Despite growing numbers of international development organisations focused at the municipal level, donors are still reluctant to provide ODA (official development assistance) directly to local governments, a situation which Rowan Fraser argues needs to change.
Sean Fox's provocative new theory that urbanisation is driven by demographic transition, not by economic growth, and that even rural development initiatives will directly cause increased urban populations.
In a second review of issues raised at this month's World Urban Forum in Naples, we look at the progress being made to create enforcement mechanisms for the human right to adequate housing.
Our editors exhort the global urban development community to raise the level of media debate from awareness building to constructive engagement with the political conflicts that confront our cities.
What happens when a foreign charity introduces an agenda that aligns with local entrepreneurial initiatives? Will locals be seen as like-minded stakeholders or as 'competition'?
Slum neighbourhoods are teeming with industry and commerce, yet the policy sphere still tends to treat them as residential spaces alone. What are the consequences of this misconception, and is it time to invoke a right to space, not just of housing?
There is much happiness and much misery amongst the urban poor, as these portraits of three households in Manila testify. The point is not to draw lines between them, but to accept that poverty has several gradations, all of which require assistance.
Rowan Fraser is an urban development and management specialist, focusing on urban resilience. He works in countries across Asia.
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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.
