World Bank – “Natural disasters – such as Hurricane Matthew – and climate change are having devastating effects on cities and the 4 billion people who live in them today.  By 2030, without significant investment into making cities more resilient, natural disasters may cost cities worldwide $314 billion each year, up from around $250 billion today, and climate change may push up to 77 million more urban residents into poverty, according to a new report by the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR). Released in advance of the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development – or Habitat III – taking place in Quito, Ecuador, October 17 – 20, the Investing in Urban Resilience report cautions that rising numbers of natural disasters, as well as a growing number of economic, social, and environmental shocks and stresses, pose the greatest risk to rapidly-growing cities. Home to 55 percent of the world’s population, urban areas are the engines of global growth, contributing to 80 percent of global GDP.  However, the high density of people, jobs, and assets which make cities so successful, also makes them – and global industry – extremely vulnerable to the wide range of natural and manmade shocks and stresses increasingly affecting them today..”