We have in recent years gained an increased appreciation of the economics of agglomeration from rapid urbanisation.
Similar in most Asian megacities high rise buildings predominate – so building at high densities by itself is not the answer.įinally in China most land ownership and gains from uplift of land value are captured by local government, so this is not by itself a solution to urban dysfunction. What has gone wrong?Īlthough in most of the world informal settlement predominates in this ‘Asian’ model of urbanization planned development predominates. 3rd Ring Road, 4th ring road, all comprised of mutually inaccessible superblocks of hyper-dense development all looking the same and having similar problems. The city keeps growing and the same principles are applied but the costs of maintaining the infrastructure of the city grow exponentially. Having been schooled on schemes of fractions of a Sq KM they have to design a city at 40-50+ sqkm in area and apply the same principles.
There is one task which seems to defeat urban planners around the world.
