Introduction

Asian urbanism: three challenges In 2017, we are repeatedly reminded that we live in an urban world. Indeed, as far back as 2008, we were told that for the first time in the history, half of the world’s population lived in urban areas. The United Nations (UN) estimates that at current urban development rates, more than 70% of the world’s population will be living in cities or towns by 2050 (UN-Habitat 2009). While it is true that hubris around a new ‘urban age’ has been a characteristic of scholarly and media activity over the past few years, urbanisation is today associated with three features that make it distinctive from past urbanisation trends. The first of these is the geographical scale associated with urban areas. There are now 35 megacities (defined as conurbations with a population over 10 million) globally: 22 of these, including eight of the largest 10 (by population size), are in Asia (UN 2016). This is markedly different from the situation several decades ago, when most of the world’s largest cities were found in wealthy Western countries. In contrast, the world’s largest urban areas are now concentrated in developing countries. Among eight so-called ‘hyper-cities’ (those with a population over 20 million), six are located in the Global South (UN 2016).