ARI Working Paper Series

With Asia expected to add more than a billion people to its urban population by mid-century, attention is turning toward cities as spheres of governance for meeting pressing social, economic and environmental concerns and fulfilling people’s aspirations for a better life. Asia’s accelerated urbanization is a major contributor to an on-going global urban transition that will see the entire world become an estimated 85 percent urban by 2100, marking the 21^st century as one of profound transformations in society and human settlement of the planet. Key questions arise from this human engagement in citymaking. What are the purposes of making an urban world? Can the urban transition be steered away from the negative impacts already associated with it? Instead of being the source of anthropogenic destruction of the Earth’s biosphere, can cities generate more caring and nurturing relationships with the environment? In other words, can cities become a major contributor to human and planetary flourishing? As documentation of the urban anthropogenic sources of global climate change shows, the stakes in answering this question are very high.