku Call to Action calls for housing to be reprioritised as a human right, for stronger state stewardship over land and finance, and for the next decade of World Urban Forums to be a decade of action. Bridging academy and city, connecting evidence to policy, designing at the intersection of climate, housing, and society; this is what we bring back from Baku. The work continues.

The understanding that climate change not only exacerbates social inequalities, but is also fueled by them was the central question of my PhD research on America’s largest city: São Paulo. Tackling this pressing issue motivated my desire to strengthen connections between Berkeley’s tradition of integrating climate policy with social science and ETH Zurich’s expertise in data-driven urban studies and design. With this in mind, I began my research visit to UC Berkeley through the IARU Early-Career Collaboration Grant.

During my time there, I was hosted by Professor of Sociology Daniel Cohen, who also serves as the Director of the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative (SC²). My interaction with him began in 2021 when I wrote a book review for A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal, of which he is a co-author. Following that, Professor Cohen served as a board member during my thesis defense, which was the topic of the talk I gave there, titled Carbocentric Urbanism: An Ecocapitalist Mirage in Brazilian Segregated Cities.

The presentation highlighted the two main findings of my PhD: one theoretical, stating that carbocentric climate policies, sustained by an eco-capitalism lens, tend to exacerbate socio-territorial injustices. This finding examines their urban forms and tools, including electric and flying cars, green highwayism, green extractivism, green buildings, and issues of climate gentrification and financialization. The other finding is empirical, providing evidence that expanding mobility infrastructure while enhancing overall accessibility and reducing carbon emissions contributes to increased multidimensional inequalities, such as race, income, and early childhood outcomes. I recorded a brief video summarizing my thesis’s key concepts and findings.

Beyond the event, I represented the ETH Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, where I serve as a lecturer and researcher. I participated in meetings to share research projects and prospect future collaborations. I met with Prof. Daniel Rodríguez to discuss transportation and public health projects in Latin America, with Prof. Alison Post regarding climate politics and governance, with Prof. Zoé Hamstead about vulnerabilities to urban weather extremes, with Prof. Mara Loveman on biopolitics and ethnoracial politics, and with lecturer Marisa Raya concerning spatial justice projects in periurban areas of California. Furthermore, I engaged in discussions with two PhD researchers, Flavia Leite and Isabela Montini, with whom I share common agendas. During a long layover in Washington, D.C., I also met with World Bank and IDB Cities LAB representatives. There, we discussed public transportation electrification projects in São Paulo and social housing initiatives globally, respectively.

I return to ETH Zurich with renewed energy to expand networks and frameworks to academically support the development of equitable climate policies in urban areas in Brazil and worldwide.