ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the observed range in some of the most important growth aspects like urban footprint size and composition, growth rate, spatial constraints as well as growth attractors. The size of the urban footprint might provide a clue about the dominant urban growth type. Extensive concentric urban growth, as explained by central place theory only occurred in Beijing where the Forbidden City acts as the geographic centre from which the city expanded outward. A good example is Manila, for which the growth projections predominantly show an expansion of the primary urban cluster. The impact of size on the doubling period does seem strong when comparing the periods derived from the projected growth in the 2010-2060 interval to the observed growth between 1990 and 2010. The periods are significantly longer due to the absence of exponential urban growth that would be required to sustain the historic growth rates.
