Urbanization offers a tremendous opportunity to support a growing global population efficiently and humanely. Developing countries alone are expected to build more new city-area during the two decades leading up to 2030 than all of humanity has built throughout history (World Bank). China and India alone are expected to add at least 600 million new urban residents by 2030. The type of urban form these new cities, and new areas in existing cities, will take will strongly influence how and how long people will travel in the future. Moreover, the urban forms that are developed will be closely linked to the future of urban mobility.

Defining urban development

The term “urban development” can be a noun or a verb, and be applied to one subdivision of a city or to an entire municipal area. “Development” itself is a term that means different things to different people. EMBARQ held a panel on this topic in January at Transforming Transportation 2013 at the World Bank – an institution that has thousands of employees that work on “development”. But different divisions of the World Bank have different notions of what the term means, not to mention the millions around the world whose lives are affected by this work. Ideally, different perspectives – that of health and safety, inclusion and equity, accessible services – are part of how we approach urban development, and what we think “successful” urban development looks like on the ground.

What does good urban development mean to you?

What is your definition of good urban planning? Where do you see it in action? I will be posting over the next weeks on some key studies that were presented at Transforming Transportation. But I want to make sure you share your own point of you and good examples.