Sustainable Urban Development?

Repeated alarmist projections portending urban explosion and catastrophe in cities of unimaginable size can be repeatedly found in the literature (Davis, 2007). Megacities can be defined as urban agglomerations of 10 million habitants or more. It is projected that there will be 22 megacities by 2015, 17 of which will be in the global South. However, these megacities are home to only 9% of world’s population, and are growing more slowly than small and medium sized cities (UN, 2008). The rate of urban growth has been slower than predicted in the 1980’s. Despite popular misconceptions, small and middle size urban settlements will continue to absorb the bulk of urban growth in the coming decade (UN, 2006). It is also important to differentiate between urbanization and urban growth. Urbanization refers to a rising proportion of a nation’s population living in urban areas, while urban growth refers to an increase in the absolute size of a nation’s urban population. It is possible to urbanize without urban growth, and vice versa. While rural urban migration is commonly thought to be the case of this growth, it has been argued that a natural increase in urban population plays a major role in contributing to this growth (Beall, 2009).

There is much uncertainty about the scale and pace of future urban growth, and it is worth evaluating current projections critically. As Satterthwaite (2007) has repeatedly pointed out, different countries use different definitions to categorize cities. Of the 228 counties tracked by the UN, 36% use administrative criteria for classification, 25% use population size and 11% have no definitive criteria (UN 2004; 104). In addition, this data homogenizes and masks great regional differences. There is a vast difference in the pattern of urbanization between regions and in the extent and rapidity with which individual cities are growing. Latin America is far more urbanized than Asia and Africa, and thus the rate of urbanization is far more rapid in the latter (Cohen, 2004).

The temptation to borrow from the experiences of developed countries is strong, and indeed it has been pointed out that the Nigeria legislation is very similar to the British 1932 Town and Country Planning Act, and the Malaysian 1976 Town and Country Planning Act is almost identical with the British 1971 Act. However, each developing country needs it own growing pains and debate of planning system, and must take its own social and economic circumstances local cultural norms into account (Satterthwaite, 2001). Indigenous solutions are needed to local planning, For instance, Kampong Improvement Programme (KIP) was initiated in 1969 to improve living conditions in Indonesian cities through upgrading infrastructure, and was reorganized to include local residents in planning and maintenance of facilities. It is considered one of the world’s most outstanding slum improvements programs due to the local enthusiasm with which the project was taken up, and the manner in which responsibility was distributed (UNCHS 1987).

Urban development within developing world was traditionally seen as the responsibility of the government. Over the past couple of decades however, there has been a shift away from a centralized top down decision-making approach. Increasingly, a government’s role is thought to be its creation of an environment that allows urban residents to solve their own problems (Satterthwaite, 2001). The need to involve community in planning and supply of urban service provision, and to developing local solutions to local urban problems is frequent in urban planning literature. Some cities like Porto Alegre in Brazil have grown rapidly, but managed to maintain high quality living environments through a dedication to encouraging citizen participation and greater government accountability (Menergat, 2002). This city has integrated a wider ranging environmental management policy into its participatory budgeting policy, which remains grounded in inclusive regional environmental analysis (Menegat, 2002). Such innovations are driven by local democracies and arise due to the ability of citizen groups to organize effectively. Burra (2003) observes that there is both the need to acknowledge the capabilities of community organizations and adapt structures to promote them.


It must be kept in mind that the relationship between cities and development is complex. The transformation to an urban world has enormous cultural social and political consequences, whose long-term effects are difficult to foresee. In order to promote a more inclusive and redistributive form of urban development, both urban theory and policy need to be re-examined to tackle the diversity of activities and interests in cities (Robinson 2006). To promote urban development in the global South, urban planning must be based on a framework for understanding the city that transcends limitations posed by static conceptualizations of the city. This framework needs to be built explicitly around the principle of urban change, and how we can influence that change. The process of development is a continual process, which must be cast in terms of the ongoing processes of urbanization and social transformation (Read 2010).