2008-2012 report: The International Geographical Unions Commission on Urban Geography: Emerging Urban Transformations

Christian Matthiessen
President
January 2. 2012

Context
The International Geographical Union established a commission on urban geography 1976, and this commission has been renewed and the goals reformulated since.

Since cities, with their distinctive processes and problems, are major features of the modern world, it is vital to focus on their characteristics, problems and solutions in a comparative global context. The Urban Commission is designed to encourage geographical research on emerging problems of contemporary cities and city systems, especially given the increasingly dominant role of urban phenomena. Previous IGU urban commissions have produced many publications, debated key problems, and have supported interaction among urban geographers from many countries. They have also exposed participants to the practical urban problems in different countries, providing them with unique and invaluable experiences to share with their students and colleagues.

By 2008 the world had more people living in urban settlements than in rural areas for the first time in human history. Although the transition from rural to urban lifestyles has already taken place in many countries, this urban change now affects the whole world, and is taking place at the same time as major new transformations in our existing human habitat. While the demographic explosion is a major cause of urban growth, we can also point to new communication and industrial technologies, the growth of service sectors, rapidly expanded spatial interaction and migrations, and the increasing speed and wider penetration of global capitalism by reduced trade barriers due to the reduction of trade restrictions and the spread of neo-liberal ideas.

As more of the world’s population lives and works within an urban habitat, the intrinsic properties of urban systems and urban settlements have become the most important determinants of human life. Within this newly urban world, the size and characteristics of the cities in which we live shape our life chances, our economic and social opportunities and our quality of life, especially within the huge metropolitan concentrations. But a series of emerging trends are rapidly transforming the character of these cities and hinterlands which influence so much of our day-to-day lives. These are seen in new combinations of urban land use mixes, varied degrees of concentration or de-concentration, changing spatial distributions of employment, income and ethnicity, a revived emphasis on civic culture and policies, increasing concern about the new hazards of the city life, in addition to an increasing recognition of the need to incorporate historical heritages and address the quality of life and amenities in cities. At the same time, these urban transformations have imposed even greater pressures upon the nearby countryside. A growing population consumes the resources from nearby communities and exports a variety of contaminants, creating an expanding ‘footprint’ of environmental impact, often with negative consequences for the quality of urban life. This has led to the increasing interest in the notions of ‘sustainability’, as well as the determinants of the ‘quality of life’, all of which support a variety of new and important research projects for urban geographers.

Although the various processes causing these urban transformations are common to many countries, the new changes in urban systems and the internal geography of cities, as well as concerns about sustainability, take different forms in different places. The result is increasingly complex patterns of urban systems and urban structures. But the common forces at work in our increasingly interconnected world do not necessarily lead to homogenous results. The many transformations that are taking place are contingent upon local and regional circumstances, and the results are frequently indeterminate, often with varied and unanticipated consequences. Thus there is a pressing need to identify, monitor and explain these new and emerging patterns of differentiation in our urban world, through international co-operation - patterns that have been summarized in the title of the 2008-2012 commission ‘Emerging Urban Transformations’.

Summary of questions addressed within the urban geography commission

Monitoring patterns
• Urban structure change
• Urban system change
• New types of urban spaces / places / flows
• New analytical tools

Processes and measures of change: the urban context
• Continued migration flows: rural to urban
• Natural increase high in parts of the world
• Land demand increase
• Car ownership rising
• Continued suburbanisation/de-urbanisation
• Network development: Multinational firms, production chains, innovation chains
• Rapid social / economic / political / cultural change
• Rich dominating poor
• New marginalisation / isolation / enclaves
• Identifying new drivers and innovations behind growth and change
• Climate change: urban consequences

System collapse
• Planning system failure to deliver effective solutions
• Environmental thresholds surpassed
• Financial crisis: neo-liberal globalisation in jeopardy
• Actual consequenses:
​ Peri-urban degradation
​ Declining / shrinking cities
​ New regulations (e. g. financial markets: nationalisation of banks)

New responses: perspectives ​
• The role of local government and governance in solving urban problems must be improved
• Metropolitan government needs to correspond with (greater) functional urban region
• Much better accessibility to capital
• New technologies and their impact on urban environments at different scales
• Environmental regulation enforcement: sustainability policies
• Land consumption / supply restrictions
• Urban concentration and diversification policies
• Smart growth, high priority on collective traffic
• Re-cycling of ”used” areas, urban restructuring
• Regeneration policies activated on shrinking cities (in affluent regions)
• Increasing focus on national urban systems
• Strategic planning
• Planning without re-distribution
• Discussion on new regulation / planning: urban / regional / national / supranational

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