CQGR Rapid Urbanization - SAGE Publications · Rapid Urbanization THE ISSUES I ndia’s most infamous slum lives up to its reputation. Located in the middle of vast Mumbai, Dharavi

Rapid UrbanizationCAN CITIES COPE WITH RAMPANT GROWTH?

About 3.3 billion people — half of Earth’s inhabitants — live in cities, and the number is expected

to hit 5 billion within 20 years. Most urban growth today is occurring in developing countries, where

about a billion people live in city slums. Delivering services to crowded cities has become in-

creasingly difficult, especially in the world’s 19 “megacities” — those with more than 10 million

residents. Moreover, most of the largest cities are in coastal areas, where they are vulnerable to flooding caused by

climate change. Many governments are striving to improve city life by expanding services, reducing environmental

damage and providing more jobs for the poor, but some still use heavy-handed clean-up policies like slum clearance.

Researchers say urbanization helps reduce

global poverty because new urbanites earn

more than they could in their villages. The

global recession could reverse that trend,

however, as many unemployed city dwellers

return to rural areas. But most experts

expect rapid urbanization to resume once

the economic storm has passed.

The sprawling Morumbi favela, or slum, bumps upagainst the high-rises of São Paulo, Brazil — the fifth-largest city in the world. By 2030, at least 60 percent

of the globe’s population will live in cities, reflectingunprecedented urban growth in the developing world.

APRIL 2009 VOLUME 3, NUMBER 4 PAGES 91-118 WWW.GLOBALRESEARCHER.COM

PUBLISHED BY CQ PRESS, A DIVISION OF SAGE WWW.CQPRESS.COM

92 CQ Global Researcher

THE ISSUES

93 • Does urbanization makepeople better off?• Should governmentslimit migration to cities?• Can we make largecities greener?

BACKGROUND

102 From Farm to FactoryAs farms modernized,workers moved to thecities.

102 End of EmpiresRural residents in newlyindependent nationsmoved to the cities.

105 Population BoomDeveloping-country citiesgrew rapidly from 1970 to2000.

106 New SolutionsDevelopment expertsworked to empower theurban poor.

CURRENT SITUATION

107 Economic ShadowThe global recession isaffecting cities in a varietyof ways.

109 Slum Solutions“Urban upgrading” is thepopular development ap-proach for cities today.

OUTLOOK

110 Going GlobalMany urban leaders wantto transform their citiesinto “global” metropolises.

SIDEBARS AND GRAPHICS

94 World Will Have 26 Megacities by 2025The giant new cities will allbe in developing countries.

95 Tokyo Is by Far theWorld’s Biggest CityIt’ll still be the largest in 2025.

96 Global Population Is Shifting to CitiesCities house nearly half theworld.

99 Cities in Developing Countries Growing RapidlyRicher cities have slow or nogrowth.

100 China Aggressively TacklesAir PollutionNo developing Asian countrytakes the issue more seriously.

103 ChronologyKey events since 1804.

104 Cities Need to Plan forDisasters and AttacksConcentrated populations andwealth magnify impact.

111 At IssueWill redevelopment of theDharavi slum improve resi-dents’ lives?

118 Voices From AbroadHeadlines and editorials fromaround the world.

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

115 For More InformationOrganizations to contact.

116 BibliographySelected sources used.

117 The Next StepAdditional articles.

117 Citing CQ Global ResearcherSample bibliography formats.

RAPID URBANIZATION

Cover : AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini

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April 2009Volume 3, Number 4

April 2009 93www.globalresearcher.com

Rapid Urbanization

THE ISSUESIndia’s most infamous slum

lives up to its reputation.Located in the middle of

vast Mumbai, Dharavi is hometo as many as 1 million peo-ple densely packed into thou-sands of tiny shacks fash-ioned from scrap metal,plastic sheeting and otherscrounged materials. Nar-row, muddy alleys crisscrossthe 600-acre site, open sew-ers carry human waste andvacant lots serve as garbagedumps. There is electricity,but running water is avail-able for only an hour or soa day. Amid the squalor, bare-foot children sing for money,beg from drivers in nearbytraffic or work in garmentand leather shops, recyclingoperations and other lightlyregulated businesses.

Moviegoers around theglobe got a glimpse of lifeinside Dharavi in last year’sphenomenally popular Oscar-winning film “Slumdog Millionaire,”about plucky Jamal Malik, a fictionalDharavi teenager who improbably winsa TV quiz-show jackpot. The no-holds-barred portrayal of slum life may havebeen shocking to affluent Westerners,but Dharavi is only one of Asia’s in-numerable slums. In fact, about a bil-lion people worldwide live in urbanslums — the ugly underbelly of therapid and haphazard urbanization thathas occurred in many parts of theworld in recent decades. And if soar-ing urban growth rates continue un-abated, the world’s slum population isexpected to double to 2 billion by2030, according to the U.N. 1

But all city dwellers don’t live inslums. Indeed, other fast-growingcities presented cheerier faces to the

world last year, from Dubai’s glitter-ing luxury skyscrapers to Beijing’sbreathtaking, high-tech pre-Olympiccultural spectacle.

Today, 3.3 billion people live incities — half the world’s population— and urbanites are projected to totalnearly 5 billion (out of 8.1 billion)worldwide by 2030. 2 About 95 per-cent of that growth is occurring in thedeveloping world, especially in Africaand Asia. 3

These regions are going throughthe same threefold evolution thattransformed Europe and NorthAmerica over a 200-year period be-tween 1750 and 1950: the industri-alization of agriculture, followed byrural migration to cities and declin-ing population growth as life ex-

pectancy improves. Buttoday’s developing countriesare modernizing much faster— typically in less than 100years — and their cities areexpanding at dizzying rates:On average, 5 million peo-ple in developing countriesmove to cities every month.As urban areas struggle toabsorb this growth, the newresidents often end up crowd-ed into already teemingslums. For instance, 62 per-cent of city dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa live in slums,43 percent in southern Asia,37 percent in East Asia and27 percent in Latin Americaand the Caribbean, accord-ing to UN-HABITAT, the Unit-ed Nations agency for humansettlements. 4

UN-HABITAT defines a slumas an urban area without atleast one of the followingfeatures:• Durable housing,• Adequate living space (nomore than three people perroom),

• Access to clean drinking water,• Access to improved sanitation (toi-

lets or latrines that separatehuman waste from contact withwater sources), or

• Secure property rights. 5

But all slums are not the same. Somelack only one basic necessity, whileothers lack several. And conditions canbe harsh in non-slum neighborhoodsas well. Thus, experts say, policiesshould focus on specific local prob-lems in order to make a difference inthe lives of poor city dwellers. 6

Cities “are potent instruments fornational economic and social devel-opment. They attract investment andcreate wealth,” said HABITAT Execu-tive Director Anna Tibaijuka last April.But, she warned, cities also concentrate

BY JENNIFER WEEKS

AFP

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Children scavenge for recyclables amid rubbish in the Dharavislum in Mumbai, India. About a billion people worldwide live in

slums — where sewer, water and garbage-collection services areoften nonexistent. If impoverished rural residents continue

streaming into cities at current rates, the world’s slum populationis expected to double to 2 billion within the next two decades,

according to the United Nations.


poverty and deprivation, especially indeveloping countries. “Rapid andchaotic urbanization is being accom-panied by increasing inequalities,which pose enormous challenges tohuman security and safety.” 7

Today, improving urban life is animportant international development pri-ority. 8 One of the eight U.N. Millen-nium Development Goals (MDGs) —broad objectives intended to end pover-ty worldwide by 2015 — endorsed by

world leaders in 2000 was environ-mental sustainability. Among other things,it aims to cut in half the portion of theworld’s people without access to safedrinking water and achieve “significantimprovement” in the lives of at least100 million slum dwellers. 9

Delivering even the most basic cityservices is an enormous challenge inmany of the world’s 19 megacities —metropolises with more than 10 mil-lion residents. And smaller cities with

fewer than 1 million inhabitants aregrowing even faster in both size andnumber than larger ones. 10

Many fast-growing cities strugglewith choking air pollution, congestedtraffic, polluted water supplies and in-adequate sanitation services. The lackof services can contribute to larger so-cial and economic problems. For ex-ample, slum dwellers without perma-nent housing or access to mass transithave trouble finding and holding jobs.

RAPID URBANIZATION

World Will Have 26 Megacities by 2025

The number of megacities — urban areas with at least 10 million residents — will increase from 19 to 26 worldwide

by the year 2025, according to the United Nations. The seven new megacities will be in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Most megacities are in coastal areas, making them highly vulnerable to massive loss of life and property damage

caused by rising sea levels that experts predict will result from climate change in the 21st century.

Source: UN-HABITAT

B R A Z I L

ARGENTINA

RUSSIA

NIGERIA

EGYPT

INDIA

PAKISTAN

R U S S I A

J A P A N

C H I N A

N o r w e g i a n S e a

S e a o fO k h o t s k

B a r e n t s S e a K a r a S e a

P A C I F I C

O C E A N

N O R T H

A T L A N T I C

O C E A N

S O U T H

A T L A N T I C

O C E A N

I N D I A N

O C E A N

Rio de Janeiro

Buenos

Aires

Mexico

City

Los Angeles/

Long Beach/

Santa Ana

Kinshasa

Cairo

Istanbul

Moscow

Megacities Existing in 2007

New Megacities in 2025

BANGLADESHMEXICO

São Paulo

TURKEY

DEM. REPUBLIC

OF THE CONGO

Lagos

I N D O N E S I A

PHILIPPINES

New York, N.Y./

Newark, N.J.

MumbaiKolkata

KarachiDelhi

Shanghai

Jakarta

Manila

Tokyo

Dhaka

Lahore

Osaka/Kobe

Beijing

Shenzhen

Chennai

UNITED STATES OFAMERICA

Guangzhou/

Guangdong


And when poverty becomes entrenchedit reinforces the gulf between rich andpoor, which can promote crime andsocial unrest.

“A city is a system of systems. Ithas biological, social and technicalparts, and they all interact,” says GeorgeBugliarello, president emeritus ofPolytechnic University in New Yorkand foreign secretary of the NationalAcademy of Engineering. “It’s whatengineers call a complex system be-cause it has features that are morethan the sum of its parts. You haveto understand how all of the compo-nents interact to guide them.”

Improving life for the urban poorbegins with providing shelter, sanita-tion and basic social services like healthcare and education. But more is need-ed to make cities truly inclusive, suchas guaranteeing slum dwellers’ prop-erty rights so they cannot be ejectedfrom their homes. 11

Access to information and com-munications technology (ICT) is alsocrucial. In some developing countries,ICT has been adopted widely, partic-ularly cell phones, but high-speed In-ternet access and computer use stilllag behind levels in rich nations. Tech-nology advocates say this “digital di-vide” slows economic growth in de-veloping nations and increases incomeinequality both within and betweencountries. Others say the problem hasbeen exaggerated and that there is nocritical link between ICTs and pover-ty reduction.

Managing urban growth and pre-venting the creation of new slums arekeys to both improving the quality oflife and better protecting cities fromnatural disasters. Many large cities arein areas at risk from earthquakes, wild-fires or floods. Squatter neighbor-hoods are often built on flood plains,steep slopes or other vulnerable areas,and poor people usually have fewerresources to escape or relocate.

For example, heavy rains in north-ern Venezuela in 1999 caused mud-

slides and debris flows that demol-ished many hillside shantytowns aroundthe capital city of Caracas, killing

some 30,000 people. In 2005 HurricaneKatrina killed more people in NewOrleans’ lower-income neighborhoods,

Population of Megacities, 2007 and 2025

(in millions)

Tokyo Is by Far the World’s Biggest City

With more than 35 million residents, Tokyo is nearly twice as big as the

next-biggest metropolises. Tokyo is projected to remain the world’s largest city

in 2025, when there will be seven new megacities — urban areas with at

least 10 million residents. Two Indian cities, Mumbai and Delhi, will overtake

Mexico City and New York as the world’s second- and third-largest cities.

The two largest newcomers in 2025 will be in Africa: Kinshasa and Lagos.

Tokyo, Japan 35.68

New York, NY/Newark, NJ 19.04

Mexico City, Mexico 19.03

Mumbai, India 18.98

São Paulo, Brazil 18.85

Delhi, India 15.93

Shanghai, China 14.99

Kolkata, India 14.79

Dhaka, Bangladesh 13.49

Buenos Aires, Argentina 12.80

Los Angeles/Long Beach/

Santa Ana (CA) 12.50

Karachi, Pakistan 12.13

Cairo, Egypt 11.89

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 11.75

Osaka/Kobe, Japan 11.29

Beijing, China 11.11

Manila, Philippines 11.10

Moscow, Russia 10.45

Istanbul, Turkey 10.06

2007

Tokyo, Japan 36.40

Mumbai, India 26.39

Delhi, India 22.50

Dhaka, Bangladesh 22.02

São Paulo, Brazil 21.43

Mexico City, Mexico 21.01

New York, NY/Newark, NJ 20.63

Kolkata, India 20.56

Shanghai, China 19.41

Karachi, Pakistan 19.10

Kinshasa, Dem. Rep. Congo 16.76

Lagos, Nigeria 15.80

Cairo, Egypt 15.56

Manila, Philippines 14.81

Beijing, China 14.55

Buenos Aires, Argentina 13.77

Los Angeles/Long Beach/

Santa Ana (CA) 13.67

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 13.41

Jakarta, Indonesia 12.36

Istanbul, Turkey 12.10

Guangzhou/Guangdong, China 11.84

Osaka/Kobe, Japan 11.37

Moscow, Russia 10.53

Lahore, Pakistan 10.51

Shenzhen, China 10.20

Chennai, India 10.13

2025 (projected)

Source: UN-HABITAT

New megacities in 2025


which were located in a flood plain,than in wealthier neighborhoods ofthe Louisiana port city that were builton higher ground. As global warmingraises sea levels, many of the world’slargest cities are expected to be in-creasingly at risk from flooding.

Paradoxically, economic growth alsocan pose a risk for some cities. Largecities can be attractive targets for ter-rorist attacks, especially if they are sym-bols of national prosperity and moder-nity, such as New York City, site ofthe Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the WorldTrade Center. Last November’s coordi-nated Islamic terrorist attacks in Mum-bai followed a similar strategy: Land-mark properties frequented by foreignerswere targeted in order to draw world-wide media coverage, damage India’seconomy and send a message thatnowhere in India was safe. 12

Today the global economic recessionis creating a new problem for citydwellers: Entry-level jobs are disappearingas trade contracts evaporate and facto-ries shut down. Unable to find otherjobs, many recent migrants to citiesare returning to rural areas that are ill-

prepared to receive them, and laborerswho remain in cities have less moneyto send to families back home. 13

As national leaders, developmentexperts and city officials debate howto manage urban growth, here aresome issues they are considering:

Does urbanization make peoplebetter off?

With a billion city dwellers world-wide trapped in slums, why do peoplekeep moving to cities? Demographic ex-perts say that newcomers hope to earnhigher incomes and find more oppor-tunities than rural areas can offer.

“Often people are fleeing des-perate economic conditions,” saysDavid Bloom, a professor of eco-nomics and demography at HarvardUniversity’s School of Public Health.“And the social attractions of a city— opportunities to meet more peo-ple, escape from isolation or in somecases to be anonymous — trumpfears about difficult urban conditions.If they have relatives or friends liv-ing in cities already, that reducessome of the risk.”

When nations attract foreign invest-ment, it creates new jobs. In the 1990sboth China and India instituted broadeconomic reforms designed to encour-age foreign investment, paving the wayfor rapid economic growth. That growthaccelerated as information technologyadvances like the Internet, fiber-opticnetworks and e-mail made it faster andcheaper to communicate worldwide inreal time. 14 As a result, thousands ofmanufacturing and white-collar jobs were“outsourced” from the United States toIndia, China and other low-wage coun-tries over the past decade. 15

These jobs spurred major growthin some cities, especially in areas witheducated, English-speaking workforces. The large southern Indian cityof Bangalore became a center for in-formation technology — dubbed“India’s Silicon Valley.” Other cities inIndia, Singapore and the Philippinesnow host English-language call centersthat manage everything from computertechnical support to lost-baggage com-plaints for airlines. In a twist on thismodel, the Chinese city of Dalian —which was controlled by Japan from

RAPID URBANIZATION

1955

Global Population Is Shifting to Cities

Half a century ago, less than a third of the world’s population lived in cities. By 2005, nearly half inhabited urban areas, and

in 2030, at least 60 percent of the world’s population will be living in cities, reflecting an unprecedented scale of urban

growth in the developing world. This will be particularly notable in Africa and Asia, where the urban population will double

between 2000 and 2030.

Source: U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs; U.N. Population Fund

Worldwide Urban and Rural Populations

2005

Urban850 million

(30%)Rural1.91 billion

(70%)

Rural3.31 billion

(51%)

Urban3.15 billion

(49%)

2030

Rural3.2 billion

(40%) Urban4.9 billion

(60%)


1895 through World War II and stillhas many Japanese speakers — hasbecome a major outsourcing centerfor Japanese companies. 16

Some observers say an increasing-ly networked world allows people tocompete for global “knowledge work”from anywhere in the world insteadof having to emigrate to developedcountries. In his best-seller The WorldIs Flat, author and New York Timescolumnist Thomas Friedman cites Asiancall centers as an example of this shift,since educated Indians can work atthe centers and prosper at home ratherthan seeking opportunity abroad. Whilehe acknowledges that millions of peo-ple in developing countries are poor,sick and disempowered, Friedman ar-gues that things improve when peo-ple move from rural to urban areas.

“[E]xcess labor gets trained and ed-ucated, it begins working in servicesand industry; that leads to innovationand better education and universities,freer markets, economic growth anddevelopment, better infrastructure,fewer diseases and slower populationgrowth,” Friedman writes. “It is thatdynamic that is going on in parts ofurban India and urban China today,enabling people to compete on a levelplaying field and attracting investmentdollars by the billions.” 17

But others say it’s not always sosimple. Educated newcomers may beable to find good jobs, but migrantswithout skills or training often endup working in the “informal econo-my” — activities that are not taxed,regulated or monitored by the gov-ernment, such as selling goods onthe street or collecting garbage forrecycling. These jobs are easy to getbut come without minimum wagesor labor standards, and few workerscan get credit to grow their busi-nesses. Members of ethnic minoritiesand other underprivileged groups,such as lower castes in India, oftenare stuck with the dirtiest and mostdangerous and difficult tasks. 18

And some countries have experi-enced urban growth without jobgrowth. Through the late 1980s, manyLatin American countries tried to growtheir economies by producing manu-factured goods at home instead of im-porting them from abroad.

“Years of government protection in-sulated these industries from outsidecompetition, so they did not feel pres-sure to become more productive.Then they went under when economiesopened up to trade,” says Steven Poel-hekke, a researcher with DNB, the na-tional bank of the Netherlands. “InAfrica, industrialization has never re-ally taken off. And without job cre-ation governments cannot deliver ben-efits for new urbanites.” 19

Meanwhile, when cities grow tooquickly, competition for land, space,light and services increases faster thangovernment can respond. Real estate

prices rise, driving poor residents intosquatter neighborhoods, wherecrowding and pollution spread disease.“When cities get too big, the down-sides to city life are bigger than thebenefits for vulnerable inhabitants,”says Poelhekke.

Broadly, however, urbanization hasreduced the total number of people inpoverty in recent years. According toa 2007 World Bank study, about three-quarters of the world’s poor still livein rural areas. Poor people are urban-izing faster than the population as awhole, so some poverty is shifting tocities. Yet, clearly, many of those newurbanites are finding higher incomes— even if they end up living in cityslums — because overall poverty rates(urban plus rural) fall as countries ur-banize. While the persistence of urbanpoverty is a serious concern, the au-thors concluded, if people moved to

Percentage of Urban Populations Living in Slums, by Region

Most African City Dwellers Live in Slums

Most of the world’s slum dwellers are in developing countries, with nearly

two-thirds of sub-Saharan Africa’s city dwellers living in slums.

Source: UN-HABITAT, State of the World’s Cities 2008-2009

sub-Saharan

Africa

Southern Asia

Eastern Asia

Southeastern

Asia

Latin America/

Caribbean

Oceania

Western Asia

Northern

Africa

62.2%

27%

36.5%

42.9%

14.5%24%

27.5%

24.1%


the cities faster, overall poverty rateswould decline sooner. 20

Many development advocates saypolicy makers must accept urbaniza-tion as inevitable and strive to makeit more beneficial. “We need to stopseeing migration to cities as a prob-lem,” says Priya Deshingkar, a researcherat the Overseas Development Institutein Hyderabad, India. “These peoplewere already vulnerable because theycan’t make a living in rural areas. Coun-tries need to rethink their developmentstrategies. The world is urbanizing, andwe have to make more provisions forpeople moving to urban areas. Theycan’t depend on agriculture alone.”

Should governments limit migra-tion to cities?

Many governments have tried tolimit urban problems by discouragingmigration to cities or regulating thepace of urban growth. Some countriesuse household registration policies,while others direct aid and economicdevelopment funds to rural areas. Po-litical leaders say limiting migration re-duces strains on city systems, slows

the growth of slums and keeps vil-lages from languishing as their mostenterprising residents leave.

China’s hukou system, for example,requires households to register withthe government and classifies individ-uals as rural or urban residents. Chil-dren inherit their hukou status fromtheir parents. Established in the 1950s,the system was tightly controlled tolimit migration from agricultural areasto cities and to monitor criminals, gov-ernment critics and other suspect cit-izens and groups. 21

In the late 1970s China began pri-vatizing farming and opened its econ-omy to international trade, creating arural labor surplus and greater demandfor city workers. The government of-fered rural workers temporary resi-dence permits in cities and allowedwealthy, educated citizens to buy urbanhukou designations. Many rural Chi-nese also moved to cities withoutchanging their registration. Accordingto recent government estimates, atleast 120 million migrant workers havemoved to Chinese cities since the early1980s. 22 Today hukou rules are en-

forced inconsistently in different Chinesecities, where many rural migrants can-not get access to health care, education,affordable housing or other urban ser-vices because they are there illegally.

Chinese officials say they mustmanage growth so all areas of thecountry will benefit. In a 2007 re-port to the 17th Communist PartyCongress, President Hu Jintaopromised to promote “a path of ur-banization with Chinese characteris-tics” that emphasized “balanced de-velopment of large, medium-sized andsmall cities and towns.” 23

But critics say the hukou systemhas created an urban underclassand should be scrapped. When themunicipality of Chongqing (whichomits an estimated 4.5 million mi-grant workers from its official pop-ulation figures) established Novem-ber 4 as Migrant Workers’ Day in2007, the Asia Times commented,“By not changing the [hukou] systemand instead giving the migrant work-ers a special holiday, it’s a bit likeshowing starving people menus in-stead of feeding them.” 24

India and Vietnam also control mi-gration to urban areas by requiringpeople to register or show local iden-tity cards to access social services.“They’re both trying to promote ruraldevelopment and keep from overbur-dening urban areas,” says Deshingkarat the Overseas Development Institute.“But it doesn’t work. People move de-spite these regulations. It just makesit harder for them, and if they can ac-cess services it’s at a price.”

Many experts say governmentsshould not try to halt rural-to-city mi-gration because when migrant work-ers send large shares of their wageshome to their families in the countryit helps reduce rural poverty and in-equality. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, forexample, remittances from city work-ers provide up to 80 percent of ruralhouseholds’ budgets, according to theCoalition for the Urban Poor. 25

RAPID URBANIZATION

Packed buses in Dhaka take residents in the Bangladeshi capital to their homes in outlyingvillages on the eve of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha — the “Festival of Sacrifice.”

Rapidly growing cities have trouble keeping up with the transportation needs of residents.

AFP

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Urban growth also helps ruraleconomies by creating larger marketsfor agricultural products — includinghigh-value products like meat, chick-en and fish that people tend to addto their diets as their incomes rise.Cities can promote economic growthin surrounding areas by creating ademand for local farmers’ products.For instance, South Africa’s Johannes-burg Fresh Produce Market offers ven-dors stalls, overnight storage space,business-skills training and financing;it also requires market agents to buyat least 10 percent of their producefrom small, low-income farms. 26

However, the rootless lifestyle adopt-ed by so-called circular migrants — thosewho move back and forth between thecity and the country — makes peoplevulnerable, Deshingkar points out. “Thereare roughly 100 million circular migrantsin India now, and they’re completelymissed by official statistics because thegovernment only counts permanent mi-grants,” she says. “They can’t get anyinsurance or social services, so theycarry all the risk themselves.”

Beyond the fact that anti-migrationpolicies usually fail, experts say the biggestfactor driving population increase in manyfast-growing cities is not new residentsmoving in but “natural increase” — therate at which people already living therehave children. Natural increase accountsfor about 60 percent of urban growthworldwide, while 20 percent comesfrom domestic and international migra-tion and 20 percent results from reclas-sification of rural areas as urban. 27

Family-planning programs helpedreduce poverty rates in several devel-oping Asian countries — including SouthKorea, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, In-donesia and Malaysia — where havingsmaller families increased householdsavings and reduced national educationcosts. 28 In contrast, artificial birth con-trol is difficult to obtain in the Philip-pines, where the population is 80 per-cent Catholic and the governmentsupports only “natural” family planning.

Several professors at the University ofthe Philippines have calculated that ifFilipinos had followed Thailand’s ex-ample on family planning in the 1970s,the Philippines would have at least 4million fewer people in poverty andwould be exporting rice rather than im-porting it. Instead, the Philippine gov-ernment’s opposition to family planning“contributed to the country’s degener-ation into Southeast Asia’s basket case,”said economist Arsenio Balisacan. 29

Can we make large cities greener?Many fast-growing cities are un-

healthy places to live because of dirtyair, polluted water supplies and sprawl-ing waste dumps. City governmentsworldwide are increasingly interestedin making their cities greener andmore sustainable.

Greening cities has many up-frontcosts but can provide big payoffs. Forexample, energy-efficient buildings costless to operate and give cities cachetas centers for advanced technologyand design.

Green policies also may help citiesachieve broader social goals. When

Enrique Peñalosa was elected mayorof Bogotá, Colombia, in 1998, the citywas overrun with traffic and crime.Wealthy residents lived in walled-offneighborhoods, while workers weresqueezed into shanties on the city’soutskirts. Under Peñalosa’s rule, thecity built hundreds of new parks anda rapid-transit bus system, limited au-tomobile use, banned sidewalk park-ing and constructed a 14-mile-longstreet for bicyclists and pedestriansthat runs through some of the city’spoorest neighborhoods. The underly-ing goal of the programs: Make Bo-gotá more people-friendly for poorresidents as well as the rich.

“[A]nything that you do in order toincrease pedestrian space constructsequality” said Peñalosa, who now con-sults with city officials in other devel-oping countries. “It’s a powerful sym-bol showing that citizens who walkare equally important to those whohave a car.” 30 His administration alsoinvested funds that might otherwisehave been spent building highways insocial services like schools and li-braries. Air pollution decreased as more

Cities in Developing World Growing Rapidly

More than half the developing world’s cities experienced fast annual growth in

the 1990s, compared to just 6.3 percent of those in wealthier countries.

Conversely, more than 80 percent of cities in the wealthier countries had slow or

negative growth, compared to about a quarter of those in developing countries.

* Figures may not total 100 due to rounding.

Source: UN-HABITAT

Urban Growth Rates, 1990s(by percentage of cities)

In developing countries (1,408 cities) In developed countries (1,287 cities)

0

10

20

30

40

50%

NegativeSlowModerateRapidAccelerated

16.9%

1.0%

35.9%

5.3%

20.4%

11.2%16.7%

42.6%

10.2%

39.9%


residents shifted to mass transit. Crimerates also fell, partly because morepeople were out on the streets. 31

“Mobility and land use may be themost important issues that a mayor canaddress, because to unlock the eco-nomic potential of cities people haveto be able to move from one area toanother,” says Polytechnic University’sBugliarello. “You also have to take careof water supplies and sanitation, be-cause cities concentrate people andpathologies. Appropriate technologiesaren’t always the most expensive op-tions, especially if cities get togetherand form markets for them.”

For example, bus rapid transit(BRT) systems, which create networksof dedicated lanes for high-speedbuses, are much cheaper than sub-ways but faster than conventionalbuses that move in city traffic. By2007 some 40 cities worldwide had

developed BRT systems, includingBogotá; Jakarta, Indonesia; andGuayaquil, Ecuador. Many others areplanned or under construction. 32

Some developing countries are plan-ning entire green cities with walkableneighborhoods, efficient mass transitand renewable-energy systems. AbuDhabi, part of the United Arab Emirateson the Persian Gulf, is designing a$20 billion project called Masdar City,which it bills as the world’s first carbon-neutral, zero-waste city. Located on thecoast next to Abu Dhabi’s airport, Mas-dar City will be a mixed-use commu-nity with about 40,000 residents and50,000 commuters traveling in to workat high-tech companies. Plans call forthe city to be car-free and poweredmainly by solar energy. 33

Abu Dhabi wants to become aglobal hub for clean technologies, ac-cording to Khaled Awad, property de-

velopment director for the Masdar ini-tiative. “It lets us leverage our energyknowledge [from oil and gas produc-tion] and our research and develop-ment skills and adapt them to newenergy markets,” he said.

“If we can do it there, we can doit anywhere,” said Matthias Schuler, anengineer with the German climate-engineering firm Transsolar and a mem-ber of the international Masdar Citydesign and planning team. 34 Hepoints out that average daytime sum-mer temperatures in Abu Dhabi arewell over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, andcoastal zones are very humid. “Youcan’t find a harsher climate.”

In China, meanwhile, green urbandesign is gaining support as a way toattract foreign investment and demon-strate environmental awareness. Butsome showpiece projects are fallingshort of expectations.

RAPID URBANIZATION

China’s large cities have some of the world’s worst air pol-lution, thanks to rapid industrial growth, heavy use of coaland growing demand for cars.

The capital, Beijing, lost its 1993 bid to host the 2000 Sum-mer Olympic Games partly because the city was so polluted.A chronic grey haze not only sullied Beijing’s internationalimage but also threatened to cause health problems for athletesand impair their performances.

When Beijing was chosen in 2001 to host the 2008 SummerGames, it pledged to put on a “green Olympics,” which waswidely understood to include clearing the air.

Between 2001 and 2007, however, China’s economy grewbeyond all predictions, with its gross domestic product ex-panding by up to 13 percent a year. 1 Beijing’s air pollu-tion worsened as new factories, power plants and carscrowded into the city. Winds carried in more pollutants fromother burgeoning cities, including nitrogen oxides and sul-fur dioxide — which contribute to acid rain and smog —and fine particulates, which can cause or worsen heart andlung problems.

With the Olympic deadline looming, many observers pre-dicted Beijing would not meet its targets even if it relied heav-ily on authoritarian measures like shutting down factories and

limiting auto use. 2 International Olympic Committee PresidentJacques Rogge said some outdoor endurance sports might haveto be postponed if they occurred on high-pollution days — anembarrassing prospect for Chinese leaders. 3

But China met its promised target, keeping Beijing’s daily airpollution index — based on combined measurements of sulfurdioxide, nitrogen dioxide and fine particulates — below 100 dur-ing the month the Olympics took place. A 100 index score meansair quality will not affect daily activities, compared to a maximumscore of 500, when officials warn residents to stay indoors. Infact, during the Olympics in August 2008 Beijing’s daily air pol-lution reached the lowest August measurements since 2000, some-times even dropping into the 20s. 4

“No country in Asia has bigger air quality challenges thanChina, but no country in developing Asia takes those chal-lenges more seriously,” says Cornie Huizenga, executive direc-tor of the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia), an in-ternational network based in the Philippines and founded bythe Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the U.S.Agency for International Development. “China has taken awhole series of long-term structural measures to address airpollution. The Olympics put a magnifying glass on Beijing andmade them focus there, but its programs are much bigger.”

China Aggressively Tackles Air Pollution“No country in developing Asia takes those challenges more seriously.”


Huangbaiyu was supposed to be asustainable “green village” that wouldprovide new homes for a farmingtown of more than 1,400 in ruralnortheast China. But the master plan,produced by a high-profile U.S. greenarchitecture firm, called for 400 dense-ly clustered bungalows without enoughyard space for livestock. This meantthat villagers would lose their existingincome from backyard gardens, sheepflocks and trout ponds. The plan alsoproposed to use corncobs and stalksto fuel a biogas plant for heat, but vil-lagers needed these crop wastes aswinter feed for their goats.

By December 2008 the Chinesebuilder had constructed 42 houses,but only a few were occupied. Thedesigner blamed the builder forputting up low-quality houses, butothers said the plan did not reflectwhat villagers wanted or needed. 35

Planners “inadvertently designed an

ecologically sound plan — from theperspectives of both birds and thegreen movement — that would dev-astate the local economy and bank-rupt the households whose lives wereto be improved,” wrote Shannon May,an American graduate student wholived in the old village of Huang-baiyu for two years and wrote herdissertation on the project. 36

Dongtan, a larger Chinese city de-signed as a green project with zero-carbon-emission buildings and transitsystems, has also been sidetracked.Groundbreaking on the model city of500,000 on a Manhattan-sized islandnear Shanghai is more than a year be-hind schedule. High-rise towers aresprouting up around the site, leadingsome observers to call the project ex-pensive “greenwashing” — attemptingto make lavish development accept-able by tacking on environmentallyfriendly features.

“ ‘Zero-emission’ city is pure com-mercial hype,” said Dai Xingyi, a pro-fessor at Fudan University in Shang-hai. “You can’t expect some technologyto both offer you a luxurious and com-fortable life and save energy at thesame time. That’s just a dream.” 37

Construction is also under way ona new green city southeast of Beijingfor 350,000 residents, co-developed byChina and Singapore. Tianjin’s featuresinclude renewable-energy sources, ef-ficient water use and green buildingstandards. Premier Wen Jiabao attendedthe 2008 groundbreaking. 38

Although China’s green develop-ment projects have a mixed record sofar, “The government is starting to rec-ognize that it has responsibility forenvironmental impacts beyond itsborders, mainly by promoting renew-able energy,” says Alastair MacGregor,associate vice president of AECOM, aninternational design firm with large

For instance, China continuously monitors air quality in morethan 100 cities, requires high-polluting provinces and companiesto close small, inefficient emission sources and install pollution-control equipment and has new-car emissions standards roughlyequivalent to U.S. and Western European laws.

“For the Olympics China took temporary measures on top ofthose policies, like closing down large facilities and keeping carsoff the roads. All of this plus good weather let Beijing deliverwhat it promised for the Games,” says Huizenga.

Now China is further expanding air pollution regulations.During the Olympics, the Ministry of Environment announcedthat in 2009 it would start monitoring ultra-fine particle andozone pollution — persistent problems in many developed coun-tries. And Beijing officials plan to increase spending on publictransportation.

Local pollution sources, weather patterns and geography influ-ence air pollution, so China’s policies for cleaning up Beijing’s airmight not work in other large cities. Mexico City, for instance, alsohas tried to reduce its severe air pollution but is hampered by thecity’s high altitude (7,200 feet). Car engines burn fuel inefficientlyat high altitudes, so they pollute more than at sea level. And whileautomobiles are the biggest emission sources, scientists also foundthat leaking liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) — which most Mexi-can households burn for cooking and heating — also contributesto Mexico City’s air pollution. 5

“We need better-harmonized air quality monitoring in devel-oping countries before we can compare them,” says Huizenga.“But other cities should be able to make progress on a largescale like Beijing. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit, such asswitching to cleaner transportation fuels, getting rid of vehicleswith [high-polluting] two-stroke engines, managing dust at con-struction sites and cutting pollution from coal-fired power plants.But to make them work, you also need effective agencies withenough people and money to carry [out] policies.”

1 Michael Yang, “China’s GDP (2003-2007),” forum.china.org.cn, Nov. 10,2008; “China Revises 2007 GDP Growth Rate to 13%,” Jan. 15, 2009,http://english.dbw.cn.2 Edward Russell, “Beijing’s ‘Green Olympics’ Test Run Fizzles,” Asia Times,Aug. 10, 2007; Jim Yardley, “Beijing’s Olympic Quest: Turn Smoggy SkyBlue,” The New York Times, Dec. 29, 2007; David G. Streets, et al., “AirQuality during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games,” Atmospheric Environment,vol. 41 (2007).3 “IOC President: Beijing Air Pollution Could Cause Events to Be DelayedDuring 2008 Olympics,” The Associated Press, Aug. 7, 2007.4 “Summary: AQ in Beijing During the 2008 Summer Olympics,” Clean AirInitiative for Asian Cities, www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia/1412/article-72991.html.Weather conditions are important factors in air pollution levels — for ex-ample, summer heat and humidity promote the formation of ground-levelozone, a major ingredient of smog — so to put conditions during theOlympics in context, scientists compared them to readings taken in Augustof previous years.5 Tim Weiner, “Terrific News in Mexico City: Air Is Sometimes Breathable,”The New York Times, Jan. 5, 2001.


building projects in China. “Chineseculture is playing catch-up on sus-tainability.”

More than 130 buildings designedto LEED (Leadership in Energy andEnvironmental Design) standards —which measure energy efficiency andhealthy indoor working conditions —are planned or under construction inBeijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Wuhanand other Chinese cities. 39 Chineseinvestors see LEED buildings as pre-mium products, not as an everydaymodel, said MacGregor.

Some Chinese cities are developingtheir own green standards. About halfof worldwide new construction be-tween 2008 through 2015 is projectedto occur in China, so even greeninga modest share of that developmentwould be significant.

“China could end up being a sus-tainability leader just by virtue of itssize,” MacGregor predicted. 40

BACKGROUNDFrom Farm to Factory

At the beginning of the 19th cen-tury only 3 percent of the world’s

population lived in cities, and onlyBeijing had more than a million in-habitants. 41 Then new technologieslike the steam engine and railroadsbegan to transform society. As the In-dustrial Revolution unfolded, peoplestreamed from rural areas to manu-facturing centers in Europe and theUnited States seeking a better incomeand life. This first great wave of ur-banization established cities like Lon-don, Paris and New York as centersof global commerce.

It also spawned horrific slums infactory towns and large cities. Ten-ement houses became a feature ofworking-class neighborhoods, with lit-

tle access to fresh air or clean drink-ing water. Often whole neighbor-hoods shared a single water pumpor toilet, and trash was usually throwninto the streets. 42

German social scientist and a co-founder of communist theory FriedrichEngels graphically described urbanworkers’ living conditions in cities likeLondon and Manchester in 1844: “[T]heyare penned in dozens into single rooms.. . . They are given damp dwellings,cellar dens that are not waterprooffrom below or garrets that leak fromabove. . . . They are supplied bad,tattered or rotten clothing, adulteratedor indigestible food. . . . Thus are theworkers cast out and ignored by theclass in power, morally as well asphysically and mentally.” 43

Engels and his collaborator KarlMarx later predicted in The Com-munist Manifesto that oppression ofthe working class would lead to rev-olution in industrialized countries.Instead, public health movementsbegan to develop in Europe and theUnited States in mid-century. Seek-ing to curb repeated cholera and ty-phoid epidemics, cities began col-lecting garbage and improvingwater-supply systems. A new med-ical specialty, epidemiology (thestudy of how infections are spread)developed as scientists worked totrack and contain illnesses. Citiesbuilt green spaces like New York’sCentral Park to provide fresh air andaccess to nature. To help residentsnavigate around town, electric street-cars and subway trains were builtin underground tunnels or on ele-vated tracks above the streets.

Many problems persisted, howev-er. Homes and factories burned coalfor heat and power, blanketing manylarge cities in smoky haze. Horse-drawnvehicles remained in wide use untilthe early-20th century, so urban streetswere choked with animal waste.Wealthy city dwellers, seeking havensfrom the noise, dirt and crowding of

inner cities, moved out to cleaner sub-urban neighborhoods.

Despite harsh conditions, peoplecontinued to pour into cities. Eco-nomic growth in industrialized coun-tries had ripple effects in developingcountries. As wealthier countries im-ported more and more raw materials,commercial “gateway cities” in devel-oping countries grew as well, includingBuenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Cal-cutta (now Kolkata). By 1900, nearly14 percent of the world’s populationlived in cities. 44

End of Empires

Worldwide migration from coun-try to city accelerated in the

early-20th century as automationspread and fewer people wereneeded to grow food. But growthwas not uniform. Wars devastatedsome of Europe’s major cities whileindustrial production swelled others.And when colonial empires dissolvedafter World War II, many peoplewere displaced in newly indepen-dent nations.

Much of the fighting during WorldWar I occurred in fields and trenches,so few of Europe’s great cities wereseriously damaged. By the late 1930s,however, long-range bombers couldattack cities hundreds of miles away.Madrid and Barcelona were bombedduring the Spanish Civil War, a pre-lude to intensive air attacks on Lon-don, Vienna, Berlin, Tokyo and else-where during World War II. In 1945the United States dropped atomic bombson the Japanese cities of Hiroshimaand Nagasaki, destroying each. For cen-turies cities had walled themselves offagainst outside threats, but now theywere vulnerable to air attacks fromthousands of miles away.

After 1945, even victorious nationslike Britain and France were greatlyweakened and unable to manage over-

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Continued on p. 104


Chronology1700s-1800sIndustrial Revolution spurs rapidurban growth in Europe and theU.S. Expanding slums trigger re-forms and public health laws.

1804World population reaches 1 billion.

1854British doctor John Snow discoversthe connection between contami-nated drinking water and acholera outbreak in London.

1897Brazil’s first favela (shanty town), isestablished outside Rio de Janeiro.

•

1900-1960sEurope and the United Statesare the most urbanized. Africaand Asia begin gaining inde-pendence and struggle to devel-op healthy economies.

1906An earthquake and subsequent firedestroy much of San Francisco,killing more than 3,000 people.


1949Chinese communists defeat nation-alists, establishing the People’s Re-public of China, which aggressivelypromotes industrial development.

1960World population hits 3 billion.

1964Tokyo becomes first Asian city tohost the Olympic Games andsoon after that displaces NewYork as the world’s largest city.

1970s-1990sUrbanization accelerates inAsia and Africa. Many U.S. andEuropean cities shrink as resi-dents move to suburbs.

1971East Pakistan secedes from West Pak-istan and becomes the independentnation of Bangladesh; populations inDhaka and other cities grow rapidly.


1979China initiates broad economic re-forms, opens diplomatic and traderelations with the United Statesand starts to ease limits on migra-tion to cities.

1985An earthquake in Mexico City killssome 10,000 people and damageswater-supply and transit systems.


1991India institutes sweeping marketreforms to attract foreign investorsand spur rapid economic growth.


•

2000s Most industrial-ized countries stabilize at 70-80percent urban. Cities continueto grow in Asia and Africa.

2000International community endorsesthe U.N. Millennium DevelopmentGoals designed to end poverty by2015, including improving the livesof slum dwellers.

2001Many international companies shiftproduction to China after it joinsthe World Trade Organization; mi-gration from rural areas accelerates.. . . Terrorists destroy World TradeCenter towers in New York City,killing thousands. . . . Taiwancompletes Taipei 101, the world’stallest skyscraper (1,671 feet), super-seding the Petronas Towers inKuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1,483 feet).

2005United Nations condemns Zimbabwefor slum-clearance operations thatleave 700,000 people homeless.

2007The nonprofit group One LaptopPer Child unveils a prototype $100laptop computer designed for chil-dren in developing countries tohelp close the “digital divide” be-tween cities and rural areas.

2008More than half of the world’s popu-lation lives in cities. . . . Beijinghosts Summer Olympic Games. . . .Coordinated terrorist attacks inMumbai kill nearly 170 people andinjure more than 300.

2009A global recession leaves millions ofurban workers jobless, forcing manyto return to their home villages.

2030World’s urban population is expect-ed to reach 5 billion, and its slumpopulation could top 2 billion.

2070About 150 million city dwellers —primarily in India, Bangladesh,China, Vietnam, Thailand, Myan-mar and Florida — could be indanger due to climate change, ac-cording to a 2008 study.


seas colonies, where independencemovements were underway. As Euro-pean countries withdrew from their hold-ings in the Middle East, Asia and Africaover the next 25 years, a wave of coun-tries gained independence, including In-donesia, India, Pakistan, the Philippines,Syria, Vietnam and most of colonialAfrica. Wealthy countries began provid-ing aid to the new developing coun-tries, especially in Asia and Latin Amer-ica. But some nations, especially in Africa,received little focused support.

By mid-century most industrializedcountries were heavily urbanized, andtheir populations were no longer grow-ing rapidly. By 1950 three of the world’slargest cities — Shanghai, Buenos Airesand Calcutta — were in developing coun-tries. Populations in developing coun-tries continued to rise through the late1960s even as those nations struggledto industrialize. Many rural residentsmoved to cities, seeking work and ed-ucational opportunities.

In the 1950s and ’60s U.S. urbanplanners heatedly debated competing

approaches to city planning. The top-down, centralized philosophy wasespoused by Robert Moses, the hard-charging parks commissioner andhead of New York City’s highwayagency from 1934 to 1968. Mosespushed through numerous bridge, high-way, park and slum-clearance projectsthat remade New York but earned himan image as arrogant and uncaring. 45

His most famous critic, writer andactivist Jane Jacobs, advocated pre-serving dense, mixed-use neighbor-hoods, like New York’s Greenwich

RAPID URBANIZATION

Flash floods in 1999 caused landslides in the hills aroundCaracas, Venezuela, that washed away hundreds of hill-side shanties and killed an estimated 30,000 people —

more than 10 times the number of victims of the Sept. 11,2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

Because cities concentrate populations and wealth, naturaldisasters in urban areas can kill or displace thousands of peo-ple and cause massive damage to property and infrastructure.Many cities are located on earthquake faults, flood plains, fire-prone areas and other locations that make them vulnerable.The impacts are magnified when high-density slums and squat-ter neighborhoods are built in marginal areas. Political insta-bility or terrorism can also cause widespread destruction.

Protecting cities requires both “hard” investments, such asflood-control systems or earthquake-resistant buildings, and “soft”approaches, such as emergency warning systems and specialtraining for police and emergency-response forces. Cities alsocan improve their forecasting capacity and train officials to as-sess different types of risk. 1 Although preventive strategies areexpensive, time-consuming and often politically controversial,failing to prepare for outside threats can be far more costlyand dangerous.

Global climate change is exacerbating flooding and heatwaves, which are special concerns for cities because they ab-sorb more heat than surrounding rural areas and have higheraverage temperatures — a phenomenon known as the urbanheat island effect. According to a study by the Organizationfor Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), about40 million people living in coastal areas around the world in2005 were exposed to so-called 100-year floods — or majorfloods likely to occur only once every 100 years. By the 2070s,the OECD said, the population at risk from such flooding couldrise to 150 million as more people move to cities, and climate

change causes more frequent and ferocious storms and risingsea levels.

Cities with the greatest population exposure in the 2070forecast include Kolkata and Mumbai in India, Dhaka(Bangladesh), Guangzhou and Shanghai in China, Ho Chi MinhCity and Hai Phong in Vietnam, Bangkok (Thailand), Rangoon(Myanmar) and Miami, Florida. Cities in developed countriestend to be better protected, but there are exceptions. For ex-ample, London has about the same amount of flooding pro-tection as Shanghai, according to the OECD. 2

“All cities need to look at their critical infrastructure sys-tems and try to understand where they’re exposed to naturalhazards,” says Jim Hall, leader of urban research at England’sTyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. For example, hesays, London’s Underground subway system is vulnerable toflooding and overheating. Fast-growing cities planning for cli-mate change, he adds, might want to control growth in flood-prone areas, improve water systems to ensure supply duringdroughts or build new parks to help cool urban neighbor-hoods. “Risks now and in the future depend on what we doto protect cities,” says Hall.

In some cities, residents can literally see the ocean rising.Coastal erosion has destroyed 47 homes and more than 400fields in recent years in Cotonou, the capital city of the WestAfrican nation of Benin, according to a local nonprofit calledFront United Against Coastal Erosion. “The sea was far fromus two years ago. But now, here it is. We are scared,” saidKofi Ayao, a local fisherman. “If we do not find a solutionsoon, we may simply drown in our sleep one day.” 3

Social violence can arise from within a city or come as anattack from outside. For example, in 2007 up to 600 peoplewere killed when urban riots erupted in Kenya after a disputednational election. 4

Cities Need to Plan for Disasters and AttacksConcentrated populations and wealth magnify impact.

Continued from p. 102


Village, and consulting with residentsto build support for developmentplans. 46 Similar controversies wouldarise later in developing countries.

By the 1960s car-centered growthcharacterized many of the world’slarge cities. “Circle over London,Buenos Aires, Chicago, Sydney, in anairplane,” wrote American historianLewis Mumford in 1961. “The origi-nal container has completely disap-peared: the sharp division betweencity and country no longer exists.”City officials, Mumford argued, onlymeasured improvements in quanti-ties, such as wider streets and big-ger parking lots.

“[T]hey would multiply bridges, high-ways [and] tunnels, making it ever eas-ier to get in and out of the city butconstricting the amount of space avail-able within the city for any other pur-pose than transportation itself,” Mum-ford charged. 47

Population Boom

In the 1970s and ’80s, as popula-tions in developing countries con-

tinued to grow and improved agri-cultural methods made farmers moreproductive, people moved to thecities in ever-increasing numbers.

Some national economies boomed,notably the so-called Asian tigers —Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan andSouth Korea — by focusing on man-ufacturing exports for industrializedmarkets and improving their educa-tion systems to create productivework forces. Indonesia, Malaysia, thePhilippines and Thailand — the “tigercubs” — went through a similargrowth phase in the late 1980s andearly ’90s.

After China and India opened uptheir economies in the 1980s and ’90s,both countries became magnets forforeign investment and created free-trade areas and special economic zones

Urban leaders often justify slum-clearance programs by claimingthat poor neighborhoods are breeding grounds for unrest. Otherssay slums are fertile recruiting grounds for terrorist groups. Slumscertainly contain many who feel ill-treated, and extreme conditionsmay spur them into action. Overall, however, experts say mostslum dwellers are too busy trying to eke out a living to riot orjoin terrorist campaigns.

“Poverty alone isn’t a sufficient cause [for unrest],” says JohnParachini, director of the Intelligence Policy Center at the RANDCorp., a U.S. think tank. “You need a combination of things —people with a profound sense of grievance, impoverishment andleaders who offer the prospect of change. Often the presenceof an enemy nearby, such as an occupying foreign power or arival tribal group or religious sect, helps galvanize people.”

Last November’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, in which 10gunmen took dozens of Indian and foreign hostages and killedat least 164 people, showed an ironic downside of globaliza-tion: Wealth, clout and international ties can make cities ter-rorist targets.

“Mumbai is India’s commercial and entertainment center —India’s Wall Street, its Hollywood, its Milan. It is a prosperoussymbol of modern India,” a RAND analysis noted. Mumbai alsowas accessible from the sea, offered prominent landmark targets(historic hotels frequented by foreigners and local elites) and hada heavy media presence that guaranteed international coverage. 5

But serendipity can also make one city a target over an-other, says Parachini. “Attackers may know one city better orhave family links or contacts there. Those local ties matter forsmall groups planning a one-time attack,” he says.

Developing strong core services, such as police forces andpublic health systems, can be the first step in strengthening

most cities against terrorism, he says, rather than creating spe-cialized units to handle terrorist strikes.

“Basic governance functions like policing maintain order,build confidence in government and can pick up a lot of in-formation about what’s going on in neighborhoods,” he says.“They make it harder to do bad things.”

1 George Bugliarello, “The Engineering Challenges of Urban Sustainability,”Journal of Urban Technology, vol. 15, no. 1 (2008), pp. 64-65.2 R. J. Nicholls, et al., “Ranking Port Cities with High Exposure and Vul-nerability to Climate Extremes: Exposure Estimates,” Environment WorkingPapers No. 1, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,Nov. 19, 2008, pp. 7-8, www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2007doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT0000588E/$FILE/JT03255617.PDF.3 “Rising Tides Threaten to Engulf Parts of Cotonou,” U.N. Integrated Re-gional Information Network, Sept. 2, 2008.4 “Chronology: Kenya in Crisis After Elections,” Reuters, Dec. 31, 2007; “The TenDeadliest World Catastrophes 2007,” Insurance Information Institute, www.iii.org.5 Angel Rabasa, et al., “The Lessons of Mumbai,” RAND Occasional Paper,January 2009.

A Bangladeshi boy helps slum residents cross floodwaters in Dhaka.Rising waters caused by global warming pose a significant potential

threat to Dhaka and other low-lying cities worldwide.

AP

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to attract business activity. Cities inthose areas expanded, particularly alongChina’s southeast coast where suchzones were clustered.

As incomes rose, many Asian citiesaspired to global roles: Seoul hostedthe 1988 Summer Olympics, andMalaysia built the world’s tallest sky-scrapers — the Petronas Twin Tow-ers, completed in 1998, only to be su-perseded by the Taipei 101 buildingin Taiwan a few years later.

Some Asian countries — includingMalaysia, Sri Lanka and Indonesia —implemented programs to improve liv-ing standards for the urban poor andhelped reduce poverty. However,poverty remained high in Thailandand the Philippines and increased inChina and Vietnam. 48

Cities in South America and Africaalso expanded rapidly between 1970and 2000, although South America wasfarther ahead. By 1965 Latin Americawas already 50 percent urbanized andhad three cities with populations over5 million (Buenos Aires, São Pauloand Rio de Janeiro) — a marker sub-Saharan Africa would not achieve forseveral decades. 49 Urban growth onboth continents followed the “primacy”pattern, in which one city is far morepopulous and economically and po-litically powerful than all the othersin the nation. The presence of so-called primate cities like Lima (Peru),Caracas (Venezuela) or Lagos (Nigeria)can distort development if the domi-nant city consumes most public in-vestments and grows to a size thatis difficult to govern.

Latin America’s growth graduallyleveled out in the 1980s: Populationincreases slowed in major urban cen-ters, and more people moved to smalland medium-sized cities. 50 On aver-age the region’s economy grew moreslowly and unevenly than Asia’s, oftenin boom-and-bust cycles. 51 Benefitsaccrued mostly to small ruling class-es who were hostile to new migrants,and income inequality became

deeply entrenched in many LatinAmerican cities.

Africa urbanized quickly after in-dependence in the 1950s and ’60s.But from the mid-1970s forward mostcountries’ incomes stagnated or con-tracted. Such “urbanization withoutgrowth” in sub-Saharan Africa creat-ed the world’s highest rates of urbanpoverty and income inequality. Cor-ruption and poor management rein-forced wealth gaps that dated backto colonial times. Natural disasters,wars and the spread of HIV/AIDS fur-ther undercut poverty-reduction effortsin both rural and urban areas. 52

New Solutions

As the 21st century began, callsfor new antipoverty efforts led

to an international conference at which189 nations endorsed the MillenniumDevelopment Goals, designed to endpoverty by 2015. Experts also fo-cused on bottom-up strategies thatgave poor people resources to helpthemselves.

An influential proponent of thebottom-up approach, Peruvian econ-omist Hernando de Soto, stirred de-bate in 2000 with his book The Mys-tery of Capital: Why CapitalismTriumphs in the West and Fails Every-where Else. Capitalist economies didnot fail in developing nations becausethose countries lacked skills or enter-prising spirit, de Soto argued. Rather,the poor in those countries had plentyof assets but no legal rights, so theycould not prove ownership or usetheir assets as capital.

“They have houses but not titles;crops but not deeds; businesses butnot statutes of incorporation,” deSoto wrote. “It is the unavailabilityof these essential representations thatexplains why people who haveadapted every other Western inven-tion, from the paper clip to the nu-clear reactor, have not been able to

produce sufficient capital to maketheir domestic capitalism work.”But, he asserted, urbanization in thedeveloping world had spawned “ahuge industrial-commercial revolu-tion” which clearly showed thatpoor people could contribute toeconomic development if theircountries developed fair and inclu-sive legal systems. 53

Not all experts agreed with de Soto,but his argument coincided with grow-ing interest in approaches like micro-finance (small-scale loans and creditprograms for traditionally neglectedcustomers) that helped poor peoplebuild businesses and transition fromthe “extra-legal” economy into theformal economy. Early microcreditprograms in the 1980s and ’90s hadtargeted mainly the rural poor, butdonors began expanding into citiesaround 2000. 54

The “digital divide” — the gap be-tween rich and poor people’s accessto information and communicationstechnologies (ICTs) — also began toattract the attention of developmentexperts. During his second term (1997-2001), U.S. President Bill Clinton high-lighted the issue as an obstacle to re-ducing poverty both domestically andat the global level. “To maximize po-tential, we must turn the digital divideamong and within our nations intodigital opportunities,” Clinton said atthe Asia Pacific Economic CooperationForum in 2000, urging Asian nationsto expand Internet access and traincitizens to use computers. 55 The Mil-lennium Development Goals called formaking ICTs more widely available inpoor countries.

Some ICTs, such as mobilephones, were rapidly adopted in de-veloping countries, which had smallor unreliable landline networks. By2008, industry observers predicted,more than half of the world’s popu-lation would own a mobile phone,with Africa and the Middle East lead-ing the way. 56

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Internet penetration moved muchmore slowly. In 2006 some 58 per-cent of the population in industrialcountries used the Internet, comparedto 11 percent in developing countriesand only 1 percent in the least de-veloped countries. Access to high-speedInternet service was unavailable in manydeveloping regions or was too expen-sive for most users. 57 Some antipovertyadvocates questioned whether ICTsshould be a high priority for poorcountries, but others said the issue wasnot whether but when and how toget more of the world’s poor wired.

“The more the better, especiallybroadband,” says Polytechnic Univer-sity’s Bugliarello.

While development experts workedto empower the urban poor, buildinglives in fast-growing cities remained dif-ficult and dangerous in many places.Some governments still pushed ap-proaches like slum clearance, especiallywhen it served other purposes.

Notoriously, in 2005 President RobertMugabe of Zimbabwe launched a slum-clearance initiative called OperationMurambatsvina, a Shona phrase translat-ed by some as “restore order” and oth-ers as “drive out the trash.” Thousandsof shacks in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare,and other cities across the nation weredestroyed, allegedly to crack down onillegal settlements and businesses.

“The current chaotic state of affairs,where small-to-medium enterprises op-erated outside of the regulatory frame-work and in undesignated and crime-ridden areas, could not be countenancedmuch longer,” said Mugabe. 58

But critics said Mugabe was usingslum clearance as an excuse to intimi-date and displace neighborhoods thatsupported his opponents. In the end,some 700,000 people were left home-less or jobless by the action, which theUnited Nations later said violated inter-national law. 59 Over the next severalyears Mugabe’s government failed tocarry out its pledges to build new hous-es for the displaced families. 60

CURRENTSITUATION

Economic Shadow

The current global economic reces-sion is casting a dark cloud over

worldwide economic developmentprospects. Capital flows to developingcountries have declined sharply, and fallingexport demand is triggering layoffs andfactory shutdowns in countries that pro-duce for Western markets. But expertssay even though the overall picture issobering, many factors will determinehow severely the recession affects cities.

In March the World Bank projectedthat developing countries would facebudget shortfalls of $270 billion to$700 billion in 2009 and the worldeconomy would shrink for the first timesince World War II. According to thebank, 94 out of 116 developing coun-

tries were already experiencing an eco-nomic slowdown, and about half ofthem already had high poverty levels.Urban-based exporters and manufactur-ers were among the sectors hit hardestby the recession. 61

These trends, along with an inter-national shortage of investment capi-tal, will make many developing coun-tries increasingly dependent onforeign aid at a time when donorcountries are experiencing their ownbudget crises. As workers shift out ofexport-oriented sectors in the citiesand return to rural areas, poverty mayincrease, the bank projected.

The recession could mean failureto meet the Millennium DevelopmentGoals, especially if donor countriespull back on development aid. Thebank urged nations to increase theirforeign aid commitments and recom-mended that national governments:

• Increase government spendingwhere possible to stimulateeconomies;

• Protect core programs to createsocial safety nets for the poor;

Security officers forcibly remove a woman from her home during land confiscations inChangchun, a city of 7.5 million residents in northeast China, so buildings can be demolishedto make way for new construction. Some rapidly urbanizing governments use heavy-handed

methods — such as land confiscation, eviction or slum clearance — so redevelopment projects can proceed.

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• Invest in infrastructure such asroads, sewage systems and slumupgrades; and

• Help small- and medium-sizebusinesses get financing to createopportunities for growth and em-ployment. 62

President Barack Obama’s econom-ic stimulus package, signed into law onFeb. 17, takes some of these steps andcontains at least $51 billion for programsto help U.S. cities. (Other funds are al-located by states and may provide moreaid to cities depending on each state’spriority list.) Stimulus programs thatbenefit cities include $2.8 billion for en-ergy conservation and energy efficiency,$8.4 billion for public transportationinvestments, $8 billion for high-speedrail and intercity passenger rail service,$1.5 billion for emergency shelter grants,$4 billion for job training and $8.8 bil-lion for modernizing schools. 63

Governments in developing countrieswith enough capital may follow suit. Atthe World Economic Forum in Davos,Switzerland, in January, Chinese PremierWen Jibao announced a 4 trillion yuanstimulus package (equivalent to about16 percent of China’s GDP over twoyears), including money for housing, rail-ways and infrastructure and environ-mental protection. “ ‘The harsh winterwill be gone, and spring is around thecorner,’ ” he said, predicting that China’seconomy would rebound this year. 64

But according to government fig-ures released just a few days later,more than 20 million rural migrantworkers had already lost their jobs incoastal manufacturing areas and movedback to their home towns. 65 In Marchthe World Bank cut its forecast forChina’s 2009 economic growth from7.5 percent to 6.5 percent, although itsaid China was still doing well com-pared to many other countries. 66

In India “circular migration” is be-coming more prevalent, according tothe Overseas Development Institute’sDeshingkar. “Employment is becomingmore temporary — employers like to

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Slum Redevelopment Plan Stirs ControversyConditions for the 60,000 families living in Mumbai’s Dharavi neighborhood (top)— one of Asia’s largest slums — are typical for a billion slum dwellers around theglobe. Slums often lack paved roads, water-distribution systems, sanitation andgarbage collection — spawning cholera,diarrhea and other illnesses. Electric powerand telephone service are usually poached from available lines. Mumbai’s plansto redevelop Dharavi, located on 600 prime acres in the heart of the city, triggeredstrong protests from residents, who demanded that their needs be consideredbefore the redevelopment proceeds (bottom). The project has stalled recently dueto the global economic crisis.

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hire temporary workers whom they canhire and fire at will, so the proportionof temporary workers and circular mi-grants is going up,” she says. “In someIndian villages 95 percent of migrantsare circular. Permanent migration is tooexpensive and risky — rents are high,[people are] harassed by the police,slums are razed and they’re evicted.Keeping one foot in the village is theirsocial insurance.”

Meanwhile, international develop-ment aid is likely to decline as donorcountries cut spending and focus ontheir own domestic needs. “By rightsthe financial crisis shouldn’t undercutdevelopment funding, because the totalamounts given now are tiny comparedto the national economic bailouts thatare under way or being debated in de-veloped countries,” says Harvard econ-omist Bloom. “Politically, however, itmay be hard to maintain aid budgets.”

At the World Economic Forum bil-lionaire philanthropist Bill Gates urgedworld leaders and organizations to keepup their commitments to foreign aiddespite the global financial crisis. “If welose sight of our long-term priority toexpand opportunity for the world’spoor and abandon our commitmentsand partnerships to reduce inequality,we run the risk of emerging from thecurrent economic downturn in a worldwith even greater disparities in healthand education and fewer opportunitiesfor people to improve their lives,” saidGates, whose Bill and Melinda GatesFoundation supports efforts to addressboth rural and urban poverty in de-veloping nations. 67

In fact, at a summit meeting in Lon-don in early April, leaders of the world’s20 largest economies pledged $1.1 tril-lion in new aid to help developingcountries weather the global recession.Most of the money will be channeledthrough the International Monetary Fund.

“This is the day the world came to-gether to fight against the global re-cession,” said British Prime MinisterGordon Brown. 68

Slum Solutions

As slums expand in many cities,debate continues over the best

way to alleviate poverty. Large-scaleslum-clearance operations have longbeen controversial in both developedand developing countries: Officialstypically call the slums eyesores andpublic health hazards, but often newhomes turn out to be unaffordablefor the displaced residents. Today de-velopment institutions like the WorldBank speak of “urban upgrading” —improving services in slums insteadof bulldozing them. 69

This approach focuses on improv-ing basic infrastructure systems likewater distribution, sanitation and elec-tric power; cleaning up environmen-tal hazards and building schools andclinics. The strategy is cheaper thanmassive demolition and constructionprojects and provides incentives forresidents to invest in improving theirown homes, advocates say. 70

To do so, however, slum dwellersneed money. Many do not have thebasic prerequisites even to open bank

accounts, such as fixed addresses andminimum balances, let alone access tocredit. Over the past 10 to 15 years,however, banks have come to recog-nize slum dwellers as potential customersand have begun creating microcreditprograms to help them obtain smallloans and credit cards that often startwith very low limits. A related con-cept, micro-insurance, offers low-costprotection in case of illness, accidentsand property damage.

Now advocates for the urban poorare working to give slum dwellers morefinancial power. The advocacy group,Shack/Slum Dwellers International(SDI), for example, has created UrbanPoor Funds that help attract directinvestments from banks, governmentagencies and international donorgroups. 71 In 2007 SDI received a$10 million grant from the Gates foun-dation to create a Global Finance Facil-ity for Federations of the Urban Poor.

The funds will give SDI leveragein negotiating with governments forland, housing and infrastructure, accordingto Joel Bolnick, an SDI director in CapeTown, South Africa. If a governmentagency resists, said Bolnick, SDI can

Reflecting China’s stunningly rapid urbanization, Shanghai’s dramatic skyline rises beside theHuangpu River. Shanghai is the world’s seventh-largest city today but will drop to ninth-placeby 2025, as two south Asian megacities, Dhaka and Kolkata, surpass Shanghai in population.

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reply, “ ‘If you can’t help us here, we’lltake the money and put it on the tablefor a deal in Zambia instead.’ ” 72

And UN-HABITAT is working withlenders to promote more mortgage lend-ing to low-income borrowers in devel-oping countries. “Slum dwellers have ac-cess to resources and are resources inthemselves. To maximize the value of

slums for those who live in them andfor a city, slums must be upgraded andimproved,” UN-HABITAT Executive Di-rector Tibaijuka said in mid-2008. 73

Nevertheless, some governmentsstill push slum clearance. Beijing de-molished hundreds of blocks of oldcity neighborhoods and culturally sig-nificant buildings in its preparationsto host the 2008 Olympic Games.Some of these “urban corners” (anegative term for high-density neigh-borhoods with narrow streets) hadalso been designated for protectionas historic areas. 74 Developers post-ed messages urging residents to takegovernment resettlement fees andmove, saying, “Living in the FrontGate’s courtyards is ancient history;

moving to an apartment makes youa good neighbor,” and “Cherish thechance; grab the good fortune; sayfarewell to dangerous housing.” 75

Beijing’s actions were not unique.Other cities hosting international“mega-events” have demolished slums.Like Beijing, Seoul, South Korea, andSanto Domingo in the Dominican Re-

public were already urbanizing andhad slum-clearance programs underway, but as their moments in thespotlight grew nearer, eviction oper-ations accelerated, according to aYale study. Ultimately, the study con-cluded, the benefits from hosting bigevents did not trickle down to poorresidents and squatter communitieswho were “systematically removed orconcealed from high-profile areas inorder to construct the appearance ofdevelopment.” 76

Now the debate over slum clear-ance has arrived in Dharavi. Devel-opers are circling the site, which sitson a square mile of prime real estatenear Mumbai’s downtown and airport.The local government has accepted a

$3 billion redevelopment proposal fromMukesh Mehta, a wealthy architectwho made his fortune in Long Island,N.Y., to raze Dharavi’s shanties andreplace them with high-rise condo-miniums, shops, parks and offices.Slum dwellers who can prove theyhave lived in Dharavi since 1995 wouldreceive free 300-square-foot apart-ments, equivalent to two small rooms,in the new buildings. Other units wouldbe sold at market rates that couldreach several thousand dollars persquare foot. 77

Mehta contends his plan will ben-efit slum residents because they willreceive new homes on the same site.“Give me a better solution. Until thenyou might want to accept this one,”he said last summer. 78 But manyDharavi residents say they will not beable to keep small businesses like tan-neries, potteries and tailoring shops ifthey move into modern high-rises, andwould rather stay put. (See “At Issue,”p. 111.)

“I’ve never been inside a tall build-ing. I prefer a place like this whereI can work and live,” said UsmanGhani, a potter born and raised inDharavi who has demonstrated againstthe redevelopment proposals. He isnot optimistic about the future. “Thepoor and the working class won’t beable to stay in Mumbai,” he said.“Many years ago, corrupt leaders soldthis country to the East India Com-pany. Now they’re selling it to multi-nationals.” 79

OUTLOOKGoing Global

In an urbanizing world, cities willbecome increasingly important as

centers of government, commerce andContinued on p. 112

Two-thirds of sub-Saharan Africa’s city dwellers live in slums, like this one in Lagos, Nigeria,which has open sewers and no clean water, electric power or garbage collection.

About 95 percent of today’s rapid urbanization is occurring in the developing world, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

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At Issue:Will redevelopment of the Dharavi slum improve residents’ lives?Yes

yesMUKESH MEHTACHAIRMAN, MM PROJECT CONSULTANTS

WRITTEN FOR CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER, APRIL 2009

slum rehabilitation is a challenge that has moved beyondthe realm of charity or meager governmental budgets. Itrequires a pragmatic and robust financial model and a

holistic approach to achieve sustainability.Dharavi — the largest slum pocket in Mumbai, India, and

one of the largest in the world — houses 57,000 families, busi-nesses and industries on 600 acres. Alarmingly, this accounts foronly 4 percent of Mumbai’s slums, which house about 7.5 mil-lion people, or 55 percent of the city’s population.

Mumbai’s Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) has undertak-en the rehabilitation of all the eligible residents and commer-cial and industrial enterprises in a sustainable manner throughthe Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP), following an exten-sive consultative process that included Dharavi’s slum dwellers.The quality of life for those residents is expected to dramati-cally improve, and they could integrate into mainstream Mum-bai over a period of time. Each family would receive a 300-square-foot home plus adequate workspace, along withexcellent infrastructure, such as water supply and roads. Apublic-private partnership between the real estate developersand the SRA also would provide amenities for improvinghealth, income, knowledge, the environment and socio-culturalactivities. The land encroached by the slum dwellers wouldbe used as equity in the partnership.

The primary focus — besides housing and infrastructure —would be on income generation. Dharavi has a vibrant econo-my of $600 million per annum, despite an appalling workingenvironment. But the redevelopment project would boost thelocal gross domestic product to more than $3 billion, with theaverage family income estimated to increase to at least $3,000per year from the current average of $1,200. To achieve this,a hierarchy of workspaces will be provided, including commu-nity spaces equivalent to 6 percent of the built-up area, plusindividual workspaces in specialized commercial and industrialcomplexes for leather goods, earthenware, food products, re-cycling and other enterprises.

The greatest failure in slum redevelopment has been to treatit purely as a housing problem. Improving the infrastructure toenable the local economy to grow is absolutely essential forsustainable development. We believe this project will treat Dharaviresidents as vital human resources and allow them to act as en-gines for economic growth. Thus, the DRP will act as a torch-bearer for the slums of Mumbai as well as the rest of the devel-oping world.No

KALPANA SHARMAAUTHOR, REDISCOVERING DHARAVI: STORIES FROM ASIA’S LARGEST SLUM

WRITTEN FOR CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER, APRIL 2009

the controversy over the redevelopment of Dharavi, a slumin India’s largest city of Mumbai, centers on the future ofthe estimated 60,000 families who live and work there.

Dharavi is a slum because its residents do not own the landon which they live. But it is much more than that. The settle-ment — more than 100 years old — grew up around one ofthe six fishing villages that coalesced over time to becomeBombay, as Mumbai originally was called. People from all partsof India live and work here making terra-cotta pots, leathergoods, garments, food items and jewelry and recycling every-thing from plastic to metal. The annual turnover from this vastspread of informal enterprises, much of it conducted insidepeople’s tiny houses, is an estimated $700 million a year.

The Dharavi Redevelopment Plan — conceived by consultantMukesh Mehta and being implemented by the Government ofMaharashtra state — envisages leveling this energetic and pro-ductive part of Mumbai and converting it into a collection ofhigh-rise buildings, where some of the current residents willbe given free apartments. The remaining land will be used forhigh-end commercial and residential buildings.

On paper, the plan looks beautiful. But people in Dharaviare not convinced. They believe the plan has not understoodthe nature and real value of Dharavi and its residents. It hasonly considered the value of the land and decided it is toovaluable to be wasted on poor people.

Dharavi residents have been left with no choice but toadapt to an unfamiliar lifestyle. If this meant a small adjust-ment, one could justify it. But the new form of living in a 20-story high-rise will force them to pay more each month, sincethe maintenance costs of high-rises exceed what residents cur-rently spend on housing. These costs become unbearablewhen people earn just enough to survive in a big city.

Even worse, this new, imposed lifestyle will kill all the en-terprises that flourish today in Dharavi. Currently, people liveand work in the same space. In the new housing, this willnot be possible.

The alternatives envisaged are spaces appropriate for for-mal, organized industry. But enterprises in Dharavi are infor-mal and small, working on tiny margins. Such enterprisescannot survive formalization.

The real alternative is to give residents security of tenure andlet them redevelop Dharavi. They have ideas. It can happenonly if people are valued more than real estate.


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culture, but some will be more influ-ential than others. Although it doesn’thave a precise definition, the term“global city” is used by city-watchersto describe metropolises like NewYork and London that have a dispro-portionate impact on world affairs.Many urban leaders around the worldaspire to take their cities to that level.

The 2008 Global Cities Index —compiled by Foreign Policy magazine,the Chicago Council on Global Affairsand the A. T. Kearney managementconsulting firm — ranks 60 cities onfive broad criteria that measure theirinternational influence, including:

• Business activity,• Human capital (attracting diverse

groups of people and talent),• Information exchange,• Cultural attractions and experi-

ences, and• Political engagement (influence

on world policy making and di-alogue). 80

The scorecard is topped by West-

ern cities like New York, London andParis but also includes developing-country cities such as Beijing, Shang-hai, Bangkok, Mexico City and São Paulo.Many of these cities, the authors noted,are taking a different route to globalstature than their predecessors followed— a shorter, often state-led path withless public input than citizens of West-ern democracies expect to have.

“Rulers in closed or formerly closedsocieties have the power to decide thattheir capitol is going to be a world-class city, put up private funds andspell out what the city should looklike,” says Simon O’Rourke, executivedirector of the Global Chicago Centerat the Chicago Council on Global Af-fairs. “That’s not necessarily a bad path,but it’s a different path than the routesthat New York or London have taken.New global cities can get things donequickly — if the money is there.”

Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Initiative, forexample, remains on track despite theglobal recession, directors said thisspring. The project is part of a strate-

gic plan to make Abu Dhabi a worldleader in clean-energy technology.“There is no question of any rollbackor slowing down of any of our pro-jects in the renewable-energy sector,”said Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, chief ex-ecutive officer of the initiative, on March16. 81 Last year the crown prince ofAbu Dhabi created a $15 billion fundfor clean-energy investments, whichincluded funds for Masdar City.

Money is the front-burner issueduring today’s global recession. “Un-less a country’s overall economicprogress is solid, it is very unlikelythat a high proportion of city dwellerswill see big improvements in theirstandard of living,” says Harvard’sBloom. In the next several years,cities that ride out the global eco-nomic slowdown successfully will bebest positioned to prosper when worldmarkets recover.

In the longer term, however, creat-ing wealth is not enough, as evidencedby conditions in Abu Dhabi’s neigh-boring emirate, Dubai. Until recentlyDubai was a booming city-state withan economy built on real estate, tourismand trade — part of the government’splan to make the city a world-classbusiness and tourism hub. It quicklybecame a showcase for wealth andrapid urbanization: Dozens of high-rise, luxury apartment buildings andoffice towers sprouted up seeminglyovernight, and man-made islandsshaped like palm trees rose from thesea, crowded with multi-million-dollarsecond homes for jetsetters.

But the global recession has broughtdevelopment to a halt. The real es-tate collapse was so sudden that job-less expatriate employees have beenfleeing the country, literally aban-doning their cars in the Dubai air-port parking lot. 82

Truly global cities are excellent in avariety of ways, says O’Rourke. “To begreat, cities have to be places wherepeople want to live and work.” Theyneed intellectual and cultural attractions

Continued from p. 110

In addition to Dubai’s glittering, new downtown area filled with towering skyscrapers, thecity’s manmade, palm-tree-shaped islands of Jumeirah sport hundreds of multi-million-dollar

second homes for international jetsetters. Development has skidded to a temporary halt in the Arab city-state, much as it has in some other rapidly urbanizing cities

around the globe, due to the global economic downturn.

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as well as conventional features likeparks and efficient mass transit, he says,and, ultimately, they must give residentsat least some role in decisionmaking.

“It will be very interesting to seeover the next 20 years which citiescan increase their global power with-out opening up locally to more par-ticipation,” says O’Rourke. “If peopledon’t have a say in how systems arebuilt, they won’t use them.”

Finally, great cities need creativeleaders who can adapt to changingcircumstances. Mumbai’s recoveryafter last November’s terrorist attacksshowed such resilience. Within a weekstores and restaurants were openagain in neighborhoods that had beenraked by gunfire, and internationaltravelers were returning to the city. 83

The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower wasone of the main attack targets. After-wards, Ratan Tata, grand-nephew of theIndian industrialist who built the five-star hotel, said, “We can be hurt, butwe can’t be knocked down.” 84

Notes

1 Ben Sutherland, “Slum Dwellers ‘to top 2billion,’ ” BBC News, June 20, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/5099038.stm.2 United Nations Population Fund, State ofWorld Population 2007: Unleashing the Po-tential of Urban Growth (2007), p. 6.3 UN-HABITAT, State of the World’s Cities2008/2009 (2008), p. xi.4 UN-HABITAT, op cit., p. 90.5 Ibid., p. 92.6 Ibid., pp. 90-105.7 Anna Tibaijuka, “The Challenge of Urban-isation and the Role of UN-HABITAT,” lec-ture at the Warsaw School of Economics,April 18, 2008, p. 2, www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/5683_16536_ed_warsaw_version12 _1804.pdf.8 For background see Peter Katel, “Ending Pover-ty,” CQ Researcher, Sept. 9, 2005, p. 733-760.9 For details, see www.endpoverty2015.org.For background, see Peter Behr, “LoomingWater Crisis,” CQ Global Researcher, February2008, pp. 27-56.

10 Tobias Just, “Megacities: Boundless Growth?”Deutsche Bank Research, March 12, 2008,pp. 4-5.11 Commission on Legal Empowerment of thePoor, Making the Law Work for Everyone (2008),pp. 5-9, www.undp.org/legalempowerment/report/Making_the_Law_Work_for_Everyone.pdf.12 Angel Rabasa, et al., “The Lessons of Mum-bai,” RAND Occasional Paper, 2009, pp. 1-2,www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/2009/RAND_OP249.pdf.13 Wieland Wagner, “As Orders Dry Up, Fac-tory Workers Head Home,” Der Spiegel, Jan. 8,2009, www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,600188,00.html; Malcolm Beith, “ReverseMigration Rocks Mexico,” Foreign Policy.com,February 2009, www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4731; Anthony Faiola, “AGlobal Retreat As Economies Dry Up,” TheWashington Post, March 5, 2009, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/03/04/ST2009030404264.html.14 For background, see David Masci, “Emerg-ing India, CQ Researcher, April 19, 2002, pp.329-360; and Peter Katel, “Emerging China,”CQ Researcher, Nov. 11, 2005, pp. 957-980.15 For background, see Mary H. Cooper, “Ex-porting Jobs,” CQ Researcher, Feb. 20, 2004,pp. 149-172.16 Ji Yongqing, “Dalian Becomes the NewOutsourcing Destination,” China Business Fea-ture, Sept. 17, 2008, www.cbfeature.com/industry_spotlight/news/dalian_becomes_the_new_outsourcing_destination.17 Thomas L. Friedman, The World Is Flat: ABrief History of the Twenty-First Century, up-dated edition (2006), pp. 24-28, 463-464.18 Priya Deshingkar and Claudia Natali, “In-ternal Migration,” in World Migration 2008(2008), p. 183.19 Views expressed here are the speaker’sown and do not represent those of his em-ployer.20 Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen and PremSangraula, “New Evidence on the Urbaniza-tion of Global Poverty,” World Bank PolicyResearch Working Paper 4199, April 2007,http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDR2008/Resources/2795087-1191427986785/RavallionMEtAl_UrbanizationOfGlobalPoverty.pdf.21 For background on the hukou system, seeCongressional-Executive Commission onChina, “China’s Household Registration Sys-tem: Sustained Reform Needed to ProtectChina’s Rural Migrants,” Oct. 7, 2005,www.cecc.gov/pages/news/hukou.pdf; andHayden Windrow and Anik Guha, “The Hukou

System, Migrant Workers, and State Power inthe People’s Republic of China,” Northwest-ern University Journal of International HumanRights, spring 2005, pp. 1-18.22 Wu Zhong, “How the Hukou System Dis-torts Reality,” Asia Times, April 11, 2007,www.atimes.com/atimes/China/ID11Ad01.html;Rong Jiaojiao, “Hukou ‘An Obstacle to Mar-ket Economy,’ ” China Daily, May 21, 2007,www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-05/21/content_876699.htm.23 “Scientific Outlook on Development,” “Fulltext of Hu Jintao’s report at 17th Party Con-gress,” section V.5, Oct. 24, 2007, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-10/24/content_6938749.htm.24 Wu Zhong, “Working-Class Heroes GetTheir Day,” Asia Times, Oct. 24, 2007,www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IJ24Cb01.html.25 “Internal Migration, Poverty and Develop-ment in Asia,” Briefing Paper no. 11, OverseasDevelopment Council, October 2006, p. 3.26 Clare T. Romanik, “An Urban-Rural Focuson Food Markets in Africa,” The Urban In-stitute, Nov. 15, 2007, p. 30, www.urban.org/publications/411604.html.27 UN-HABITAT, op. cit., pp. 24-26.28 “How Shifts to Smaller Family Sizes Con-tributed to the Asian Miracle,” Population Ac-tion International, July 2006, www.popact.org/Publications/Fact_Sheets/FS4/Asian_Miracle.pdf.29 Edson C. Tandoc, Jr., “Says UP Economist:Lack of Family Planning Worsens Poverty,”Philippine Daily Inquirer, Nov. 11, 2008,http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20081111-171604/Lack-of-family-planning-worsens-poverty; Blaine Harden,“Birthrates Help Keep Filipinos in Poverty,”The Washington Post, April 21, 2008,www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/21/ST2008042100778.html.30 Kenneth Fletcher, “Colombia Dispatch 11:Former Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa,”Smithsonian.com, Oct. 29, 2008, www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/Colombia-Dispatch-11-Former-Bogota-mayor-Enrique-Penalosa.html.31 Charles Montgomery, “Bogota’s UrbanHappiness Movement,” Globe and Mail, June 25,2007, www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070622.whappyurbanmain0623/BNStory/lifeMain/home.32 Bus Rapid Transit Planning Guide, 3rd edi-tion, Institute for Transportation & Develop-ment Policy, June 2007, p. 1, www.itdp.org/documents/Bus%20Rapid%20Transit%20Guide%20%20complete%20guide.pdf.


33 Project details at www.masdaruae.com/en/home/index.aspx.34 Awad and Schuler remarks at Greenbuild2008 conference, Boston, Mass., Nov. 20, 2008.35 “Green Dreams,” Frontline/World,www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/fellows/green_dreams/; Danielle Sacks, “Green Guru GoneWrong: William McDonough,” Fast Company,Oct. 13, 2008, www.fastcompany.com/magazine/130/the-mortal-messiah.html; TimothyLesle, “Cradle and All,” California Magazine,September/October 2008, www.alumni.berkeley.edu/California/200809/lesle.asp.36 Shannon May, “Ecological Crisis and Eco-Vil-lages in China,” Counterpunch, Nov. 21-23,2008, www.counterpunch.org/may11212008.html.37 Rujun Shen, “Eco-city seen as Expensive‘Green-Wash,’ ” The Standard (Hong Kong),June 24, 2008, www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=9&art_id=67641&sid=19488136&con_type=1&d_str=20080624&fc=8; seealso Douglas McGray, “Pop-Up Cities: ChinaBuilds a Bright Green Metropolis,” Wired,April 24, 2007, www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.05/feat_popup.html; MalcolmMoore, “China’s Pioneering Eco-City of Dong-tan Stalls,” Telegraph, Oct. 19, 2008, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/3223969/Chinas-pioneering-eco-city-of-Dongtan-stalls.html; “City of Dreams,” Economist, March 19,2009, www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13330904.38 Details at www.tianjinecocity.gov.sg/.39 “LEED Projects and Case Studies Directory,”U.S. Green Building Council, www.usgbc.org/LEED/Project/RegisteredProjectList.aspx.40 Remarks at Greenbuild 2008 conference,Boston, Mass., Nov. 20, 2008.41 Population Reference Bureau, “Urbaniza-tion,” www.prb.org; Tertius Chandler, FourThousand Years of Urban Growth: An His-torical Census (1987).

42 Lewis Mumford, The City In History: ItsOrigins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects(1961), pp. 417-418.43 Frederick Engels, The Condition of theWorking Class in England (1854), Chapter 7(“Results”), online at Marx/Engels InternetArchive, www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/ch07.htm.44 Population Reference Bureau, op. cit.45 Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: RobertMoses and the Fall of New York (1975).46 Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of GreatAmerican Cities (1961).47 Mumford, op. cit., pp. 454-455.48 Joshua Kurlantzick, “The Big Mango BouncesBack,” World Policy Journal, spring 2000,www.worldpolicy.org/journal/articles/kurlant.html; UN-HABITAT, op. cit., pp. 74-76.49 BBC News, “Interactive Map: Urban Growth,”http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/world/06/urbanisation/html/urbanisation.stm.50 Licia Valladares and Magda Prates Coelho,“Urban Research in Latin America: Towards aResearch Agenda,” MOST Discussion Paper Se-ries No. 4 (undated), www.unesco.org/most/valleng.htm#trends.51 Jose de Gregorie, “Sustained Growth in LatinAmerica,” Economic Policy Papers, Central Bankof Chile, May 2005, www.bcentral.cl/eng/studies/economic-policy-papers/pdf/dpe13eng.pdf.52 UN-HABITAT, op cit., pp. 70-74.53 Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital:Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and FailsEverywhere Else (2000), excerpted athttp://ild.org.pe/en/mystery/english?page=0%2C0.54 Deepak Kindo, “Microfinance Services to theUrban Poor,” Microfinance Insights, March 2007;World Bank, “10 Years of World Bank Sup-port for Microcredit in Bangladesh,” Nov. 5,2007; “Micro Finance Gaining in Popularity,”The Hindu, Aug. 25, 2008, www.hindu.com/biz/2008/08/25/stories/2008082550121600.htm.

55 Michael Richardson, “Clinton Warns APECof ‘Digital Divide,’ ” International Herald Tri-bune, Nov. 16, 2000, www.iht.com/articles/2000/11/16/apec.2.t_2.php.56 Abigail Keene-Babcock, “Study Shows Halfthe World’s Population With Mobile Phonesby 2008,” Dec. 4, 2007, www.nextbillion.net/news/study-shows-half-the-worlds-population-with-mobile-phones-by-200.57 “Millennium Development Goals Report2008,” United Nations, p. 48, www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/The%20Millennium%20Development%20Goals%20Report%202008.pdf.58 Robyn Dixon, “Zimbabwe Slum DwellersAre Left With Only Dust,” Los Angeles Times,June 21, 2005, http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jun/21/world/fg-nohomes21.59 Ewen MacAskill, “UN Report Damns Mu-gabe Slum Clearance as Catastrophic,”Guardian, July 23, 2005, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/jul/23/zimbabwe.ewenmacaskill.60 Freedom House, “Freedom in the World2008: Zimbabwe,” www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/press_release/Zimbabwe_FIW_08.pdf.61 “Crisis Reveals Growing Finance Gaps forDeveloping Countries,” World Bank, March 8,2009, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:22093316~menuPK:34463~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html.62 “Swimming Against the Tide: How De-veloping Countries Are Coping with theGlobal Crisis,” World Bank, background paperprepared for the G20 finance Ministers meet-ing, March 13-14, 2009, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/NEWS/Resources/swimmingagainstthetide-march2009.pdf.63 “Major Victories for City Priorities in Amer-ican Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” U.S.Conference of Mayors, Feb. 23, 2009, www.usmayors.org/usmayornewspaper/documents/02_23_09/pg1_major_victories.asp.64 Carter Dougherty, “Chinese Premier InjectsNote of Optimism at Davos,” The New YorkTimes, Jan. 29, 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/business/29econ.html?partner=rss.65 Jamil Anderlini and Geoff Dyer, “DownturnCauses 20m Job Losses in China,” FinancialTimes, Feb. 2, 2009, www.ft.com/cms/s/0/19c25aea-f0f5-11dd-8790-0000779fd2ac.html.66 Joe McDonald, “World Bank Cuts China’s2009 Growth Forecast,” The Associated Press,March 18, 2009.67 “Bill and Melinda Gates Urge Global Lead-ers to Maintain Foreign Aid,” Bill and MelindaGates Foundation, Jan. 30, 2009, www.gatesfoundation.org/press-releases/Pages/2009-world

RAPID URBANIZATION

About the AuthorJennifer Weeks is a CQ Researcher contributing writer inWatertown, Mass., who specializes in energy and environ-mental issues. She has written for The Washington Post,The Boston Globe Magazine and other publications, andhas 15 years’ experience as a public-policy analyst, lobbyistand congressional staffer. She has an A.B. degree fromWilliams College and master’s degrees from the Universityof North Carolina and Harvard. Her previous CQ GlobalResearcher examined “Carbon Trading.”


-economic-forum-090130.aspx.68 Mark Landler and David E. Sanger, “WorldLeaders Pledge $1.1 Trillion to Tackle Crisis,”The New York Times, April 4, 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/world/europe/03summit.html?_r=1&hp.69 “Is Demolition the Way to Go?” WorldBank, www.worldbank.org/urban/upgrading/demolition.html.70 “What Is Urban Upgrading?” World Bank,www.worldbank.org/urban/upgrading/what.html.71 For more information, see “Urban PoorFund,” Shack/Slum Dwellers International,www.sdinet.co.za/ritual/urban_poor_fund/.72 Neal R. Peirce, “Gates Millions, Slum-Dwellers: Thanksgiving Miracle?” HoustonChronicle, Nov. 22, 2007, www.sdinet.co.za/static/pdf/sdi_gates_iupf_neal_peirce.pdf.73 “Statement at the African Ministerial Con-ference on Housing and Urban Development,”UN-HABITAT, Abuja, Nigeria, July 28, 2008,www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?cid=5830&catid=14&typeid=8&subMenuId=0.74 Michael Meyer, The Last Days of Old Bei-jing (2008), pp. 54-55; Richard Spencer, “His-tory is Erased as Beijing Makes Way forOlympics,” Telegraph (London), June 19, 2006,www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/1521709/History-is-erased-as-Beijing-makes-way-for-Olympics.html; Michael Sheridan, “OldBeijing Falls to Olympics Bulldozer,” SundayTimes (London), April 29, 2007, www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/china/article1719945.ece.75 Meyer, op. cit., pp. 45, 52.76 Solomon J. Greene, “Staged Cities: Mega-Events, Slum Clearance, and Global Capital,”Yale Human Rights & Development Law Jour-nal, vol. 6, 2003, http://islandia.law.yale.edu/yhrdlj/PDF/Vol%206/greene.pdf.77 Slum Rehabilitation Authority, “Dharavi De-velopment Project,” www.sra.gov.in/htmlpages/Dharavi.htm; Porus P. Cooper, “In India,Slum May Get Housing,” Philadelphia In-quirer, Sept. 22, 2008.78 Mukul Devichand, “Mumbai’s Slum Solu-tion?” BBC News, Aug. 14, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7558102.stm.79 Henry Chu, “Dharavi, India’s Largest Slum,Eyed By Mumbai Developers,” Los AngelesTimes, Sept. 8, 2008, www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-dharavi8-2008sep08,0,1830588.story; see also Dominic Whiting, “Dhar-avi Dwellers Face Ruin in Development Blitz,”Reuters, June 6, 2008, http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-33958520080608; and

Mark Tutton, “Real Life ‘Slumdog’ Slum To BeDemolished,” CNN.com, Feb. 23, 2009, www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/02/23/dharavi.mumbai.slums/.80 Unless otherwise cited, this section is basedon “The 2008 Global Cities Index,” ForeignPolicy, November/December 2008, www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4509.81 T. Ramavarman, “Masdar To Proceed with$15 Billion Investment Plan,” Khaleej TimesOnline, March 16, 2009, www.khaleejtimes.com/biz/inside.asp?xfile=/data/business/2009/March/business_March638.xml&section=business&col=; Stefan Nicola, “Green OasisRises From Desert Sands,” Washington Times,Feb. 2, 2009, www.washingtontimes.com/themes/places/abu-dhabi/; Elisabeth Rosen-thal, “Gulf Oil States Seeking a Lead in CleanEnergy,” The New York Times, Jan. 13, 2009,www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/world/middleeast/13greengulf.html.

82 David Teather and Richard Wachman, “TheEmirate That Used to Spend It Like Beckham,”The Guardian, Jan. 31, 2009, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/31/dubai-global-recession; Robert F. Worth, “Laid-Off ForeignersFlee as Dubai Spirals Down,” The New YorkTimes, Feb. 12, 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/world/middleeast/12dubai.html; ElizabethFarrelly, “Dubai’s Darkening Sky: The CraneGods are Still,” Brisbane Times, Feb. 26, 2009,www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/opinion/dubais-darkening-sky-the-crane-gods-are-still/2009/02/25/1235237781806.html.83 Raja Murthy, “Taj Mahal Leads India’s Re-covery,” Asia Times, Dec. 3, 2008, www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JL03Df01.html.84 Joe Nocera, “Mumbai Finds Its Resilien-cy,” The New York Times, Jan. 4, 2009, http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/travel/04journeys.html.

FOR MORE INFORMATIONChicago Council on Global Affairs, 332 South Michigan Ave., Suite 1100, Chicago,IL 60604; (312) 726-3860; www.thechicagocouncil.org. A nonprofit research and publiceducation group; runs the Global Chicago Center, an initiative to strengthen Chicago’sinternational connections, and co-authors the Global Cities Index.

Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities, CAI-Asia Center, 3510 Robinsons EquitableTower, ADB Avenue, Ortigas Center, Pasig City, Philippines 1605; (632) 395-2843;www.cleanairnet.org/caiasia. A nonprofit network that promotes and demonstratesinnovative ways to improve air quality in Asian cities.

Institute for Liberty and Democracy, Las Begonias 441, Oficina 901, San Isidro,Lima 27, Peru; (51-1) 616-6100; http://ild.org.pe. Think tank headed by economistHernando de Soto that promotes legal tools to help the world’s poor move fromthe extralegal economy into an inclusive market economy.

Overseas Development Institute, 111 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE17JD, United Kingdom; (44) (0)20 7922 0300; www.odi.org.uk. An independentBritish think tank focusing on international development and humanitarian issues.

Shack/Slum Dwellers International; (+27) 21 689 9408; www.sdinet.co.za. TheWeb site for the South Africa-based secretariat of an international network of or-ganizations of the urban poor in 23 developing countries.

UN-HABITAT, P.O. Box 30030 GPO, Nairobi, 00100, Kenya; (254-20) 7621234;www.unhabitat.org. The United Nations Human Settlements Programme; works topromote socially and environmentally sustainable cities and towns.

World Bank, 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433, USA; (202) 473-1000;http://web.worldbank.org. Two development institutions with 185 member countries,which provide loans, credits and grants to middle-income developing countries(International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and the poorest devel-oping countries (International Development Association).

FOR MORE INFORMATION


Books

Meyer, Michael, The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in theVanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed, Walker &Co., 2008.An English teacher and travel writer traces Beijing’s history

and describes life in one of its oldest neighborhoods as thecity prepared to host the 2008 Olympic Games.

Silver, Christopher, Planning the Megacity: Jakarta in theTwentieth Century, Routledge, 2007.An urban scholar describes how Indonesia’s largest city grew

from a colonial capital of 150,000 in 1900 into a megacity of12-13 million in 2000, and concludes that overall the processwas well-planned.

2007 State of the World: Our Urban Future, WorldwatchInstitute, Norton, 2007.Published by an environmental think tank, a collection of

articles on issues such as sanitation, urban farming andstrengthening local economies examines how cities can behealthier and greener.

Articles

“The 2008 Global Cities Index,” Foreign Policy, Novem-ber/December 2008, www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4509.

Foreign Policy magazine, the Chicago Council on World Affairsand the A.T. Kearney management consulting firm rank theworld’s most “global” cities in both industrialized and develop-ing countries, based on economic activity, human capital, infor-mation exchange, cultural experience and political engagement.

“Mexico City Bikers Preach Pedal Power in Megacity,”The Associated Press, Dec. 28, 2008.Bicycle activists are campaigning for respect in a city with

more than 6 million cars, taxis and buses.

Albright, Madeleine, and Hernando De Soto, “Out Fromthe Underground,” Time, July 16, 2007.A former U.S. Secretary of State and a prominent Peruvian

economist contend that giving poor people basic legal rightscan help them move from squatter communities and theshadow economy to more secure lives.

Bloom, David E., and Tarun Khanna, “The Urban Revolu-tion,” Finance & Development, September 2007, pp. 9-14.Rapid urbanization is inevitable and could be beneficial if

leaders plan for it and develop innovative ways to makecities livable.

Chamberlain, Gethin, “The Beating Heart of Mumbai,”The Observer, Dec. 21, 2008, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/21/dharavi-india-slums-slumdog-millionaire-poverty.Eight boys growing up in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, talk

about life in their neighborhood.

Osnos, Evan, “Letter From China: The Promised Land,”The New Yorker, Feb. 9, 2009, www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/02/09/090209fa_fact_osnos.Traders from at least 19 countries have set up shop in the

Chinese coastal city of Guangzhou to make money in theexport-import business.

Packer, George, “The Megacity,” The New Yorker, Nov. 13,2006, www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/13/061113fa_fact_packer.Lagos, Nigeria, offers a grim picture of urban life.

Schwartz, Michael, “For Russia’s Migrants, Economic De-spair Douses Flickers of Hope,” The New York Times,Feb. 9, 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/world/europe/10migrants.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/P/Putin,%20Vladimir%20V.Russia has an estimated 10 million migrant workers, main-

ly from former Soviet republics in Central Asia — some liv-ing in shanty towns.

Reports and Studies

“Ranking of the World’s Cities Most Exposed to Coastal Flood-ing Today and in the Future,” Organization for EconomicCooperation and Development, 2007, www.rms.com/Publications/OECD_Cities_Coastal_Flooding.pdf.As a result of urbanization and global climate change, up

to 150 million people in major cities around the world couldbe threatened by flooding by 2070.

“State of World Population 2007,” U.N. Population Fund,2007, www.unfpa.org/upload/lib_pub_file/695_filename_sowp2007_eng.pdf.A U.N. agency outlines the challenges and opportunities

presented by urbanization and calls on policy makers to helpcities improve residents’ lives.

“State of the World’s Cities 2008/2009: Harmonious Cities,”UN-HABITAT, 2008.The biennial report from the U.N. Human Settlements Pro-

gramme surveys urban growth patterns and social, economicand environmental conditions in cities worldwide.

Selected Sources

Bibliography


China’s Air Quality

“Beijing’s Bad Air Days,” Bangkok Post (Thailand), Sept. 1,2007.Beijing’s air pollution isn’t any worse that is has been over

the past two decades, but it has become more political andintegral to China’s international image.

Kono, Hiroko, “Cooperation Needed on China’s Dirty Air,”Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan), April 24, 2008.Despite local efforts to curb Chinese air pollution, many

experts insist that international cooperation is necessary tofully address the problem.

Oster, Shai, “China Disputes Criticism of Its Air-PollutionData,” The Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2008, p. A7.Officials dispute charges that China’s air pollution has wors-

ened due to loose regulations and data manipulation.

City Migration

“Migration From Rural to Urban Areas Reversed,” TurkishDaily News, Dec. 27, 2008.The global financial crisis has caused many Turkish families

to return to their rural roots to survive the economic hardtimes.

“Small Cities to Drive Urban Growth,” The Times of India,June 29, 2007.While megacities continue to dominate the urban boom,

many smaller cities are growing at much higher rates, ac-cording to the U.N. Population Fund.

Kashif, Alia, “Urbanisation Increasing at 58 Percent,”Business Recorder (Pakistan), Sept. 30, 2007.Increased migration to Islamabad, Pakistan, has raised the

cost of accommodations, inflated food prices and increasedtransportation costs.

Obaid, Thoraya Ahmed, and Jean-Michel Severino Le Monde,“Urban Growth Is a Chance for Change,” The Guardian(England), July 6, 2007.Poverty may go hand-in-hand with increased migration into

cities, but it is not the direct cause of it.

Greening

“Activists Demand More Green Spaces,” Jakarta Post(Indonesia), Dec. 15, 2008.The Indonesian Forum for the Environment is imploring

the Jakarta city administration to implement more consistentand sustainable pro-environment policies.

“The Green Giant?” South China Morning Post, July 23, 2007.

Megacities and their efficient use of resources are the bestway for China to contain damage to the environment with-out hindering growth.

“Lagos — From ‘Ghetto’ to Garden City?” This Day(Nigeria), Sept. 11, 2008.The city government of Lagos has embarked upon an ag-

gressive campaign to plant 1 million trees in the region with-in a decade.

Rogers, Monica Kass, “It’s Not Easy Building Green,”Chicago Tribune, Jan. 31, 2008, p. C1.A lack of education about energy conservation and bureaucratic

obstacles hinder Chicago’s progress in becoming a greener city.

Natural Disasters

“China Heightens Grid-Building Standard to Guard AgainstDisasters,” Asia Pulse (Australia), July 3, 2008.China’s State Council has agreed to improve the disaster-

prevention capacity of the country’s power grid.

“World Bank Says Asian Cities at Risk,” Bangkok Post(Thailand), July 19, 2008.Coastal cities in Burma, China, Thailand and Vietnam are

among the most vulnerable cities in the world to climate-change-related rising sea levels, according to the World Bank.

Sharq, Masih, “Natural Disasters Can Strike at Any Time,”Daily Afghanistan, July 2, 2007.The deterioration of infrastructure in Afghan cities has made

them vulnerable to natural disasters, making it difficult to controldamage to human beings, property and infrastructure.

The Next Step:Additional Articles from Current Periodicals

CITING CQ GLOBAL RESEARCHER

Sample formats for citing these reports in a bibliography

include the ones listed below. Preferred styles and formats

vary, so please check with your instructor or professor.

MLA STYLEFlamini, Roland. “Nuclear Proliferation.” CQ Global Re-

searcher 1 Apr. 2007: 1-24.

APA STYLE

Flamini, R. (2007, April 1). Nuclear proliferation. CQ Global

Researcher, 1, 1-24.

CHICAGO STYLE

Flamini, Roland. “Nuclear Proliferation.” CQ Global Re-

searcher, April 1, 2007, 1-24.

Voices From Abroad:

DAVID DODMANResearcher, InternationalInstitute for Environment

and Development, England

Cities aren’t to blamefor climate change.

“Blaming cities for climatechange is far too simplistic.There are a lot of economiesof scale associated with ener-gy use in cities. If you’re anurban dweller, particularly inan affluent country like Cana-da or the U.K., you’re likely tobe more efficient in your useof heating fuel and in your useof energy for transportation.”

Toronto Star, March 2009

BABATUNDE FASHOLAState GovernorLagos, Nigeria

Megacities create manychallenges.

“Because of human activi-ties there will be conflict andthere will be the issue of se-curity, everybody fighting forcontrol, and these are someof the challenges that comewith the status of a megacity.It is really a status that createscertain challenges that thegovernment must respond to.”

This Day (Nigeria), November2007

JONATHAN WOETZELDirector, McKinsey &Company, Shanghai

Migration to Chinacould cause problems.

“The fact that 40 to 50per cent of [Chinese] cities[by 2025] could be made upof migrant workers is a real

wake-up call. Smaller citiesin particular are going toface a growing challenge ifthey are to provide equalaccess to social services.”

Irish Times, March 2008

THE WORLD BANK

Singapore does it right.“Improving institutions and

infrastructure and interveningat the same time is a tall orderfor any government, butSingapore shows how it canbe done. . . . Multi-year planswere produced, implement-ed and updated. For a city-state in a poor region, it isalso not an exaggeration toassert that effective urbaniza-tion was responsible for de-livering growth rates that av-eraged 8 per cent a yearthroughout 1970s and 1980s.”

World Development Report 2009

THORAYA AHMEDOBAID

Executive Director, U.N.Population Fund

Informal work has value.“Many of tomorrow’s city

dwellers will be poor, swellingthe ranks of the billion whoalready live in slums, but how-ever bad their predicament,experience shows that new-comers do not leave the cityonce they have moved. . . .They are also remarkably pro-ductive. Economists agree thatinformal work makes a vitalcontribution to the urbaneconomy and is a keygrowth factor in developingcountries.”

The Guardian (England), July2007

ZHU TONGEnvironmental Scientist,

Peking University

Different air standardscause confusion.

“Different countries varyin their air quality standards,and the WHO does nothave a binding set of stan-dards. China’s national stan-dards are not as high asthose in developed coun-tries, which has led to dis-agreements, confusion oreven misunderstandings.”

South China Morning Post,July 2008

SUDIRMAN NASIRLecturer, University ofHasanuddin, Indonesia

Opportunities lead tomigration.

“The lack of job and eco-nomic opportunities in ruralareas justifies migration to thecities as a survival strategy.It is a rational choice madeby villagers because citiesgenerally have more jobs tooffer. It’s impossible to re-duce urbanization throughthe repressive approach.”

Jakarta Post (Indonesia), October 2008

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