World Metropolitan Day

The 2026 World Metropolitan Day, co-led by Metropolis and UN-Habitat, brings the metropolitan approach to that same agenda. This year's topic, "Housing the Metropolis" puts location, land and governance at the centre of the debate on housing in metropolitan areas. Evidence increasingly shows that housing markets function at the metropolitan scale, not within municipal boundaries.

Metropolitan governance enables governments to connect housing policy with land, transport, infrastructure, and finance systems, ensuring that affordable housing is developed in locations where people can access jobs, services and opportunities. The stronger the metropolitan governance arrangement, the greater the potential to deliver housing solutions at the scale that today's urbanisation challenges demand.