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Global Urbanization surveys essential dimensions of this growth and begins to formulate a global urban agenda for the next half century. Drawing from many disciplines, the contributors tackle issues ranging from how cities can keep up with fast-growing housing needs to the possibilities for public-private partnerships in urban governance. Several essays address the role that cutting-edge technologies such as GIS software, remote sensing, and predictive growth models can play in tracking and forecasting urban growth. Reflecting the central importance of the Global South to twenty-first-century urbanism, the volume includes case studies and examples from China, India, Uganda, Kenya, and Brazil. While the challenges posed by large-scale urbanization are immense, the future of human development requires that we find ways to promote socially inclusive growth, environmental sustainability, and resilient infrastructure. The timely and relevant scholarship assembled in Global Urbanization will be of great interest to scholars and policymakers in demography, geography, urban studies, and international development.

In his just-released Planet of Cities, Shlomo Angel argues that urban policy-makers and planners must do more to meet the challenge of urbanization. Angel, who is a member of the Urbanization Project at New York University and who conducted his research as a visiting fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, provides a detailed, data-driven analysis filled with maps of world urbanization patterns, as well as charts and tables documenting the challenges facing global cities. He took time out from his busy schedule to talk to Atlantic Cities about the key challenges facing our increasingly urban world.

In a piece called The Beauty of Urban Planning from Space, the Sustainable Cities Collective highlights views from space of uniquely designed street pattern designs in various cities around the world. There are ten examples that illustrate the zenith of urban planning. As attractive as the street patterns are, they highlight the inevitable inability of designers, or anyone else for that matter, to influence much more than small changes in the overall urban form.

Besides its appeal to a longue durée analysis, the topic of urbanism and utopia - and their links, of course - is today rather fashionable, whether one speaks of current exhibitions, critical insights on the idea of a capitalist Utopia, or even indirectly among the latest parliamentary reports.  In this series of three guests posts we will explore the definition of a Post-Utopian Urbanism, on the basis of various readings ranging from Lefebvre to recent writings of Jameson and Rem Koolhaas, and to a great extent indebted to David Harvey's seminal analysis of the links between capitalist transformation and our (post)modern perception of space and time (1989).

"n this series of three guests posts we will explore the definition of a Post-Utopian Urbanism, on the basis of various readings ranging from Lefebvre to recent writings of Jameson and Rem Koolhaas, and to a great extent indebted to David Harvey's seminal analysis of the links between capitalist transformation and our (post)modern perception of space and time (1989)."

The report "Innovation and the City" [PDF] is an important addition to our knowledge of urban policy innovation. It summarizes the results of a six-month research effort by policy researchers at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service and the New York-based Center for an Urban Future. The research team interviewed over 200 experts (including our own Emily Badger) and surveyed more than 120 policy innovations. (I should disclose here that I am Global Research Professor for the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies).

Urbanization usually leads to higher GDP because of higher levels of productivity, the report says, which is illustrated in the graph to the left. All five of the East Asia and Pacific countries in the graph show a steady increase in GDP per capita as people move to cities. But that did not happen for Sub-Saharan Africa; the graph on the right shows a sporadic relationship between urbanization and GDP.

Iberoamerican Center for Strategic Urban Development (CIDEU in the Spanish acronym), which has more than a hundred member cities, all of which have applied the Barcelona Strategic Urban Planning methodology.

n 2011, the World Bank initiated the Partnership for Sustainable Cities, a group of leading urban actors with a mission to collaborate on city development around the world and foster city-led sustainable development. This synthesis paper, Building Sustainability in an Urbanizing World, is a product of the partnership's early discussions. In this paper, members of the partnership have collaborated to identify and analyze the issues that guide their work together. The report summarizes the sustainability issues faced by cities and points toward the road ahead. It reviews successes in policy as well as investment and discusses what is needed to reach out to the rapidly growing cities of the developing world and make them effective users of existing knowledge. Examples of programs established by the partners are described in both the text and the Annexes. This report aims to be useful to the partners who contributed with knowledge and experiences, to cities who may benefit from an honest discussion of what works and what needs improvement, and to businesses and development practitioners entering the wide world of sustainable cities.

Thirty years ago, Curitiba, Brazil unveiled a master plan to address urban issues with environmentally-friendly public transit and social programs. FRONTLINE/World Fellow Tim Gnatek took to the busses, walkways and streets of the now world-renowned city for a second look at what urban planners and environmentalists around the globe point to as a world model.

Research of Shlomo Angel at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Comprehensive Atlas on Urban Expansion and Densities 1800-now. useful.

Expansion / Densification

policy and design research for urban computational systems in Amsterdam. VURB is a European framework for policy and design research concerning urban computational systems. The VURB foundation, based in Amsterdam, provides direction and resources to a portfolio of projects investigating how our cultures might come to use networked digital resources to change the way we understand, build, and inhabit cities.

Informal areas have largely been responsible for absorbing most of Egypt's growing urban population for the past 30 years. But most Cairenes didn't notice these areas - or ashweyat, as the areas with red-brick buildings and narrow, unpaved streets are loosely called - until the Ring Road was built around the formal city limits about 10 years ago. The road exposed neighborhoods that many residents had never seen before, showing them for the first time that formal Cairo had been completely surrounded by kilometer after kilometer of informal building.

his section contains some practical tools for you to try and work with. They have been used in 70 cities throughout Europe and brought important and innovative results. Have a look at: Future City Game - a team-based process designed to create new thinking and action to improve quality of life in cities Urban Ideas Bakery - builds skills and shares experience on how cities 'bake ideas' - that is turn them into practical solutions, Exploratory events - a series of events to provide a forum for sharing of knowledge and ideas about creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation in urban development.

software-based simulation model for integrated planning and analysis of urban development

Later for Tool development?

The Codes Project, developed under the guidance of Prof. Emily Talen at Arizona State University, is an impressive attempt to gather the variety of codes throughout history that have regulated land use into one useful directory. From the Code of Hammurabi to Seaside, Florida's Urban Code, you can download PDFs and compare these landmarks of regulation. You can even complete a "Synoptic Survey" and perform an urban analysis on your own town. An excellent, easy-to-use reference.

Spain may be facing significant economic and political challenges these days, but Barcelona's city-building remains one of the best models in the world. Few cities inspire my thinking more. Thus it was a fitting location for the second Global Smart City Expo/Congress, and my invitation to speak was a good excuse to return, and share some of the best "steal-able" lessons. The Congress may have talked a lot about urban technologies, but Barcelona reminds us how smart the fundamentals are when it comes to making great cities.

But the question remains: How exactly - in what ways and through which channels - does density make our cities more productive? That's where a recent study published in the Journal of Regional Science breaks new ground. Conducted by economists Jaison Abel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Ishita Dey of the University of Georgia, and Todd Gabe of the University of Maine, the study provides new evidence of the relationships between density, human capital, and urban productivity. It uses detailed statistical models to gauge more precisely the effects of density and human capital, separately and together, on productivity of more than 350 metro areas.

Also read: http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2012/2/6/from-the-mayors-office-part-1.htmlhttp://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2012/2/20/from-the-mayors-office-part-2.htmlhttp://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2012/3/12/from-the-mayors-office-part-3.html Fictional Mayor addressing his staff on sustainable urban development. Great tone.