Managing Metropolises by Negotiating Mega-Urban Growth (2013)

13 Managing metropolises by negotiating urban growth

Paul James, Meg Holden, Mary Lewin, Lyndsay Neilson, Christine Oakley, Art Truter, and David Wilmoth1

Two defining influences of the last hundred years have been population growth and rapid urbanization. At the start of the twenty-first century, it was recognized, often with an element of shock, that more than half of the world’s population had become concentrated in urban areas. It is now clear that this trend is continuing unabated as people move from rural to urban areas, lured by what is perceived as enhanced opportunities.

The proportion of people living in cities is expected to rise to almost 7 in every 10 people by 2050 (United Nations, 2010). More than 180,000 people migrate to cities every day (Metropolis International Institute, 2009). By the year 2030, the global urban population is expected to reach 5 billion—increasing from approximately 3.5 billion today. Most of this growth will occur in countries that are least able to cope with the increased burden on urban infrastructure, resources, and ecology. The emergence of the mega-city, of more than 10 million inhabitants, and the meta-city (over 20 million people) will characterize the twenty-first century. By 2020, it is estimated that there will be 12 mega-cities in Asia alone, and that all but four of the world’s mega-cities will be in the developing world. During the same period, Mumbai, Delhi, Mexico City, São Paulo, New York, Dhaka, Jakarta, and Lagos will have joined Tokyo by attaining the meta-city status.

Overcrowding and environmental degradation conspire to make the urban poor particularly vulnerable. One billion people—one third of the world’s urban population—live in slums, mostly in the Global South. Hundreds of millions of people in cities across the globe exist in desperate poverty, living in sub-standard accommodation, and without access to basic services such as clean water, sanitation, and health care. Urban issues, such as poor health and environmental degradation, cut across sectors and regions, reflecting the need for a comprehensive approach to urban policy. While metropolises in affluent countries are vastly better off, they must still deal with the challenges facing all modern cities: demographic change, urban densification, climate change, infrastructure provision, and global economic pressures, to name just a few. Cities per capita are the biggest consumers of the world’s resources and also the worst polluters. Their ecological footprint extends well into the hinterland. The combination of mass urbanization and a globalizing capitalist economy has exacerbated many problems and created many major new challenges.

Paul James, et al. ‘Managing Metropolises by Negotiating Mega-Urban Growth’, in Harald Mieg and Klaus Töpfer, eds, Institutional and Social Innovation for Sustainable Urban Development, Routledge, 2013.

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in Harald Mieg and Klaus Töpfer, eds, Institutional and Social Innovation for Sustainable Urban Development, Routledge, 2013.

218 James, Holden, Lewin, Neilson, Oakley, Truter, and Wilmoth

In response, innovative metropolitan strategies and master plans seek to manage urban growth. They aim to create a preferred urban form by channeling development through the use of urban growth boundaries, minimizing loss of agricultural land, using existing infrastructure efficiently, promoting poly-centric development and activity centers, investing in rapid-transit systems, and adopting innovative financing mechanisms. Metropolitan planning is thus a management tool for identifying and responding to challenges, improving communications between tiers of government and between stakeholders, prioritizing budgets, and guiding short- and long-term investment. These are positive steps. However, without government leadership, commitment, or funding, and in the absence of community engagement, metropolitan strategies are doomed to partial success or failure. Successful metropolitan plans are usually championed by strong visionary leaders, but, essentially, they also involve people and communities. They are characterized by a commitment, from all levels of government, to achieve strategic goals; a shared understanding of how to prioritize actions; an integration of land-use and infrastructure planning and delivery; but they also entail the committed involvement of civil society, the private sector and other stakeholders, working together transparently to develop and implement strategic plans.

This chapter, based on the work of Metropolis’s Commission 2, Managing urban Growth, explores the importance of managing urban growth as a manifold and integrated process, involving many initiatives and bringing together governments, municipalities, civil society, and business. We begin with a discussion of the challenges, move to discuss the various domains in which urban growth management should be considered, and then emphasize a series of dialectic tensions that require careful negotiation: authority–participation, inclusion–exclusion and needs–limits.

Challenges to managing urban growth

The nature of contemporary urbanization has exacerbated older trends and challenges. Urban corridors are, for example, a developing urban form that is incredibly difficult to manage. Often, they link mega-cities and encompass their hinterlands. In South-east Asia, the 1,500-kilometer belt that stretches from Beijing in China to Tokyo in Japan via Pyongyang (North Korea) and Seoul (South Korea) connects at least 77 cities with populations of 200,000 or more. This urban corridor accommodates more than 97 million people and links four megalopolises in four countries, effectively merging them into one. In Africa, the greater Ibadan–Lagos–Accra urban corridor is a key engine of West Africa’s regional economy, and stretches approximately 600 kilometers, linking Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and Ghana (UN-Habitat, 2010).

Cities are also becoming regions in their own right. The past 20 to 30 years has seen the emergence of cities that extend beyond their administrative boundaries and encompass rural hinterlands and semi-urban areas to create urban regions. In Thailand, the extended Bangkok Region is expected to expand another 200 kilometers from its current center by 2020, growing far beyond its current


Managing metropolises by negotiating urban growth 219

population of more than 17 million. In Brazil, metropolitan São Paulo already covers an area of more then 8,000 square kilometers, accommodating 16.4 million people. In South Africa, Cape Town extends to 100 square kilometers when taking account of daily commuting distances.

Urban sprawl, a trend long-associated with North American cities, is fast engulfing many countries in the Global South, where real-estate developers are pushing life-styles based upon low-density urban spread. For example, in the Mexican city of Guadalajara between 1970 and 2000, the surface area of the city grew 1.5 times faster proportionally than its population growth. Similar trends are observed for Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar; for Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest commercial hub; for many cities in China; and for the capital cities of Cairo and Mexico City. This urban sprawl comprises two main contrasting forms, often within the same city. The first is large peri-urban areas with informal and illegal patterns of land-use—this is characteristically combined with a lack of infrastructure, public facilities, and basic services, and often lacks adequate public transport and access roads. The second form is suburban sprawl, which is treated by the middle classes as a place of well-resourced retreat.

Urban sprawl has a negative impact on the sustainability of cities. In most cases, sprawl translates into an increase in the cost of transport, public infrastructure, and residential and commercial development. Moreover, sprawling metropolitan areas require more energy, metal, concrete and asphalt than do compact cities, most simply because homes, offices and utilities are set farther apart. In many places, urban sprawl encourages new developments that cause significant loss of prime farmland. Unchecked urban sprawl also furthers ecological degradation. Such is the case around several cities in Latin America, where extensive damage has been caused to environmentally sensitive areas. These include Panama City and its surrounding Canal zone, Caracas in Venezuela and its adjacent coastline, San José in Costa Rica and its mountainous area, and São Paulo in Brazil and its water.

Urban growth is associated with intensifying economic issues. Often, spatial sprawl and demographic growth outpaces the formation of jobs, enterprises and investment, cutting off major parts of society from employment in the formal sector, and giving rise to unemployment or underemployment. A main task of urban management in many cities is therefore to enable sustainable investment, enterprise development, and job-growth to keep pace with urban development. Wealthier cities do not tend to face a large pool of unemployed people or a dormant urban economy, but instead face shortages of skills, supply bottlenecks, and price escalation in housing and service markets.

Fast urban growth has mistakenly been seen by many city leaders as necessary for economic development, and is taken by some to be a sign of success. In one way, this belief has been put into practice through the massive counter-cyclical stimulus spending around the world in the urban sector during the recent (or current) global financial crisis. Whether this has been effective or not is a matter for debate. The limited results of decades of stimulatory spending on urban public works are exemplified by many Japanese cities (Brückner & Tuladhar, 2010; Fackler, 2009).



In this regard, some metropolitan planning has been criticized for being too focused on economic issues to the exclusion of other social concerns. For example, Sipe and Gleeson (2004) cite the planning of London, Singapore and Sydney.

A further set of challenges associated with urban growth cluster around issues of ecological sustainability. Climate change is profoundly affecting cities. As they grow, cities tend to become more vulnerable. The impact of climate change on cities ranges from unpredictable weather patterns and flooding associated with sea level rise, to heat-related illnesses and damage to infrastructure from more frequent extreme weather events. In 2009, 117 million people around the world suffered from some 300 natural disasters, including devastating droughts and massive flooding, costing nearly $15 billion in damages. Climate change directly affects ecosystems that produce the food and water resources on which cities depend, with disproportionate impact on poor and vulnerable urban populations. Extreme weather patterns threaten many cities, especially those in coastal areas, making them more vulnerable to natural hazards such as sea level rise and storm surges. For example, major coastal cities, many with populations exceeding 10 million, may be inundated if sea levels rise by one meter—for example, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles, New York, Lagos, Cairo, Karachi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Dhaka, Shanghai, Osaka–Kobe, and Tokyo (UN-Habitat, 2008).

More broadly, with urban growth, resources are under pressure and natural landscapes are also being traded off for settlement. As well as loss of prime agricultural land, there is a loss of biodiversity. The introduction of pollutants and non-indigenous species has negative effects on endemic species and biodiversity. In Delhi, for example, much of the Aravali Range has been flattened to accommodate encroaching urban expansion. Only a small part of the ‘Ridge’ has been saved and protected, leaving a much-reduced green space. Securing food for a growing population is an emerging issue across the globe and there is inadequate research to provide a clear way forward for cities. Ensuring food supply for cities calls for environmental management far beyond the urban area. It requires whole-of-cycle planning, extending from food production, distribution systems, household food preparation, and consumption to food wastage and recycling. Such holistic planning is seldom addressed.

All of these challenges are compounded by political issues, particularly those of governance, that intensify the complexity of managing cities, including:

• Lack of clearly defined responsibilities between levels of government andother actors in the urban system, including lack of clear authority to enableresponsibilities to be delivered;

• Failure to reflect local assets, issues, opportunities and distinctiveness or,equally, a failure to reflect upon global pressures;

• Lack of communication or conviction, or poor communication based on aninaccessible academic or technical style;

• Failure to harness the energies of all levels of government and the networkof broader stakeholders, including civil society and business, to contribute toimplementation;



• Lack of leadership by governments, leading to strategies driven by interestgroups or partisan experts who engage in local political legitimization andreflect niche rather than broader public interests;

• Lack of a commitment to implementation—including the inappropriate focusof resources towards dealing with day-to-day trouble-shooting rather thanlonger-term strategic implementation;

• A lack of clear focus and justification for development, particularly whenmasked by strategies intended just for city marketing;

• Weak strategic basis and over-generalized or vague objectives;• Lack of ownership of strategies throughout all tiers of government, making

strategies vulnerable to changes of government;• Inappropriate and narrow focus on economic development, thus sidelining

other urban development issues across the ecological, political and culturaldomains—including the culture of sustainability, the politics of inhabitantship and the economics of equality; and

• Lack of tools for implementation; investment; and allocation of capacity andresources.

(UCLG 2010; UNGCCP, 2010; Villesendevenir, 2010; Gleeson & Darbas, 2004; Sipe & Gleeson, 2004).

Responding to urban growth?

In responding adequately to urban growth, there are many virtuous circles of practice presented by different agencies and commentators, but they all effectively follow an ongoing cycle of activity that begins with: 1, commitment; 2, assessment; and 3, definition; and then moves to: 4, implementation; 5, measurement; and 6, communication (UNGC, 2010). This cycle continues in a spiral of overlapping projects and processes that all involve (re)commitment through to communication, and dialogue with actors within the city.

In grappling with the immensity of the issues of urban growth, reliable information and analysis are critical to effective strategic planning. For example, Moscow has identified the 2002 population census as providing critical demographic information in the face of rapid growth and construction. In Melbourne, the state’s Urban Development Program provides annually updated analyses of supply and demand for residential and industrial land across the metropolitan area (Victoria Government, 2010).

Strategies, plans, or policies are critical to successful urban growth management. Some cities have a regular review cycle; others have identified triggers for review, such as reaching a particular population level. Gyeonggi Province, in South Korea, has established a Growth Management Monitoring System using Geographic Information System technology to monitor land-use plans and land development projects via a series of growth management indicators. The system includes a range of geographic, regulation, planning, land development, and statistical datasets. However, the limiting tendency of most growth management systems is that they focus on infrastructure questions—infrastructure being one subdomain among



many of the much broader domain of economics—rather than the broad domains of social life that include economics, ecology, politics and culture. Without a cross-domain approach, we argue that technical planning is bound to fail. For reasons of space, we will focus here on the economic and ecological domains, but politics and culture will figure throughout our discussion.

Responses in the economic domain

Classically, urban planning and urban growth-management provide land and infrastructure for economic development areas, to enable, if not ensure, local or district economic development. Most metropolitan plans include similar objectives. However, cities that rely on zoning or master planning in this way often fail to serve the development of their region, as the mere reservation of land does not of itself bring about positive economic development (for example, refer to the conclusions of IEDC, 2008). Barcelona’s strategy for the territorial distribution of industrial activity, for example, has led to adjustments—because of unpredicted consequential urban growth from trade and leisure functions—towards a diffuse plan, that the present review of its territorial plan is attempting to correct.

In fast-changing cities, unplanned economic development is a massive challenge. While the National Capital Territory of Delhi is, in theory, a planned economy, it has opened up to markets and accommodated a large number of unplanned settlements due to the lack of adequate developed land at affordable prices. This is not to say that the rhetoric is not inclusive. The Master Plan for Delhi 2021 seeks to make Delhi a global metropolis and a world-class city, while also making it safe and inclusive, environmentally and socially sustainable, seeking to resolve the issues of informal settlements, and creating a robust, employment-generating economy. Areas in Gwanggyyo, Gyeonggi Province in South Korea, adjacent to Seoul, are being ‘reborn as original and creative places’ through civil investors and international expert groups. Each of the new specially planned zones in Gyeonggi Province has a distinctive economic base—for example, as an ‘education town’. In Madrid, the focus has been on promoting ‘the sustainable regeneration of the periphery’, renovating old industrial areas as ‘productive areas for innovation technology’. These include new spaces for entrepreneurs in advanced technological activities, and the development of a Technological and Scientific Park in Villaverde. All of this is good in theory, but the rhetoric and the reality do not always align. The range of considerations for positive urban growth management is extensive.

• Providing for land assembly and eminent domain. Where land availability is tiedto the capacity to assemble land, particularly through the use of compulsoryacquisition, these provisions can be stronger tools for economic development.However, this is only culturally and politically legitimate if handled as apositive form of exclusion within the law, and in accordance with humanrights obligations, including to customary land-holders and undocumentedsettlers (for example, refer to UN-Habitat, 2007).



• Establishing plans for integrated economic development and land-use. Integratedland-use and transport development is an important subset of activitiesrelated to economic development and more equitable distribution of jobopportunities. Melbourne, for example, formally requires simultaneoustransport and land-use planning decisions. Actions to co-ordinate householdlocation, employment/enterprise location, and transport networks can createpowerful economic development nodes within growing cities, preferably atlarge scale through the accumulation of linked activities. However, this hasnot prevented extension of the urban growth boundary on several occasions.

• Centralizing metropolitan planning and authority. Sometimes, metropolitandevelopment may fully integrate urban growth management within one agency.Developing one comprehensive development plan is more easily accomplishedwhen there is one metropolitan jurisdiction; however, this is rare.

• Demarcating particular economic precincts. Technology precincts and urban-based actions to enable innovation, science, and technology can be part of, orgive rise to, urban growth that needs to be carefully managed. The categoryincludes Incheon’s Free Economic zone, China’s Special Economic zonessuch as in Xi’an and Sushou, and technology development areas such asTianjin’s Economic Technological Development Area. However, the problemwith separating these precincts is that it either decreases livability in the zones or extends travelling times for workers.

• Developing a capacity for urban growth management. This area of intervention iscritical in matching economic development and urban growth management.Generally, for cities in the Global South, official efforts to provide development assistance through capacity building have been the least successful formof support (Fukuda-Parr et al., 2002). However, strengthening capacity isperhaps the greatest task in bringing economic development planning, andespecially local economic development practice, together with urban growthmanagement to find ways to effectively build capacity.

Responses in the ecological domain

Taking a strategic approach to the management of environmental resources is integral to good urban growth management. Hallmarks of integrated strategic urban development include setting urban growth boundaries, embedding good practice in the selection of brownfield sites for conversion to urban housing, choosing clear and manageable construction standards, providing infrastructure and services, and supporting the development of communities with appropriate environmental conditions and protections. Reducing urban ecological footprints—or at least, in the first instance, slowing their increase—must become a fundamental aim of urban growth management. Cities are a part of the environmental landscape. Urban growth management, including setting limits to geographical spread, is a means of conserving and wisely using environmental resources. This includes the containment and restricted use of ecological regions beyond settlement zones, ranging in scale from water-catchment basins to extended bioregions.



Governments of sprawling cities can take many actions to seek a more compact form, often also involving higher densities. Other cities, such as Cairo, with large, dense slum areas, are responding by reducing urban densities in core areas. In either case, limiting outward urban expansion can be combined with more efficient use of land resources and more effective protection of natural resources. City growth can be physically limited in this way through legislated urban growth boundaries, non-urban green belts, and the quarantining of development in certain areas. In Tehran, urban growth will have to respect a green band around the city’s boundaries and avoid any construction on the conservation areas indicated in the urban plans. New satellite cities around Tehran will help keep the equilibrium of the settlements within the metropolitan area. Priority has been given to the four new cities of Pardis, Parand, Hashtgerd, and Andisheh, each situated at a distance of more than 30 to 40 kilometers from Tehran.

Choosing land for new urban development needs to occur around integrated principles to minimize negative impacts and maximize environmental quality. In this manner, land categories protected from urban development should include protection and conservation areas, steeply sloping land, contaminated land, hazardous areas (especially conflict areas near cities), areas at risk of bushfires, flooding or future sea level rise, areas of heritage significance, valid non-residential institutional commitments, sacred lands, rare ecological habitats, water-catchment areas, prime agricultural land, mine-subsidence areas, national parks and other protected designations, and key open space and recreational areas.

Under conditions of population growth, limiting outward urban expansion requires active retrofitting of existing settlements, recycling the city to optimize resources, and using already-developed resources and innovative investment instruments. Opportunities for restructuring and retrofitting into environmentally-compatible and resource-efficient urban areas can be as diverse as the communities involved and, in varying environmental and cultural circumstances, can foster new prototypes. The favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the vast US ‘car-burbs’ and the historic cities of Europe and Asia offer very different scenarios for such strategies.

Urban growth management has long sought to create sustainable urban environments, and there is a large body of experience for cities to draw upon to inform their responses. Although this section focuses on responses linking the environment with urban growth management, the concept of sustainability also encompasses economic, cultural, and political dimensions, without which environmental sustainability cannot be pursued. The ‘greening’ of cities—their buildings, communities, and regions—is a major area of innovative responses.

• Green buildings: In the Bronx area of New York City, a public housing projecton the roof of a six-storey block will operate as a co-operative, meeting all ofthe fresh vegetable requirements for 400 people while retaining 750,000 litersof stormwater per year, and mitigating 80 tons of CO2 annually. If an optionalgrid-tied solar photovoltaic system is installed, the net electrical footprint ispredicted to be zero (Caplow, 2010).



• Zero emissions neighbourhoods (ZEN): In Melbourne, a program designedto shape the future of sustainable residential development is developingfour to six zero-emission communities over the next four years. They willshowcase innovative water, waste, transport and energy solutions, such aslocal renewable energy supply, sustainable master planning and design, on-site recycled water, and smart meters to help manage energy usage, walkablestreets, and bicycle networks.

• Carbon-limiting communities: The Beddington zero Energy Development wascompleted in 2002, and is the UK’s largest carbon-neutral eco-community—the first of its kind in the country. BedzED is a mixed-use, mixed-tenuredevelopment that incorporates innovative approaches to energy conservationand environmental sustainability. The design is to a very high standard and isused to enhance the environmental dimensions, with strong emphasis on roofgardens, sunlight, solar energy, reduction of energy consumption, and wastewater recycling. In Masdar City, 17 km southeast of Abu Dhabi, a plannedcarbon-neutral city is being built on 6 square kilometers. It will be home to50,000 people and 1,500 businesses, primarily commercial and manufacturingfacilities, specializing in environmentally friendly products.

• Renewable resources: With the prospect of oil production peaking, theintegration of renewable and less environmentally damaging energy sourcesis becoming essential. New systems to provide solar, wind, and thermal powerwill comprise a greater part of the urban infrastructure and will be integratedwith urban growth management. City leaders are embracing technology andinnovation to provide low-energy solutions, design sustainable cities, andfacilitate resilient communities.

In addition, new ideas are emerging and evolving, such as ‘the city as a farm’ and green buildings that control their environment. New dispersed-resource systems and localized energy production offer alternatives to singular, centralized systems—for example, through solar homes, rainwater tanks, and local food.

Responses in the political domain

Cities that consciously foster their organizational and human capital—through skilled workers, empowered communities, effective planning and development organizations, well-established companies, adequate training, and education programs—are better able to manage urban growth consistent with ecological and economic aims. Delhi has introduced city management through a process known as the Bhagidari system. In this, a number of civil society groups including resident welfare associations, market and traders associations, industrial associations and NGOs, have been empowered to take joint action with various government agencies on issues such as water management, rainwater harvesting, water and energy conservation, power distribution, and solid-waste management.

Efforts to manage urban growth tend to occur within the frameworks, conventions, and requirements of government structures—from the municipal



to the national. However, this very much depends upon associated political and cultural systems. These systems range from the constitutional requirements and structures that guide permissible management of urban growth—for example, different requirements for urban growth management between federal and unitary systems—to the cultural structures of cities, for example, as seen in Mashhad’s system of dual governance involving both the shrine and government. In managing urban growth, governance (a different concept from government) is the systems, process, and institutions through which inhabitants and groups make decisions. In this sense, powers and responsibilities rest both within and without the formal authority of governments.

Negotiating the relationship between authority and participation

For all the importance of government leadership in the area of urban growth management, the authority of the urban governance systems needs to be negotiated in an ongoing way in relation to the participation of the broad constituency of people living in the city. The nature of urban governance has become increasingly complex with the extension and integration of different technological and communication networks, and the increasing size of cities. This has meant that leadership, community engagement, and new ways of viewing the systems in which decisions are made have all become critical to managing urban growth. In the face of this complexity and rapid change, engaging stakeholders and forming partnerships is a key aspect of managing urban growth. No one agency or group can manage urban growth. Good urban governance requires equity of access to decision-making, with inhabitants engaged and empowered to actively contribute.

The UN Global Compact Cities Programme (UNGCCP, 2010) and the International Association for Public Participation (2007) Spectrum are two examples of initiatives designed to support the active engagement of a cross-section of the city in projects of change. Differing levels of participation are legitimate and depend on the goals, time-frames, resources, and levels of concern in the decision to be made. The organization Spectrum posits five key activities of engagement:

• To inform: To provide the public with balanced and objective information toassist them in understanding the problems, alternatives, opportunities and/or solutions;

• To consult: To obtain public feedback on analysis, alternatives and/or decisions;• To involve: To work directly with the public throughout the process to

ensure that public concerns and aspirations are consistently understood andconsidered;

• To collaborate: To partner with the public in each aspect of the decision,including the development of alternatives and the identification of thepreferred solution; and

• To empower: To place final decision-making in the hands of the public.



• With a complex variety of stakeholders and agencies involved in managingurban growth, good governance is supported by clear definition of roles,as this manages the expectations of those who would be included in thedecision-making process and facilitates clear and transparent governance.This is all part of the fundamental negotiation that is necessary betweenparticipation and authority; this is where the Cities Programme treatsthe issues as in a dialectical relationship. Across the tensions inherent innegotiating participation and authority, there needs to be consideration ofhow the engagement of locals is related to the authority structures that arealready in place. This is not to say that participation is better than authority,or vice versa. Rather, what needs to be considered is the degree to whichpeople can participate in a meaningful way, and how they do so in relation tothe forms of authority exercised within their city.

Negotiating the relationship between social inclusion and exclusion

Planning involves much more than achieving targets. It requires, amongst many other processes, negotiation the meaning of inclusion and issues of exclusion. That is, rather than assuming that all inclusion is positive, there is a need for a reflexive and negotiated relationship between inclusion and exclusion (UNGCCP, 2010). Positive social inclusion entails integrating individuals and groups into society. On the other hand, negative inclusion—for example, through the automatic and unplanned inclusion of an ever-greater number of people into a city—can lead to division and conflict within cities, which in turn call out for policy responses to span the growing gaps between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. Rapid and unplanned urban growth and strained economic, cultural, political, and ecological infrastructure are challenging most cities in developing countries when trying to deal with questions of social inclusion–exclusion. Anticipating problems of inclusion and exclusion puts cities in a better position to bridge the gaps and manage change.

A key argument in effective planning and policy for positive social inclusion is that equality lifts everyone. Here, however, achieving equality does not mean overriding foundational cultural differences, such as the customary sovereignty of land or relationship to place, in the name of property rights. Well-handled negotiation over equality and autonomy often leads to positive outcomes. There is mounting evidence, for example, of the link between equality and healthy development outcomes. Societies that are highly unequal are also highly exclusive in social terms. For example, in the United States, where 1 percent of high-earners control about half the nation’s wealth, such disparities are reflected in higher poverty levels, higher infant mortality, and lower life-expectancy in certain poorer sections of the population.

Positive social inclusion can be understood as policy that moves individuals and groups towards negotiated integration into society, whether by removing legal barriers to inclusion or by creating policies to encourage inclusion. Typically in contemporary debates, social inclusion is treated as a social good to be achieved,



and exclusion as a bad thing to be avoided (Eames & Adebowale, 2002). The issue that this very common conception of the problem elides is that, in certain circumstances, it is exclusion that leads to a social good. For example, in places where harassment is common or social difference is threatening, there may legitimately be a need to exclude outsiders from certain activities or places. Sometimes, even the open and mobile presence of others in a zone of difference—for example a customary sacred site—renders that site culturally and politically dead. A second, and more abstract point, is that concentrating on overcoming questions of exclusion tends to leave issues of exploitation unaddressed. Unless, for example, we take seriously the forms of poverty specific to being marginalized under contemporary conditions of globalization, exclusion is seen to have no perpetrator.

Seen in this way, exclusion or exploitative inclusion is the form that poverty develops in conditions where the realization of profit dominates economic operations; it represents the exploitation of the immobile by the mobile. The point is that, only by coming to grips with how—on what terms and who—a city, community or organization includes and excludes, can sustainable development in its most meaningful sense be implemented. In this sense, what we are arguing for is negotiated and reflexively understood forms of inclusion—positive inclusion—rather than inclusion for the sake of it, or empty inclusion akin to the over-generalized classical liberal notion of ‘equality of opportunity’.

Unplanned urban growth presents particular challenges for social inclusion. The case of India’s cities is illustrative. India already has some of the most densely populated cities in the world, with cities like Mumbai and Kolkata experiencing ten times the population density of New York or five times that of London. At the same time, Indian cities are subject to an influx of over 38,000 new residents every day as India continues to urbanize at a rapid rate. This situation puts basic necessities such as access to shelter, secure tenure, and land rights in question as the physical, cultural and governance infrastructures in these cities are overloaded. Such rapid urbanization and relocation creates large ‘floating populations’ of itinerant workforces and households, relatively invisible to formal registration and state recognition, political rights and service entitlements. Poorly serviced, temporary settlements become permanent and continue to expand with these newcomers, significant proportions of whom suffer from forced relocations and are cultural minorities or original peoples, struggling to retain and recover basic human rights. Thus, while populations of cities in the Global South explode, they may be also splitting and dividing, fostering conflict and insecurities, and calling out for policy responses to span the growing gaps in human and social service provision, in addition to the physical infrastructure deficits.

Negotiating the relationship between needs and limits

Economic development is the major driver of urban growth. However, all too often, considerations of the possibilities of development without economic growth are treated as beyond the frame of urban growth management. Urban growth



is frequently used as a means of stimulating the metropolitan economy, such as through counter-cyclical spending during the recent global financial crisis. However, some cities are learning that the pursuit of urban development based simply on increased consumption or resource-use is an unsustainable treadmill; the social costs of urban social ‘catch-up’ continue to be high.

A well-developed practice of local and regional economic development planning has helped disseminate the methods of promoting employment creation and business start-ups. However, a basic rethinking is under way as planning faces a new world of ‘limits to growth’ as we have known it: ranging from the negative, an intensifying scale of informal settlements in many urban regions; to the positive, the possibilities of ‘climate prosperity’ restructuring through supporting new industries associated with climate-change responses. The best approaches to local economic planning within urban areas are those that connect strongly to, or integrate with, urban growth management, in considering the relationship between the social, including economic needs of people and limits on never-ending expansion. In other words, negotiated emphasis on livable environments and economic dynamism (without the growth fetish) sets up the best conditions for continuing sustainable development.

One limit that has become increasingly obviously is the ecological sphere. All cities are, in the long term, dependent on positively sustainable environmental systems, but runaway urban growth places enormous pressure on finite existing natural resources. This occurs in different ways across the world. Environmental degradation in many Global South countries is directly related to the inadequacy of basic water, sanitation, and transport services, whereas in developed capitalist economies, environmental problems are more closely related to affluent lifestyles and high consumption levels. In both the South and the North, urban air quality continues to be a fundamental issue, directly related to the reliance on fossil fuels for power generation, industrial activities, and transportation.

The predicted consequences of climate change on ecosystems include threats to food production and water supply; inundation of coastal cities due to rising sea levels; increase in energy consumption (for both heating and climate-related cooling); damage to infrastructure; and increased physical risk and health problems. While responses to the challenges of climate change vary from city to city, by and large they require a strategic approach to integrated planning and management. Significant responses would, logically, include limiting cities’ ecological footprints, containing urban sprawl, limiting carbon emissions, and adapting to climate change.

Conclusions

Managing urban growth is not easy; it is not always politically popular. However, as shown by the Metropolis Commission 2 (2010) report, upon which this chapter draws, it can be achieved. Urban growth management is a dynamic part of public policy, private practice, and community action around the world. In a minimal sense, many cities in the Global North have taken urban growth management as



meaning the supervision of suburban development. This, however, no longer fits the scale of the task of managing the world’s exploding urban regions.

The role of authoritative leadership cannot be underestimated, and this needs to be integrated into the strong participation of different urban constituencies. The early, high-level plans that give rise to good urban growth-management frameworks come from leadership that includes the many groups with an interest in realizing and communicating the common vision that positive city management requires. The long-term path-dependency of urban development (where once we make a decision we cannot go back) means that, in accommodating urban growth, good, legitimate, and widely negotiated and communicated decisions are vital from the beginning.

Many cities have no choice but to cope with a tide of population growth as best they can. However, those that promote urban growth for its spin-off economic benefits ‘unleash a tiger’. The management task often becomes increasingly difficult and slowdowns or fluctuations remove the growth-dividend that the economy has relied upon. A governance focus on growth to the exclusion of other local development priorities can have adverse effects on quality of life for those currently living in the city. Conversely, addressing massive gaps in urban infrastructure and services is crucial and, in too many cities, these gaps are growing. The flood of migration to cities, the betterment of living standards, and further rising expectations cause demand for urban infrastructure and services to perpetually outstrip supply. Not only does this mean the further mobilization of finance and real resources to provide for future generations, but also new ways of financing city development, decentralized means of meeting local demands, and smart use of new and appropriate technologies.

Positive decentralization is important. Infrastructure and service provision may be incremental, local and through innovative methods. Strategies to build social cohesion ‘from the ground up’—micro-scale economic development, civic participation, education and infrastructure activities—are key to creating solutions that work for those most closely affected, those most in need of new services, and those who are marginalized from the benefits of life in the city. However, ‘the center still matters’. Urban infrastructure does demand strategic planning and co-ordination—and decentralization for its own sake raises a host of co-ordination challenges. An exemplary lesson learnt in Melbourne is that urban growth management, and in particular planning for urban expansion, must ensure that transport investment, land-use and economic development decisions should occur as part of the same holistic process.

No single form of governance best provides for urban growth management. The criteria for choosing the appropriate levels of responsibility are widely known—subsidiarity and local responsiveness, economies of scale, externalities, equity, access, and accountability—but the most effective governance frameworks for urban growth management are characterized by multi-sector partnerships of government, private sector, and civil society, such as practiced by the UN Global Compact Cities Programme.



A pervasive lesson for urban growth management is that its strongest tools are often indirect. The clarity of land-use controls like zoning can be overshadowed by the unforeseen consequences of fiscal and tax decisions, for example, and the more that city managers can understand these consequences, the more powerful their toolkit. Cities that learn from others manage growth better than cities that go it alone. Many of the successful case studies are marked by an openness to adapt lessons from elsewhere to meet local circumstances. Cities such as Bangalore make knowledge partnerships a key component of their metropolitan strategies. The same applies to lessons from urban economic development; new means of encouraging investment, enterprise development, and employment in cities, too often missing parts of urban growth management, can now call upon a bank of transferable ideas and experiences aided by the movement of key staff and advisers, and by the exchanges of city networks such as Metropolis. Nevertheless, cities are so different that solutions are not transferable without reflexive learning. Learning from others should not blind us to the power of local solutions to address problems of urban growth. So often, it is stakeholder commitment through the search for effectiveness that brings the optimum result, rather than the solution imported off the shelf.

Note1 This chapter is based on a major report for Metropolis, jointly authored by the listed

writers: Metropolis Commission 2 (2010), Managing urban Growth, Metropolis, Melbourne. With thanks to our colleagues at the Department of Planning and Community Development, Victoria; and the United Nations Global Compact Cities Programme, who also contributed to the report. Much of the empirical material in the essay comes from case studies developed through and by the many cities that contributed to the report.

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Managing Metropolises by Negotiating Mega-Urban Growth (2013)

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