SFI Professor Luis Bettencourt is among the experts who participated in a live online chat August 29 about the role of urban planning in development.
Read the live chat here (August 29, 2013)
Urbanization, driven both by population growth and migration into cities, is "the defining phenomenon of the 21st century," according to the World Bank. An estimated 3.5 billion people now live in cities, and this growth is overwhelmingly concentrated in the developing world. Roughly 1 billion live in slums, usually with little access to water, sanitation or adequate shelter. Forecasts predict another 2 billion urban residents in the next two decades.
The online chat examined the health, safety, food security, infrastructure, and sustainability challenges of this rapid urbanization, considered how traditional urban planning can help, and asked whether new urban planning principles and approaches are needed.
Bettencourt, a member of SFI's Cities, Scaling, & Sustainability team and principal investigator for SFI's Informal Settlements Project, was joined in the online discussion by Manu Fernandez, urban strategist, Human Scale City, Bilbao, Spain; Victor M. Vergara, lead urban specialist, World Bank Institute, Washington D.C, U.S.; Jane Battersby, researcher, AFSUN, Cape Town, South Africa; and Alfredo Stein, lecturer, urban development planning, Global Urban Research Centre, University of Manchester, Manchester, U.K.