The Urban Transformation

For the first time in history, half of the world's population lives in urban areas and it is expected that, by 2050, that figure will rise to above two-thirds. A large proportion of this urban growth will be taking place in the cities of the developing world, where the provision of adequate health, shelter, water and sanitation and climate change adaptation efforts for rapidly-growing urban populations will be an urgent priority. This transition to an urban world could be a negative transformation; but, if well-planned, it could also offer an unprecedented opportunity to improve the lives of some of the world's poorest people.

This volume brings together some of the world's foremost experts in urban development with the aim of approaching these issues as an opportunity for real positive change. The chapters focus on three strategically critical aspects of this transformation:

• public health
• shelter, water and sanitation
• climate change adaptation.

These are considered using an integrated approach that takes account of the many different sectors and stakeholders involved, and always in terms of the solutions rather than the problems. The book offers a blueprint for action in these sectors and will be of great interest to academics and policymakers in all aspects of urban development and planning.

Elliott D. Sclar is Director of the Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CSUD) at the Columbia University Earth Institute and Professor of Urban Planning in its Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. An economist and urban planner, Sclar was co-coordinator of the Taskforce on Improving the Lives of Slum Dwellers, one of ten United Nation’s Millennium Project taskforces created to implement the Millennium Development Goals. Sclar is an economist and Urban Planner. His book You Don't Always Get What You Pay For: The Economics of Privatization (2000), a critique of overreliance on market mechanisms, has won two major academic prizes.

Nicole Volavka-Close is Associate Director of the Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CSUD) at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. She recently co-authored the paper ‘Traffic impacts on PM2.5 air quality in Nairobi, Kenya’ (2011) as well as the book chapter ‘Improving Population Health in a Rapidly Urbanizing World' for the volume, Urban Health: A Global Perspective (2011). She is interested in the interdependent issues of urban health, transport and land use, and climate change.

Peter Brown began his career as a senior editor at Scientific American, served as managing editor of Physics Today, and was named editor-in-chief of The Sciences in 1989. He remained at The Sciences until that magazine was closed in 2001. Shortly thereafter, he and his partners purchased Natural History magazine from the American Museum of Natural History, and he became editor-in-chief of that magazine. He now works as an independent editorial consultant.