Katrina Durbak
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

The views expressed in this article are those of the guest editor and do not represent the official positions or policies of the Office of Policy Development and Research, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or the U.S. government.

What follows a major conference convened by the United Nations? How will the call to action put forward at Habitat III, the third United Nations (UN) Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, throughout its robust preparatory processes and in its formal outcome document be realized? Although it is too early to speak about the long-term legacy of this conference, the broad efforts leading up to it and recent innovative approaches as presented in this Symposium offer some insights into what lies beyond Habitat III.