This special issue examines how cities in the Global South can predict & manage their expansion in effective, sustainable ways.
Urban population growth, now largely confined to the Global South, requires cities to implement effective strategies to accommodate many more people and to ensure that they live productive, healthy, and satisfying lives. The limited potential of infill and densification inevitably requires the conversion of very large areas in the surrounding countryside to urban use. This special issue considers how this can be done in an orderly, efficient, and inclusive manner, with conservation and climate change in mind.
Guest Editor: Shlomo (Solly) Angel
Making room for accommodating growth in cities is a two-pronged strategy: facilitating and promoting densification while, at the same time, preparing lands at scale for sustainable urban expansion in their periphery. Urban expansion in geographic space is often ill-defined and its measurement and projection into the future are controversial. ‘Sprawl’ is detrimental to the surrounding countryside, costly in terms of infrastructure, excessive waste in energy and resources, and increased GHG emissions. But the regulatory containment of urban expansion is problematic as it can result in land and house price inflation, making cities less affordable. When regulation or enforcement are weak, expansion occurs in a detrimental manner.
There is a window of opportunity currently that allows cities in the Global South to guide and shape their form—making them more productive, more inclusive, and sustainable while they are growing. Preparing for urban expansion with climate change in mind can ensure that expansion is not car-centric and that expansion areas are planned with broader Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in mind.
This special issue explores:
Lessons and guidance are provided for improved anticipation and planning for urban expansion. A sensible strategy is to prepare lands for expansion, and to prepare them with climate change in mind. As this special issue makes clear, this involves planning for expansion by focusing on simple strategic measures that local authorities can undertake (e.g. arterial roads, removing obstacles to transit-oriented densification along these arterial roads, facilitating land subdivision with small blocks, an adequate amount of land in streets in both formal and informal neighborhoods, protecting areas of high environmental risks as well as ecological assets from development, and ensuring the creation of a hierarchy of green public open spaces).
Urban expansion should not be perceived as an unpleasant burden to be avoided, resisted, or ignored. Instead, it is an opportunity and a challenge, with multiple benefits to be realized in coming decades if done correctly.
Urban expansion: theory, evidence and practice
Shlomo Angel
Complexifying urban expansion: an exploratory,
gradient-based approach
Steven M. Richter, R. Patrick
Bixler
Urban growth in peri-urban, rural and urban areas: Mexico
City
Gustavo Manuel Cruz-Bello, José
Mauricio Galeana-Pizaña, Salomón González-Arellano
Urban encroachment in ecologically sensitive areas: drivers,
impediments and consequences
Manja Hoppe Andreasen, Jytte
Agergaard, Richard Yao Kofie, Lasse Møller-Jensen, Martin Oteng-Ababio
Socioeconomic and livelihood impacts within Bangkok’s expanding metropolitan region
Gregory Gullette, Paporn
Thebpanya, Sayamon Singto
Planning gaps: unexpected urban expansion in five Colombian
metropolitan areas
Maria Monica Salazar Tamayo,
Johann Dilak Julio Estrada
Implications of urban expansion: land, planning and housing
in Lagos
Basirat Oyalowo
The urban expansion of Berlin, 1862–1900: Hobrecht’s Plan
Felix Bentlin
The Ethiopia Urban Expansion Initiative and knowledge
exchange
Patrick Lamson-Hall, Richard
Martin
Evaluating mitigation strategies for building stocks against absolute climate targets
L Hvid Horup, P K Ohms, M Hauschild, S R B Gummidi, A Q Secher, C Thuesen, M Ryberg
Equity and justice in urban coastal adaptation planning: new evaluation framework
T Okamoto & A Doyon
Normative future visioning: a critical pedagogy for transformative adaptation
T Comelli, M Pelling, M Hope, J Ensor, M E Filippi, E Y Menteşe & J McCloskey
Suburban climate adaptation governance: assumptions and imaginaries affecting peripheral municipalities
L Cerrada Morato
Urban shrinkage as a catalyst for transformative adaptation
L Mabon, M Sato & N Mabon
Maintaining a city against nature: climate adaptation in Beira
J Schubert
Ventilation regulations and occupant practices: undetectable pollution and invisible extraction
J Few, M Shipworth & C Elwell
Nature for resilience reconfigured: global- to-local translation of frames in Africa
K Rochell, H Bulkeley & H Runhaar
How hegemonic discourses of sustainability influence urban climate action
V Castán Broto, L Westman & P Huang
Fabric first: is it still the right approach?
N Eyre, T Fawcett, M Topouzi, G Killip, T Oreszczyn, K Jenkinson & J Rosenow
Gender and the heat pump transition
J Crawley, F Wade & M de Wilde
Social value of the built environment [editorial]
F Samuel & K Watson
Understanding demolition [editorial]
S Huuhka
Data politics in the built environment [editorial]
A Karvonen & T Hargreaves
European building passports: developments, challenges and future roles
M Buchholz & T Lützkendorf
Decision-support for selecting demolition waste management strategies
M van den Berg, L Hulsbeek & H Voordijk
Assessing social value in housing design: contributions of the capability approach
J-C Dissart & L Ricaurte
Electricity consumption in commercial buildings during Covid-19
G P Duggan, P Bauleo, M Authier, P A Aloise-Young, J Care & D Zimmerle
Disruptive data: historicising the platformisation of Dublin’s taxi industry
J White & S Larsson
Impact of 2050 tree shading strategies on building cooling demands
A Czekajlo, J Alva, J Szeto, C Girling & R Kellett
Social values and social infrastructures: a multi-perspective approach to place
A Legeby & C Pech
Resilience of racialized segregation is an ecological factor: Baltimore case study
S T A Pickett, J M Grove, C G Boone & G L Buckley
Latest Commentaries
Time to Question Demolition!
André Thomsen (Delft University of Technology) comments on the recent Buildings & Cities special issue ‘Understanding Demolition’ and explains why this phenomenon is only beginning to be understood more fully as a social and behavioural set of issues. Do we need an epidemiology of different demolition rates?
Where are Women of Colour in Urban Planning?
Safaa Charafi asks: is it possible to decolonialise the planning profession to create more inclusive and egalitarian urban settings? It is widely accepted that cities are built by men for other men. This male domination in urban planning results in cities that often do not adequately address challenges encountered by women or ethnic and social minorities. Although efforts are being taken to include women in urban planning, women of colour are still under-represented in many countries, resulting in cities that often overlook their needs.