Currently, an estimated one billion people worldwide live in informal settlements where they lack access to basic services and infrastructure and are often threatened with forced eviction. While the overall proportion of the world’s urban population living in informal settlements ...

Diana Mitlin is a Principal Researcher with the International Institute for Environment and Development’s (iied) Human Settlements program, conducting research on urban poverty and community development. Mitlin is also an academic, teaching on Global Urbanism at the University of Manchester. ...

As a filmmaker, writer, and editor, Cassim Shepard is particularly attentive to the many complex ways that rapid global urbanization is affecting people at a very fundamental level—what they see, feel, and do in daily city life. Commissioned by Design ...

Latin America’s rate of urbanization peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, during which the region’s cities saw unprecedented rural to urban migration. In the following decades, violence in many of these population-drained rural areas accelerated the flow of rural migrants ...

How can we ensure that all urban inhabitants have the necessary rights and conditions for a dignified and secure existence in the city? As the world rapidly urbanizes, the livelihoods, health, and safety of residents living in informal settlements remain ...

In 2004, Medellín – the second largest city in Colombia – introduced the Medellín Metrocable system to connect low-income residents to public transport. As the world’s first modern urban aerial cable car transport system, this innovative addition to Medellín’s existing ...