Chapter 1: Introduction

The developing world has seen an urban transformation dramatic even by the standards of our urbanized world today. Urban population in the developing world has overtaken that of the developed world in less than a generation. However, the urban challenges within this region remain diverse: managing the near-saturated urbanization in Latin America (the world’s most urbanized continent), rapid transformation into ‘metacities’ in Asia and the fastest rates of urbanization (albeit from a low base) in Africa. The urban growth in the tropics - much of it in the developing world - is particularly distinctive, from demographic, cultural and climatic points of view….