At the World Urban Forum in Naples last week, both global urban policy and quantitative research efforts converged on a single conclusion: that the spatial planning of massive new urban expansion areas surrounding their cities is one of the most important things any government can do to make urbanisation sustainable.
In the world's wealthy regions, economic activity is articulated through networks uniting cities around the world. So shouldn't we also be looking to intercity networks as the key to international development?
The cities of the twenty-first century are too big for the old hub-and-spokes models; cities like Los Angeles, London and Sydney should be planned as tapestries, with ruthless disregard for the traditional dominance of our city centres.
A list of the world's largest urban agglomerations for 2010, following the release of UN-DESA's revised World Urbanization Prospects tabling population predictions for the world's cities.
On the occasion of the World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Kerwin Datu speaks with Professor Edgar Pieterse, director of the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town, on retheorising the African city, the politics of Africa's mega-regions…
'If expansion is not planned, well, it's going to happen anyway. And if it's not planned, then it's unplanned, and the standard mode of unplanned expansion throughout human history is the slum.'
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The Global Urbanist is an online magazine reviewing urban affairs and urban development issues in cities throughout the developed and developing world.
Its readers are drawn from the urban policy and international development sectors, and include urban planners, officers in local, national or international government agencies, civil society leaders, and researchers.
