Urbanisation and planning in the 3rd world : spatial perceptions and public participation

A major current development in the Third World is the rapid growth of enormous cities. These cities pose for planners amazing problems of overpopulation, slums and lack of urban services. Hitherto such planning as there has been has often been merely the imitation on a grand scale of Western planning. This has often been inappropriate and has often done little to solve problems.

This book reconsiders the whole question of urbanisation and planning in the Third World. It argues that public involvement, which is now an accepted part of western planning, should be used more in Third World cities. It shows that many inhabitants of Third World cities are migrants - often short-term migrants - from rural areas and that many have definite ideas about what the function of the city should be and what it ought to offer; and it goes on to argue that therefore a planning process which involves more public Cover photograph shows makeshift dwellings participation would provide a more sensitive approach, would better serve local needs and would do much more to solve problems than the present approach.