Managing Urban Futures Sustainability and Urban Growth in Developing Countries

Urbanization is one of the most powerful forces influencing global sustainability. It is dominated by three factors: population growth, rural-urban migration and subsequent urban expansion. Perhaps nowhere are these factors more dominant than in developing countries. This volume brings together leading experts including Alan Gilbert, John Friedmann, Saskia Sassen and Janice Perlman to explore the conflicting challenges of rapid urbanization in developing countries. While all have to contend with key issues such as social segregation, poverty, and loss of governability, the ongoing forces of urban growth vary from country to country. By comparing the challenges of urbanization in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific, this book puts forward a new way of thinking about mega- and million-cities in developing countries - one that promotes their vital function in society as engines of ideas, technologies, societal change, democratic transformation and loci of political will to build a new regime of global sustainability.

Contents: Foreword: Managing the future city, Gordon McGranahan; Acknowledgements; Introduction, Marco Keiner, Martina Koll-Schretzenmayr and Willy A. Schmid. Part I The Challenges Of Urban Development Processes: Asian urbanization and local and global environmental challenges, Hans J.A. van Ginkel and Peter J. Marcotullio; Sustaining urban development in Latin America in an unpredictable world, Alan Gilbert; The urban challenge in Africa, Carole Rakodi. Part II New Scales In Space And Time: The global city: strategic site, new frontier, Saskia Sassen; A question of boundaries: planning and Asian urban transitions, Michael Leaf; Shifting drivers of change, time-space telescoping and urban environmental transitions in Asia-Pacific region, Peter J. Marcotullio. Part III Transforming State, Space And Society: Political Reform, Promoting Citizens' Rights and Poverty Alleviation: Civil society revisited: travels in Latin America and China, John Friedmann; State and urban space in Brazil: from modernist planning to democratic interventions, Teresa Caldeira and James Holston; The chronic poor in Rio de Janeiro: what has changed in 30 years?, Janice E. Perlman; Unsustainable trends in spatial development in China: situation analysis and exploration of alternative development paths demonstrated by case studies of Kunming (urban) and Shaxi Valley (rural), Jacques P. Feiner and Diego Salmerón. Part IV Coming Together: Sustaining cosmopolis: managing multicultural cities, Leonie Sandercock. Towards gigapolis? from urban growth to evolutionable medium-sized cities, Marco Keiner; Urban planning in the North: blueprint for the South?, Klaus R. Kunzmann; References; Index.

Marco Keiner is head of the Sustainability Research Group of the Institute for Spatial and Landscape Planning, Martina Kol-Schretzenmayr is senior researcher in the Network City and Landscape (NSL), and Willy A. Schmid is Professor for Landscape and Environmental Planning, all at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland.