ABSTRACT
This chapter provides students through a series of possible geographies of urban futures. It considers the challenges that face cities, challenges that cities have contributed to and that they have been recognized as key arenas in the resolution of. The chapter explores some of the challenges to meeting these challenges. It also considers some possible future paths of urbanization that have emerged in response to the widespread recognition that urbanization, as it has largely occurred throughout history, is unsustainable. Though it discusses the limits of these emergent urban futures and the likely political, social, economic and environmental geographies that they might engender. In the face of recent global economic difficulties and shifting political priorities, the immediate extent to which urban agendas in the coming years will be shaped. Since the early 2000s cities have increasingly sought to integrate climate change concerns into their pursuit of wider urban goals, priorities and agendas.
