ABSTRACT
The world is entering an ‘urban age’, it seems. We are continuously hearing doomsday predictions about the impending global urban crisis where, for the first time in the history of humankind, more people will be living in cities than in the countryside. The global south is apparently entering an urban age at a faster rate than the global north. We continuously see impressive graphs, pie charts and simulations of this impending urban age presented by ‘experts’ from global consultancies. The logics of these predictions have a dominant framing – rapid urbanization, uncontrolled migration, resource depletion, severe fuel shortages, and the breakdown of law and order. We are told that megacities such as Mumbai, Johannesburg, Jakarta and others face severe urban crises in the near future. So, we must be prepared. The solution is simple, they say. We should see urbanization as an opportunity and not as a challenge. We must build new cities to reverse the doomsday predictions. And we must build these cities fast.
