Cities are facing problems due to reasons which policymakers and planners could not think of a few decades back. With the ever-increasing population and migration of people from rural to urban areas for better facilities and quality of life; cities are facing new problems every year. Poor air quality, drinking water shortage, regular floods, traffic congestion, housing shortage, power shortage and crime etc. are some of the problems faced by almost all cities around the globe. All these problems are because the cities were not designed to accommodate such a huge population. United nation’s sustainable development goals talk about seventeen goals; all of these goals are very relevant and crucial for cultural and heritage cities. The immediate focus needs to be given to these goals else we will start losing cities and it will be very difficult to make them habitable again. In this side event, we will be discussing various problems faced by the cities around the world and we will try to find strategies and policy recommendations for the same. These recommendations will be general as well as specific and thus they can be taken up by city administrators for improving quality of life.