“Urbanization is a vital phase of development, and if managed well, it can be a key driver of long-term economic growth in a country,” said World Bank president Robert Zoellick as his agency announced its ten-year urban development strategy. This appraisal strikes me as aloof, given the out-of-control urbanization patterns in the global south that are causing what Mike Davis famously termed a “planet of slums.” Asia’s urban population will reach 2.6 billion by 2030, according to the UN. By then Africa’s cities will more than double in size to 740 million people and Latin America’s cities will have to meet the needs of 600 million. How, given these astonishing realities, do we curb the growth of the world’s informal settlements, now one billion residents strong? What can governments do to mitigate the “push effects” of economic despair in agrarian regions that force too many people willy-nilly into cities?
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