ABSTRACT
It is now commonplace for research, policy papers and institutional strategies on urbanisation in the developing world to commence with quantifying the rapid rate of city growth, the type and scale of problems caused by urbanisation, and to reiterate that globally we are now living in an urban world (United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) 2001). Yet as a number of commentators have critically observed, the scale of this urban challenge and the problems and opportunities presented by the expansion of cities is not matched by a commensurate interest in cities within the general field of development nor among the external supporting agencies comprised of multilateral and bilateral development lenders and the wider development community (Satterthwaite 2001).
