Economist Debates

Economist Debates: Cities……………………………………………………………. 

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About 

Economist Debates adapt the Oxford style of debating to an 

online forum. The format was made famous by the 186-yearold 

Oxford Union and has been practised by heads of state, 

prominent intellectuals and galvanising figures from across 

the cultural spectrum. It revolves around an assertion that is 

defended on one side (the “proposition”) and assailed on 

another (the “opposition”) in a contest hosted and overseen 

by a moderator. Each side has three chances to persuade 

readers: opening, rebuttal and closing. 

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Table of contents 

The motion .................................................................. 5 

Opening statements .................................................... 6 

The moderator ............................................................6 

The moderator’s opening statement ...............................7 

Defending the motion.................................................11 

The motion’s opening statement ..................................12 

Against the motion ....................................................15 

The opposition’s opening statement .............................16 

Rebuttal statements................................................. 21 

The moderator’s rebuttal statement .............................21 

The motion’s rebuttal statement ..................................25 

The opposition’s rebuttal statement .............................30 

Featured guest, Richard Dobbs....................................34 

Featured guest, Gyan Prakash.....................................39 

Closing statements .................................................. 42 

The moderator’s closing statement...............................42 

The motion’s closing statement ...................................46 

The opposition’s closing statement...............................50 

Winner announcement ............................................. 55 

Background reading ................................................. 58 

The supporter: Philips .............................................. 59 

Interview with Katy Hartley, Director, The Philips Centre for 

Health and Well-being ............................................... 60 

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January 11th -21st 2011 

The motion 

This house believes that restricting the growth of cities 

will improve quality of life. 

Just over half the world's population now call cities home. 

Soon some 500 cities around the world will have more than 

1m people each. Within a couple of decades, says the UN, 5 

billion people will live in cities, with the most rapid rise in the 

number of urban dwellers coming in Asia and Africa. 

Urbanisation typically comes, in the long term, with great 

gains to human development: it helps to create wealth, spur 

innovation, encourage freedom and improve the education of 

those who make it to town. But the rapid spread of 

sprawling, ill-planned mega cities, the rise of slums that are 

home to millions of the poor, the dreadful pollution and 

congestion common to many fast-growing cities, the rising 

power of urban gangs and even paramilitary forces in some 

countries, all suggest that too-rapid growth can harm, as well 

as improve, the residents' quality of life. So should, and 

could, the growth of cities be restricted, and by whom? 

Would restrictions improve the lives of city dwellers—and 

what of the lives of those left outside the city walls? 

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Opening statements 

Opening statements were originally published on January 

11th 2011. They can be viewed online at 

http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/639 

The moderator 

Adam Roberts 

South Asia Bureau Chief, The Economist 

Adam Roberts joined The Economist as an intern in the 

foreign department in June 1998. From December 1998 until 

May 2001 he worked as a writer on foreign affairs, based in 

London, with a particular focus on developing countries and 

transnational issues. From 2001 to 2005 he was the 

Southern Africa correspondent, based in Johannesburg. From 

2006 to 2010 he was the news editor of The Economist 

online and a regular podcaster. Since 2010 he has been the 

South Asia correspondent, based in Delhi. He has written a 

book about a failed coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea, "The 

Wonga Coup", published in Britain, America and South Africa 

in 2006. 

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The moderator’s opening 

statement 

January 11th 2011 

Thirty years ago my grandfather, Robert Roberts, wrote a 

book, "The Classic Slum", which told of his life growing up, in 

Edwardian times, in Salford, a slum on the edge of 

Manchester. Five years ago, as a correspondent based in 

Africa, I edited a book, "Soweto Inside Out", about Soweto, 

the enormous township on the edge of Johannesburg, South 

Africa's main industrial city. What struck me were the 

similarities between the two places—Salford and Soweto— 

even though they were divided by thousands of miles and a 

hundred years. 

Each was a magnet drawing migrants, local and foreign, 

seeking work, anonymity, a measure of liberty, a chance to 

travel or get educated, to make life richer for their children. 

Yet both booming places had suffered acute, and similar, 

problems—overcrowding, crime, ill health, poverty, bad 

transport, poor housing, abuse of children. Such miseries 

blighted the lives of many who got there. Yet such urban 

areas, for all their faults, represented hope. 

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Today, the world's cities continue to draw millions to them, 

at a pace that would bewilder those who lived in 

industrialising Europe, or in southern Africa a hundred years 

ago. I now live in India, where emerging mega cities—Delhi, 

Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore—are bursting with many 

millions of people, a great proportion of them recent arrivals, 

many living in unplanned areas and slums. In China, too, 

huge cities, especially along the eastern coast, have been 

erupting, swollen by millions of internal migrants. 

Just over half the world's population now call cities home, 

though for many a city means a slum. Soon some 500 cities 

around the world will have more than 1m people each. Within 

a couple of decades, says the UN, 5 billion people will live in 

cities, with the most rapid change coming in Asia and Africa. 

Urbanisation should bring great gains to human 

development: creating wealth, spurring innovation, 

encouraging freedom and improving education. But with for 

many—from Lagos to Nairobi to Mumbai—lacking sanitation 

or housing, without clean piped water, suffering from chronic 

pollution, the costs of rapid growth, at least in the short 

term, may be just too high. 

The UN has suggested that air pollution in China (mostly in 

its cities) may cause the premature deaths of 400,000 people 

every year. Pollution is similarly deadly in India. 

Communicable diseases—such as cholera, AIDS, malaria, 

dengue—may be especially easy to pass on in the slums of 

big cities. And any increase in extreme weather (storms, 

floods and the like) and a rise in the level of the sea will 

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affect those living on the coast in particular: note that many 

new mega cities are on or near a coast. 

How then to balance the benefits of urbanisation against the 

costs? In our debate we need to get some things clear. Can 

the problems of fast-growing mega cities be tackled in the 

short term, or is it better to wait until everyone gets richer? 

Is it the job of national, local or city governments, or of 

residents, or even private companies to try? Is restricting the 

growth of cities a smart response? Is it even possible, at 

least in democracies where freedom of movement is not 

restricted? And whose quality of life should we care about: 

those inside the city walls only, or those left behind on the 

farms and villages? If slum dwellers—for all the filth—are 

wealthier and healthier than villagers, whose job is it to keep 

them out? 

Our two contributors have made their opening statements. 

Chetan Vaidya, director of the National Institute of Urban 

Affairs in India, opposes our motion. He argues that cities 

bring great benefits to humans, and as for problems, it is far 

from clear how the growth of cities can be restricted. He calls 

instead for "well-managed" cities. I would encourage some 

explanation of what this could mean—might a well-managed 

city be precisely one in which unchecked growth is 

prevented? If authorities have the means to manage cities, 

could they not stop growth in the first place? 

Supporting the motion is Paul James, director of the Global 

Cities Institute at RMIT University in Australia. He suggests 

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that sprawling and bloated cities, mega cities with their 

slums, will be unable to give humans the best quality of life— 

a term that he helpfully offers to define as a life with 

"complex and rich relationships between people". But he also 

concedes that it is easier to wish for restrictions on the size 

of cities than to achieve them. To make the case for 

restricting cities, however, we need to think about how 

restrictions might work. Some cities try to limit the increase 

of traffic, some limit building. In some countries alternative 

developments—new towns and cities built elsewhere, capitals 

that are shifted—are set up to draw people away from the 

mega cities. Are such attempts worthwhile? 

Over the next two weeks, we will have the chance to debate 

such issues and more. 

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Defending the motion 

Paul James 

Director, Global Cities Institute, RMIT and Director, UN Global 

Compact, Cities Programme 

Paul James is director of the Global Cities Institute at RMIT 

University and director of the UN Global Compact, Cities 

Programme. He has been invited to deliver addresses in over 

20 countries and is author or editor of 24 books, including, 

most importantly, "Nation Formation" (1996) and "Globalism, 

Nationalism, Tribalism" (2006). He has been an adviser to a 

number of agencies and governments including the National 

Economic Advisory Council of Malaysia, and the Commission 

on Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor. His 

work for Papua New Guinea's minister for community 

development became the basis for the country's Integrated 

Community Development Policy. 

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The motion’s opening statement 


Humans are spreading across the planet in a way that is 

unsustainable. And cities, the places where most humans 

now live, are becoming bigger and more voracious exploiters 

of space than ever before. There is now a concept for it: 

urban sprawl. At the beginning of the 20th century, 

"sprawling" was what people would do when they stretched 

their bodies in a careless manner. However, by the middle of 

the century, a new connection had been made between the 

words "urban" and "sprawl". It was as if too many homeowners 

had become a bit careless and spread themselves 

across the peri-urban divide, spilling into the once fertile 

fields beyond the city walls. Nobody was to blame. 

Whatever the cause, and whoever is responsible, cities are 

sprawling across the landscape, consuming their own 

hinterlands, laying concrete over prime agricultural zones, 

and completely recreating the natural environment as an 

artifice of brick, steel, concrete, bitumen, borders and 

shrubberies. In a typical sprawling city, bitumen has been 

poured across a fifth of the total land area, just to facilitate 

the movement of cars. 

Sprawl, the relatively unbounded extension of buildings and 

infrastructure across the landscape, has become a way of 

life. It is associated with a dependency on cars, massive 

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increases in resource-use, the fragmentation of community 

and a more costly mode of living—all without necessarily 

improving the quality of life. 

Over the past few decades this has become expensive, 

environmentally damaging and time-consuming as work, 

leisure and home life have been increasingly separated and 

stretched apart. Urban commuters in New York, London, 

Melbourne and Vancouver spend significantly more time 

negotiating traffic congestion than they do in an activity that 

is as basic to life as eating with family and friends—and the 

situation is much worse in São Paulo, Bogotá, Los Angeles 

and Bangkok. 

The tragic irony is that sprawl is created by people seeking a 

better quality of life. We seek the vibrancy of the city and the 

space of the village, and in doing so we are destroying both. 

Developers clamber to make money by catering for our 

desires, and politicians are afraid that legislating for urban 

condensation, including through fixing urban boundaries, will 

drive up property prices and make them less popular with 

aspirational home-buyers. 

If sprawling is the first meta-issue in relation to the problem 

of ever-growing cities, then there is a second meta-issue for 

which we still do not have a specific word: cities are 

demographically exploding with increased numbers of people 

living in contiguous metropolitan zones. 

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There are minor counter-examples to this trend such as the 

rust-belt cities of America, and there are metropolitan 

regions that have complicated variable boundaries, such as 

the City of London versus Greater London, which make 

simple comparisons difficult, but it general the trend is 

towards burgeoning growth. In 1900, Mexico City had a 

population of 400,000; now it is over 20m. Istanbul had a 

population of 950,000; now it is over 10m. In 1950, New 

York was the only city with more than 10m people; now 

there are 25 mega cities according to the usual definition. 

None of those mega cities appear in the top 10 of the major 

indices of the world's most liveable cities, and of the 20 cities 

that appear regularly in that top 10, the largest is Toronto, 

entering the list of the world's largest cities at number 46. 

The next largest is Sydney at number 80. 

Of course, it is not metropolitan living, suburbanisation, or 

even the human shift to the predominance of city over rural 

dwelling that are the principal problems per se. Living in 

compact, well-planned, walkable and integrated cities is part 

of the solution to the issue of global sustainability. The 

problem is rather the kind of cities that we tend to create: 

sprawling and bloating. In the global south we see the worst 

of those excesses, with the burgeoning of hinterland slums, 

increasing at 6m people per annum. 

I thus want to argue that restricting the growth of cities—in 

the sense of limiting their sprawling and bloating—will, 

overall, improve the quality of life for humans on this planet. 

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This is easier to say than to achieve in practice. Ideologies of 

growth, dynamism, freedom and a borderless world continue 

to dominate discussions of what is necessary and good. But if 

"quality of life" means enhancing the depth, complexity and 

richness of the relationship between humans and nature, and 

the relations between ourselves and others, then developing 

the conditions for well-planned and more compact cities is 

part of the answer. 

There are many suggestions for enhancing urban quality of 

life. As a first step we should negotiate the end of urban 

sprawl by defining a city's boundaries as a fixed zone 

between city and countryside and treating this as more than 

a momentary halting of the expansion. Imagine a boundary 

to the city—some European cities have them—where the 

suburbs are edged by permanent forests and grasslands for 

leisure use, and by agricultural land for feeding the city. 

Imagine a series of compact and dense urban centres, 

punctuated by parks and threaded by bicycle and walking 

paths that give easy access for work and leisure. It might or 

might not make us happier, but studies suggest that overall 

we would be healthier, more engaged and less time-poor, 

and have a smaller environmental footprint. 

Against the motion 

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Chetan Vaidya 

Director, National Institute of Urban Affairs, India 

Chetan Vaidya has been director of the National Institute of 

Urban Affairs (NIUA) in India since February 2008. He is an 

architect and urban planner with over 30 years' experience in 

urban planning, finance and management. He works closely 

with the Ministry of Urban Development and assists various 

city and state governments in implementing reforms. He coordinates 

a number of urban studies, including City Cluster 

Economic Development in the Delhi region, Sustainable City 

Form in India, Property Tax Reforms, City Sanitation Plan 

Preparation and State of Cities Report. He also serves on the 

editorial boards of Environment and Urbanization Asia and 

Urban India. From 1995 to 2008 he was deputy project 

leader of the Indo-USAID Financial Institutions Reform and 

Expansion Programme (FIRE), a major objective of which is 

to develop commercially viable urban infrastructure projects 

with a focus on the urban poor. 

The opposition’s opening 

statement 


For the first time in our history, more than half of the human 

population is living in urban areas. It is clear that 

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urbanisation is inevitable, and countries need to improve 

their urban infrastructure and governance to enhance 

productivity and create jobs. Trends suggest that the 

concentration of population in large urban agglomerations 

will increase in future, leading to formidable problems of 

governance and service delivery. Restricting city growth is 

suggested as one of the approaches to manage this problem. 

I strongly oppose this on the following grounds: urban 

agglomeration provides opportunities for innovation and 

reducing costs; provision of urban services is not a function 

of city size but of co-ordination of different services; 

clustering of economic activities stimulates economic 

development; linking land use with public transport is more 

effective for sustainable and inclusive development. Above 

all, good urban governance is crucial. 

Cities are pools of skill, capital, information and, most 

importantly, innovation. Urbanisation promotes 

agglomeration economies, thus reducing the costs of 

production and services. Academic literature suggests that 

doubling city size will hugely increase productivity. Larger 

cities permit greater specialisation and allow more 

complementarities in production; they also facilitate learning 

within and across industries and sectors, as well as sharing 

and risk pooling. Agglomeration economies rely on basic 

infrastructure provision; inadequate infrastructure provision 

leads to diseconomies of scale that reduce the growth 

potential of a city. Thus urban strategy should focus on 

managing infrastructure provision rather than city growth. 

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A city needs a number of services such as water supply, 

waste-water disposal, urban transport, electricity, etc. 

Provision of urban transport could be classified into three 

groups. Smaller cities could have bicycles, buses and 

paratransit vehicles. Exclusive bus, light rail and tram 

systems would be suitable for medium-size cities (1-1.5m 

population). Large cities (2m and above) would, in addition, 

require mass-transit systems such as underground and 

suburban railways. Services such as water supply 

distribution, water and solid waste collection and roads could 

be provided in an incremental manner, but bulk water 

systems, waste-treatment plants and so on require a 

minimum city size. None these services has an optimum city 

size. What is important is co-ordination in delivery of all 

services. 

Many countries have tried to control city growth without 

success; others have advocated the use of urban-led 

strategies for economic and social development. For 

example, China has invested heavily in urban infrastructure 

and services in selected coastal cities and regions, special 

economic zones (SEZs) and export processing zones. In 

India, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission 

has earmarked funds to augment urban infrastructure and 

services in 65 cities, and the government is supporting the 

establishment of SEZs. In Malaysia, the government has 

pursued a clustered cities development strategy around 

Kuala Lumpur. In the Philippines, the government is 

developing the Manila region by supporting cities around 

metropolitan Manila and setting up SEZs. These strategies, 

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using city clusters as the leading edge for urban-region 

growth, constitute an important shift in the field of 

development. Business cluster development can be a way of 

stimulating urban and regional economic growth. 

Most cities in developing countries face urban transport 

problems that affect people's mobility and thus economic 

growth. These problems are caused by an imbalance in 

modal split; inadequate transport infrastructure and its 

suboptimal use; weak integration between land use and 

transport planning; and inadequate public transport, which 

encourages a shift to personalised modes of transport. Urban 

transport policies should focus on making public transport 

systems more attractive to use; the challenge is to provide a 

high-quality service at an affordable price. There is an 

increasing realisation that to become sustainable and 

inclusive, cities need to improve public transport and its 

integration with land use. 

Good urban governance forms the backbone of city growth. 

Empowering city governments functionally and financially, 

coupled with high levels of accountability and transparency, 

is crucial for the sustainable growth of all cities. This 

automatically translates to improved and efficient service 

provision. 

Thus, rather than restricting city growth, urban strategy 

should focus on harnessing the benefits of urban growth by 

managing it well, ensuring improved and equitable service 

provision and promoting good governance. Planners of 

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sustainable and inclusive cities need to review urban planning 

practices and approaches, be aware of resource constraints, 

and identify innovative approaches that are more responsive 

to current and future urbanisation challenges. 

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Rebuttal statements 

Rebuttal statements were originally published on January 

14th 2011. They can be viewed online at 


The moderator 

Adam Roberts 


The moderator’s rebuttal 

statement 


Our debate has got off to a lively start, with engaging ideas 

from our contributors and from those who have posted 

comments. At this stage we might concede that different 

people will personally prefer different ways of living. One 

comment points to the joys of Tokyo, as a safe, well-run 

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place, where good public transport makes it possible to 

function happily even in the world's largest mega city. 

Others, especially those fond of things that only cities offer 

(a mix of cultures, anonymity, the thrill of discovering 

something new on your doorstep), might recall the old quip 

that if you are tired of London you are tired of life. Srinath 

Rajanna, in Bangalore, sees a big improvement in the quality 

of life, even in the spread of green areas, in that fastgrowing 

city. 

Others, naturally, turn instead to the pleasures of smaller 

cities, of rural life. MacSnodgrass is delighted not to 

commute, to be encouraged to walk and to live a rural life 

yet with all sorts of urban benefits. So here is a suggestion 

for our debate: might one way to consider restricting the 

growth of mega cities be to spread the benefits of urban 

living more quickly to rural areas? Right now, for example, I 

am in Gujarat, a state in western India which is already the 

most urban of the country's states and is urbanising fast. 

Efforts are under way by the state government to get more 

of the sort of advantages that city-dwellers enjoy (quick 

access to health care, broadband internet access, reliable 

power supplies and the like) to more villages and rural areas. 

Elsewhere in India a scheme—now mired in controversy— 

near to the commercial capital, Mumbai (once Bombay), has 

been started by a private company to construct a city, 

Lavasa, whose population would not rise above a few 

hundred thousand. As it is mostly on privately owned land, 

enforcing such restrictions might be possible. 

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In India, which will add many more to cities in the coming 

years, places that are currently smallish—100,000 or more— 

will become millions strong. We might offer more thoughts 

on what sort of restrictions (on the height of buildings? On 

the number of people allowed to be crammed into a small 

space? On slum landlords?) will be the smartest. I lived in 

London until recently, and am delighted that in the 20th 

century restrictions were placed around that city—the green 

belt—forbidding the building of houses in a large ring of land. 

That area provides cleaner air, a place for recreation and a 

chance to escape the urban bloating and sprawling, even if it 

also helps to push up the prices of houses inside London. 

We might think creatively about how actors can help to 

shape and restrict cities. Manhattan's skyline (or Mumbai's) 

is so high in part because water prevented its horizontal 

spread: buildings had to go up. Town planners can enforce 

artificial barriers around cities, limiting their physical spread, 

even if laws against rising populations are impossible. 

Alternatively, low-rise cities may be preferable—these might 

be encouraged with restrictions on how many storeys 

buildings are allowed. Those responsible for economic 

development impose other restrictions: it is rare for heavy, 

polluting industry to be allowed in the heart of a bustling 

modern city these days, at least not in the West; financial 

areas can be uprooted (think of La Défence in Paris, or 

Canary Wharf in London) and dropped in a new development 

zone. Where public transport networks go will dramatically 

define the nature of a city. More broadly yet, the 

development of economies will change cities: if your 

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economy largely relies on skilled information types who can 

work from home thanks to good digital connections, rather 

than big factories and car or textile plants, people are more 

likely to flee to suburban life. 

Last, back to those slums. What starts as a dreadful place to 

live in may yet, over time, turn into something much more 

appealing. Looking back at Soweto and Salford, for example, 

neither place might be reckoned the most desirable spot for a 

home, but in many parts the former slums have been 

gentrified, cleaned up, improved. The health care, education, 

electricity and cultural life available in Soweto are vastly 

better than you would find in most villages in South Africa. 

Perhaps other slums, too, in Latin America, Asia or wherever, 

can be made much more healthy places to live in with some 

minimal investments, for example in sanitation and security. 

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Paul James 



The motion’s rebuttal statement 


Next time let us debate the issue at hand. Rather than 

reaching for the myriad other important questions that 

intersect with it, frame it, or are consequent upon it, let us 

get down to the core issue and work through how cities can 

best respond to the quality-of-life crises that we face in the 

world today and into the foreseeable future: climate change 

degradation, alienation from nature, fragmentation of 

complex personal relations, an increasing xenophobia about a 

world of mobile strangers, and so on. 

Chetan Vaidya's response to what is one of the toughest 

questions of our time—setting limits to ourselves—is to avoid 

the heart of the question. Instead of quality of life in its full 

25


complexity, he focuses on two important but narrow and 

loosely correlated indicators: economic development and 

good management in the provision of urban services. If I was 

to use the rhetorical form of his core argument against him, I 

could simply say that economic development is not 

straightforward and has profoundly negative implications if it 

is not managed well. Here the important point is rather that 

the ideological "obviousness" of the correlation needs to be 

argued through rather than assumed. I am open to being 

convinced. And I look forward to hearing how this correlation 

can be made tighter. I also look forward to Mr Vaidya's 

defining what he thinks constitutes quality of life. At the 

moment it seems that he is arguing about "standard of 

living", a quite different consideration from "quality of life". 

This is a difference understood in even the most instrumental 

and technocratic of accounts and indices. 

Apart from our tendency to talk past each other in our 

opening statements, attentive readers will have noticed that 

on the surface we agree on many things. So let us get the 

points of agreement (and subtle disagreement) out of the 

way before going back to the core with our closing remarks 

in the next round. 

Mr Vaidya lists the terms of his position at the outset. Firstly, 

he says, "urban agglomeration provides opportunities for 

innovation and reducing cost". Yes, I agree. He will find no 

counterpoint here, except that it does not bear upon the 

question at hand. The argument is not whether urban 

agglomeration is good or bad for the economy, pools risk or 

26


reduces the costs of production. Yes, the intensifying density 

of urban development tends (and note the gentle qualifier) to 

do all of these things. The question is rather whether or not 

restricting the growth of cities will improve quality of life. It is 

not whether well-planned dense cities are economically 

dynamic. On this I agree that they can be. I am not arguing 

against "good cities". Given that we are talking practically 

about a particular moment in human history when cities are 

increasingly sprawling and bloating into megalopolises, then 

the implied and more practical question becomes: "Does not 

restricting urban growth of a particular city by democratic 

processes become one of the many possibilities in the 

repertoire of tools used by good governance and engaged 

civic decision-making in making for a better life for its 

citizens?" 

Secondly, he suggests that "provision of urban services is not 

a function of city size". Again, I tend to agree as long as he 

keeps to that wording (or, to be more precise, if he argued 

that the provision of urban services is not necessarily a 

function of city size). However, in the real world, city size can 

make a difference. In a sprawling city, for example, rolling 

out basic infrastructure costs significantly more and tends to 

work less efficiently than in a well-planned city with 

appropriate mixes of social density. 

Thirdly, it is suggested that clustering of economic activities 

stimulates economic development. There is that emphasis on 

economics again; and again I am not sure what the direct 

relevance is. Nevertheless, I can say that I tend to agree. 

27


This has indeed historically tended to be the case. However, 

it needs to be added that the point cannot be put so blithely. 

In the world that we are moving into, a world of 

megalopolises—that is, long chains of continuous 

metropolitan development or what Mr Vaidya calls "business 

cluster development"—this is no longer so obviously true. He 

says that "doubling a city size will hugely increase 

productivity", but is that always the case and does it not 

depend upon many things including the time frame in which 

the doubling occurs? In the world that we now live in would it 

actually lead to massive productively gains if we doubled the 

size of the Greater Mexico City region (currently 35m 

people), the Greater São Paulo region (43m), the Greater 

Manila region (33m), the Jakarta region (40m) or Mr Vaidya's 

own Delhi region (28m). That is, would he welcome the task 

of good planning in a Delhi of 50m people? Or let us double it 

again: 100m? 

Fourthly, linking land-use with public transport is advocated 

for effective sustainable development. Yes, again I agree. 

Fifthly, Mr Vaidya says: "Above all, good urban governance is 

crucial." Though I would hardly say that it should be situated 

"above all" other considerations, like most people, I simply 

agree again that good urban governance is crucial. The only 

thing that I would add is that in considering issues like 

containing urban growth in the context of sprawling and 

bloating cities I would consider using some of the tools of 

urban-growth management: urban-growth boundaries, 

limitations on the flow of traffic through environmental tolls, 

positive incentives and clear guidelines around well-designed 

28


and cost-effective housing developments that increase urban 

density within designated areas, sensitive community-based 

discussions around limiting family sizes and dealing with the 

rate of population growth, etc, etc. 

Finally, and perhaps because the other counter-arguments 

are only nominally related to the core question, a passing 

riposte to the core proposition is offered: "Many countries 

have tried to control city growth without success." Yes, that 

is very much the case; however, it does not make it a task 

that is therefore not worth attempting. Our moderator asks a 

more challenging question: "Is it even possible, at least in 

democracies where freedom of movement is not restricted?" 

The answer, which I will elaborate in the next round of our 

exchange, is "yes". Limits to growth can be handled with care 

and deliberative democracy. 

29



Chetan Vaidya 


The opposition’s rebuttal 

statement 


Paul James in his opening remarks said that we are creating 

sprawling and bloating cities. And the cities do not provide 

healthy living conditions. However, his solution to the urban 

sprawl—defining a city's boundaries as a fixed zone—is 

neither operationally feasible nor sustainable. Even if some 

European cities have been able to preserve green belts 

around them, there is a limit to controlling urban 

development, and controls could lead to corruption and illegal 

development. His further suggestion that the cities with 

restricted growth should be compact and dense, and with 

cycle and walking paths, is feasible and sustainable. So I 

agree with his proposal for the cities but not with his idea of 

30


restricting urban growth. 

Moreover, a review of voting patterns and comments shows 

that readers are strongly divided on this issue. I would like to 

respond in terms of the feasibility of restricting growth; the 

need to manage growth; planning for future cities; and the 

context. 

Restricting urban growth may have negative repercussions, 

especially in developing countries. No one has yet discovered 

a way to stop people coming to cities, even in authoritarian 

countries—possibly with the exception of the former Soviet 

Union. I understand that Queen Elizabeth I tried to stop the 

growth of London in the 1580s-1600s. The Abercrombie Plan 

of 1944 tried to stop the growth of London. But it didn't work 

and London became much better place to live in. 

Authorities should understand that managing cities is the 

need of the hour, not restricting their growth. Rapidly 

growing cities present challenges such as traffic congestion, 

environmental degradation and lack of civic services, which 

lead people to think that maybe restricting growth is the 

optimal solution. However, these challenges should not 

become reasons for restricting city growth. Government 

policies should proactively address such issues because they 

offer opportunities to produce innovative solutions. How to 

manage urbanisation and organise cities is one of the biggest 

challenges facing urban planners today. The economic 

growth momentum cannot be sustained if urbanisation is not 

accommodated and facilitated. 

31


Some people have asked what is a well-managed city? I 

think a well-managed city provides access to affordable 

housing and physical infrastructure, and a healthy living and 

work environment ensuring transparency and equity of 

operations. 

In China, growth and urbanisation have increased rapidly in 

the past 30 years through investment in infrastructure and 

the management of urbanisation. The government has 

developed internally consistent and effective practices across 

every element of the urbanisation operating model: funding, 

governance, planning, sector policies and shape. In contrast, 

India has only recently started thinking along these lines. 

Urban planning should encompass mixed land use, high 

density, energy efficiency and good public-sector transport. 

While in most of the cities in Asia and Africa growth will have 

to continue, a number of cities in Europe, America and 

Australia may not require further growth for a variety of 

reasons. We need to look at the context of cities, their 

growth trends and sectors, in specific detail. 

Developing economies have to tap the potential of 

urbanisation in a positive manner in order to achieve longterm 

economic growth. I strongly suggest that city growth 

needs to be responsive to the land market, linked to 

infrastructure and planned to promote ways of improving 

residents' quality of life, creating pleasant urban 

environments. 

32


Featured guest 

Richard Dobbs 

A director, McKinsey Global Institute and a director, McKinsey 

(Seoul) 

Richard Dobbs is a director of the McKinsey Global Institute, 

McKinsey & Company's business and economics research 

arm, and a director (senior partner) of McKinsey based in 

Seoul. From 2004 to 2009, he co-led McKinsey's corporate 

finance practice, where he was also responsible for research 

and development. He has served clients around the world in 

a variety of industries. He has written numerous articles 

about the implications of the financial crisis for companies 

and managing in a downturn. Other research has focused on 

urbanisation in India and China, long-term shifts in global 

investment and savings, currencies, performance 

management and measurement, mergers and acquisitions, 

valuation and utility regulation. His work has appeared in 

several books, including "Value: The Four Cornerstones of 

Corporate Finance" and "Valuation: Measuring and Managing 

33


the Value of Companies", and in other business and academic 

publications. 

Featured guest, Richard Dobbs 


The world is in the throes of a sweeping population and 

economic shift from the countryside to the city. Underpinning 

this transformation are the economies of scale that make 

concentrated urban centres more productive. The 

productivity improvement that comes from urbanisation has 

already radically reduced poverty in countries such as China 

and has the potential to do the same in many emerging 

markets. However, when they go wrong, cities can become 

disastrous mixtures of slums and gridlock. The question 

should therefore not be whether the growth in cities should 

be curtailed but rather how society manages the increased 

complexity that comes with the rapid growth of cities. 

The share of the world's population living in cities has just 

surpassed 50%. At the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), we 

see another 1.2 billion people joining the global urban 

population by 2025, 95% of whom will live in developing 

countries. Urbanisation has been an inevitable part of the 

economic development of countries. South Korea's more than 

tenfold increase in real per head GDP since 1960 was 

34


underpinned by growth in the urban proportion of the 

population from around 25% to 80%. Urban centres also 

allow basic services to be delivered in a more cost-effective 

manner. MGI's research suggests that services such as clean 

water or education can be delivered 30-50% cheaper in 

Indian cities than in rural areas. Our work has shown that 

urbanisation helps rural areas, too. The decline in rural 

population as a result of urban migration allows productivity 

improvements to be achieved in the countryside, raising rural 

incomes. So urbanisation can bring economic growth and 

poverty reduction to both urban and rural settings. 

However, the rapid growth of urban centres is a highly 

complex process and will require a long time horizon and 

extraordinary managerial skills to handle effectively. Cities' 

efficiency critically depends on the geographic distribution of 

residential housing and businesses, transport and other basic 

infrastructure networks. Many city governments are simply 

not prepared to cope with the speed at which their 

populations are expanding. 

Already there are plenty of examples of dysfunctional cities 

across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Without skilful 

management, large cities become centres of decay, gridlock, 

crime, urban sprawl, slum housing and pollution. The quality 

of life deteriorates and economic dynamism falters— 

eventually people leave. Diseconomies of scale replace scale 

benefits. 

35


Many large Latin American cities are now running out of 

steam because they have not been able to handle their 

growth. Mexico City, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Bogotá 

have all run into constraints. As urban centres have 

expanded they have "swallowed up" smaller neighbouring 

towns, but these towns have remained outside the larger 

city's jurisdiction. Fragmented political boundaries have 

diluted management responsibilities among mayors (often in 

multiple municipalities), state governments and federal 

agencies. Planning and policy too often have not been coordinated 

among these players, and, typically do not look far 

enough ahead. In Bogotá and Monterrey in northern Mexico, 

for instance, urban plans extend to only two years compared 

with 20 years in London. Compounding these governance 

issues have been unclear and insufficient local funding 

mechanisms. 

The world's mega cities—cities with more than 10m 

inhabitants—have been at the vanguard of global 

urbanisation and urban growth. Indeed, their number will at 

least double over the next two decades. But without effective 

management, these huge urban centres threaten to implode 

under their own weight and the momentum will shift to midsize 

cities where scale benefits are attainable with fewer 

planning and co-ordination issues. 

While we see mega cities contributing around 10% of global 

economic growth over the next two decades, what we 

characterise as middleweight cities (populations of 750,000- 

10m) will deliver the lion's share of global growth. At this 

36


stage of their development, the middleweights are more 

manageable—but they must ensure that they do not run into 

the same problems that mega cities have experienced as 

they grow. 

Cities can move decisively to tackle infrastructure gaps, 

improve planning, foster high-productivity jobs and overcome 

these diseconomies. There are five principles of effective city 

management that urbanising regions need to ensure are 

firmly in place. First, successful cities need sufficient funding 

to finance their running costs and the building of new 

infrastructure. Second, cities need modern, accountable 

governance. Many large successful cities, including New York 

and London, have opted for empowered mayors with long 

tenures and clear accountability; others such as Cairo and 

Mumbai have not. Third, cities need proper planning from a 

one-year to a 40-year horizon. Fourth, all cities should craft 

dedicated policies in critical areas such as affordable housing. 

Finally, governments should shape urbanisation. For 

example, a dispersed form of urbanisation is likely to be 

easier to manage and will avoid unnecessary migration. 

Urbanisation is an inexorable global force, powered by the 

potential for enormous economic benefits. We will only 

realise those benefits, however, if we learn to manage our 

rapidly growing cities effectively. 

37


Featured guest 

Gyan Prakash 

Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Princeton University 

Gyan Prakash is a historian of modern India and Dayton- 

Stockton Professor of History at Princeton University. He 

served as the director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Centre for 

Historical Studies from 2003 to 2008, during which time he 

directed a research programme on cities. Among his books is 

“Mumbai Fables”, which was published in 2010. 

38


Featured guest, Gyan Prakash 


Improving the quality of life in cities is a laudable aim, but to 

accomplish it by restricting growth goes against what they 

represent. 

Historically, cities have been the chief instrument and form of 

human advancement. Whether as centres of state power and 

mercantile activities in pre-modern times, or as hubs of 

industry, trade, colonial and national power in the modern 

age, cities have served as engines of human achievement. 

This is not to minimise their oppressive role, or the existence 

of urban poverty and exploitation. Analysts have spoken 

about the alarming growth of slums in the developing world 

with the runaway growth in urbanisation. With the fruits of 

globalisation going only to a few, cities like Mumbai, São 

Paolo and Nairobi exhibit staggering inequalities. All this is 

true. But even as cities contain examples of unspeakable 

poverty, disease, inequality, violence and state oppression, 

they also hold the key to the unlocking of human creativity 

and enterprise. Concentrations of culture, economy and 

politics have made cities the heart of ingenuity and 

advancement. All our great art, literature, cinema, science 

and technology would be unimaginable without cities. 

Let us take the example of Mumbai. When the Portuguese 

seized it in the 16th century, Mumbai consisted of seven 

39


islets of farming and fishing villages. As it came under the 

East India Company in the 17th century and became a hub in 

its trading network, the breaches were filled and the seven 

islets were forged into a single island city. Immigrants from 

all over India and beyond washed up on its shores as trade 

and industry grew in the 19th and 20th centuries. When 

India achieved independence in 1947, Bombay, as the city 

was then called, emerged as the ur modern city of the 

nation. Not only was it the centre of Indian capitalism, but it 

also housed many of the country's writers, artists and, of 

course, a thriving film industry. Most of all, the city 

fabricated a cosmopolitan society from immigrants with 

diverse religious, ethnic, class, caste and linguistic 

backgrounds. None of this was achieved without a terrible 

human cost. While the industrial and merchant princes 

accumulated fabulous wealth, the poor immigrants who toiled 

in the cotton mills and docks lived on pitiful wages and in 

abysmal housing. In recent times, Mumbai's economy has 

prospered under globalisation, but the population living in 

slums has grown exponentially. The urban infrastructure 

creaks under the rising pressure of population growth. 

But, as before, Mumbai's problems are attributable to its 

dynamism. It is because the city continues to attract 

immigrants, to promise them the vision of a real or imagined 

better life, that they make Mumbai their home. Consider, for 

example, Dharavi, a 175-hectare tract housing 800,000 

people. Until the late 19th century, Dharavi was a swamp. 

Poor migrants moved in from different parts of India and 

made the land habitable. It was through their 

40


resourcefulness that Dharavi developed a flourishing 

economy. Today, the clichéd description of Dharavi as "Asia's 

largest slum" depicts it as a place of misery and oppression. 

But observe the drive, the enterprise, the spirit of survival 

amid the incredibly wretched physical conditions, and you 

cannot fail to be uplifted. Rarely do you see idleness and 

despair associated with this "slum". From the establishments 

manufacturing leather goods for exports and selling knockoffs 

of designer brands on the main street to artisanal 

establishments in the congested inner lanes, the picture is 

one of pulsating energy. Dharavi is an economic success 

story that owes nothing to any government subsidy or urban 

planning. What you see here is pure Mumbai, a tribute to its 

spirit of human survival, ingenuity and collective solidarity. 

This is not to celebrate slums, but to recognise the 

enterprise, imagination and creativity that animate them in 

the face of tremendous odds. These spaces, which from the 

official point of view appear as what a sociologist has called 

"unintended cities", provide vital services to the urban 

economy. The answer to the improvement of their conditions 

is not "slum rehabilitation", which works as real-estate 

swindle to deprive the poor of their labour in making the land 

habitable. To improve a place like Dharavi, what is needed is 

not restricting its growth but assisting its residents in their 

struggle for survival—by providing adequate municipal 

services and infrastructure, credit facilities, and education 

and training. The state should learn from urban planning on 

the ground, recognising the desire for human betterment 

that the immigrants bring to cities as a source of strength. It 

41


is what makes, and has made, cities places of human 

dynamism. 

Growth is the Petri dish for improving the quality of life; its 

restriction would kill what makes cities cities. 

Closing statements 

Closing statements were originally published on January 19th 

2011. They can be viewed online at 


The moderator 

Adam Roberts 


The moderator’s closing 

statement 


42


It is rare for these debates to be so evenly divided: the 

voting for most days, so far, shows a 50:50 split among 

those following and contributing to the discussion. Some see 

a polarised discussion, yet a great deal is agreed upon. Our 

pro-camp favours restrictions on city sizes, but then defines 

these in a relatively soft way (no barbed-wire fences to keep 

the rural types away, no authoritarian state to order urban 

folk out to the fields). 

Our anti-camp makes a strong case for the benefits of 

urbanisation and cities, though concedes that big problems 

(huge numbers of people living in slums, miserably bad 

public transport and the like) may accompany fast-growing 

big ones. So the anti-camp proposes "careful management" 

of cities, meaning planned and organised centres that are 

designed for the well-being of those within them. 

How, then, to make a rather fine distinction between soft 

restrictions on the size of cities favoured by one camp and 

the careful management of larger cities proposed by the 

other side? This is not an argument about urbanisation— 

despite technology, the growth of service economies and 

some limited flight from large cities in rich countries, people 

like to huddle together and create wealth near to each other. 

According to the 2009 World Development Report, from the 

World Bank, on this subject (many thanks to one of its 

authors, who pointed me to it), half the world's production is 

crammed on to just 1.5% of its land. As long as being 

economically productive continues to matter, we are likely to 

43


keep squeezing closer and closer in urban areas, not spread 

ourselves apart. The question, then, is whether this means 

more mega cities, or lots more medium-sized ones. 

Some would make the decision on environmental grounds. 

But it is not clear whether (in rich countries at least) those in 

the biggest cities, especially the ones who make use of public 

transport and live in smaller and newer houses, have a worse 

environmental impact than, for example, the residents of 

medium-sized towns who get around by car and live in larger 

houses. 

Big public-transport schemes such as the metro in Delhi, 

where I now live, are expensive to build and are unlikely to 

be economically worthwhile unless there are huge 

populations to serve. Perhaps bigger cities, rather than 

medium-sized ones, have more options in developing the sort 

of systems that citizens like. 

Some would argue that, in future, economic demands will 

change: Paul James, the proposer of the motion, suggests 

that the search for continued growth—economic, 

demographic—is not sustainable. Restrictions on cities, 

therefore, would come along with efforts to temper economic 

growth and limit the consumption of finite resources, and 

with a greater awareness of the costs (to the climate, to 

biodiversity and the like). This would help to discourage the 

sprawling and bloating of cities. 

44


But such a case is easier to make when one already lives in a 

wealthy society and enjoys a long life expectancy. In the 

developing world where most rapid urbanisation will happen, 

and most mega cities will appear, the priorities for most 

people are to get some sort of lifestyle and standard of living 

that is typical in richer places. The creation of massive cities 

may be the most efficient way for Africans, Indians, 

Brazilians, Chinese and other people in emerging economies 

to get the sort benefits that most Europeans, Americans and 

Japanese—even those in small towns—take for granted. 

This is reflected in the view of Chetan Vaidya, the opponent 

of the motion, who makes a case that resonates particularly 

strongly in poorer countries, that bigger cities (if managed 

well) will bring people a higher quality of life. 

45



Paul James 



The motion’s closing statement 


Cities have always responded to crises according to the 

dominant philosophies of their times—sometimes well, 

sometimes badly. The dominant paradigm today, admittedly 

one under duress, says "growth is good". This time, however, 

the stakes are higher. What is under threat is the very 

foundation that sustains our quality of life on this planet. We 

face unprecedented issues such as climate change, peak oil, 

intensifying destruction of habitat and a complex condition 

summarised as "alienation from nature"—all issues 

associated with unmitigated growth; all issues which suggest 

that we should choose to limit ourselves. 

Limits to growth! Quelle horreur. One guest commentator, 

Gyan Prakash, enters the debate by saying that the essence 

46


of cities is growth itself. To limit growth is to "kill" cities. It is 

an extraordinary claim, but one consistent with the dominant 

conception of supply-side economics. As a crusading 

historian, Mr Prakash looks backwards to find painful but 

heroic growth stories. As a gentle planner, Chetan Vaidya 

focuses on the present and says that we need good planning 

in every respect, except for one: limiting growth. In this one 

area, he says, we must passively accept the hand that we 

are dealt. We have no choice: "urbanisation is inevitable". 

I am suggesting, rather, that we can make positive social 

choices grounded in open democratic decision-making 

processes. As local, metropolitan, national and global 

communities we can come together to decide and act upon 

our futures. Limiting the never-ending growth of cities— 

particularly mega cities—as I have made clear from the start, 

does not require restricting the intensification of urbanisation 

or limiting the percentage of those who live in urban settings. 

Urbanisation and cities are not the same thing. Urbanisation 

is the process whereby people increasingly choose to live in 

urban settings. Whereas cities are particular places of 

concentrated habitation, some of which are more sustainable 

and more conducive to enhancing quality of life than others. 

Another commentator, Richard Dobbs, comes into the debate 

to suggest that "urbanisation is an inexorable global force". 

And indeed, given where we currently stand in history, it 

seems to be thus. However, for me this does not address the 

main issue. I am simply arguing for limiting the growth of 

cities which are consuming beyond their means. Moreover, 

47


by concentrating on two dimensions of the unlimited growth 

of some cities—sprawl, defined as the never-ending 

consumption of the landscape; and bloat, defined as the 

ever-increasing consumption of energy, water and other 

resources—I have been very specific about what needs to be 

limited. 

The "growth is good" proponents present different versions— 

hard and soft—of what might be called supply-side urbanism. 

That is, they advocate, or accept, the necessity of giving 

consumers as much space and resources as they want by 

taking away all restrictions on supply. One exquisite and 

qualifying sentence stands out in Mr Dobbs's contribution. He 

says that "governments should shape urbanisation". That is 

exactly what I am arguing for. 

To argue against the unrestricted sprawling and bloating of 

cities is not to suggest that a barbed-wire fence be set 

around a city with perimeter guards to stop the movement of 

people into that city. That would be both revolting and 

absurd. Rather, limiting the growth of a city ideally begins 

with public debate about the means and processes of that 

delimiting. It then requires the institution of protocols, 

guidelines and—yes—legislation. People, of course, will 

continue to be free to move into cities, but that does not 

mean that they should be allowed by right to build their 

houses in green zones, in areas that have been set aside for 

common use, or on areas prone to dangerous flood or mudslide 

risks (over 600 people have just died in Brazil). 

48


Let us look at the issue of sprawl. Smart cities tend to use all 

the processes of good governance available to them. Urban 

zoning, for example, is a form of growth limitation used more 

or less successfully around the world, including in the global 

south. The setting of urban growth boundaries, or green 

belts, is just one form of such zoning, and it should be 

considered in the mix of many other possibilities. It has been 

differentially used in cities as diverse as Portland, Toronto, 

Oslo, London and Curitiba. Even the great sprawling 

megalopolis of Cairo is developing a green belt. And as Mr 

Vaidya has not told us, his own city of Delhi has its Master 

Plan 2021, which designates areas such as stretches of land 

along the Yamuna river not to be used for open development, 

as well as a green belt on the Delhi-Haryana border. 

If we turn to the issue of bloat, again cities have choices. 

Instead of cities being extraction entities based on an everincreasing 

growth in the import of consumption goods from 

elsewhere, citizens can choose to make their cities denser 

production entities, for example by "mining" and reusing 

their own waste, or by growing proportions of their own food. 

Cities can choose to limit car use by the nature of the road 

and mass transit systems that they build. Cities can legislate 

to limit the ways in which fresh water is wasted. Cities can 

choose to be different. 

Our contemporary planet, beset by climate change, resource 

depletion and self-destructive growth, is a different place 

than it was when a world-without-limits seemed to have 

common-sense veracity. Rather than going back to supply- 

49


side stories from the heroic past, we need to look forward to 

the future. The question becomes: "How can cities shape 

their urbanisation and limit their future growth in positive 

ways?" In this process, cities will change from being part of 

the problem to being part of the solution. 


Chetan Vaidya 


The opposition’s closing 

statement 


Our debate is at a turning point with the ideas from our 

contributors and from those who have posted comments. 

Adam Roberts, our moderator, mentioned a commenter who 

says that Tokyo is a mega city but is safe, well-run and has 

good public transport, which makes it possible to function 

50


happily. So size alone is not responsible for all the problems 

of our sprawling and bloating cities. And Mr Roberts says that 

although the green belt around London has provided cleaner 

air and a place for recreation, it has also helped to push up 

house prices inside the city. 

Gyan Prakash, one guest commentator, says that improving 

the quality of life in cities is a laudable aim, but to 

accomplish it by restricting growth goes against what they 

represent. Richard Dobbs, another guest commentator, has 

rightly identified four principles of effective city management: 

sufficient funding; accountable governance; proper planning; 

and the shape of urbanisation. He further adds that 

enormous benefits of urbanisation can be realised "if we 

learn to manage our rapidly growing cities effectively". 

Paul James in his rebuttal says that we should get down to 

the core issue and work through how cities can best respond 

to the quality-of-life crises that we face in the world today 

and into the foreseeable future. 

At this stage it is important to define quality of life. It is a 

product of the interplay of social, health, economic and 

environment conditions. This concept is much more 

comprehensive than a standard of living index, which is a 

measure of the quantity and quality of services and goods 

available. 

Anil Rai comments that there is a need to recognise that 

within the city environment, different social groups 

51


experience markedly distinctive environmental and social 

conditions of life. We are focusing on quality of life in the city 

as a whole. 

It is pertinent to list what both Paul and I more or less agree 

on: urban agglomeration provides opportunities for 

innovation and reducing cost; well-planned dense cities are 

economically dynamic; provision of urban services is not a 

function of city size; clustering of economic activities 

stimulates economic development; linking land-use with 

public transport is effective for sustainable development; and 

many countries have tried to control city growth without 

success. 

Given the definition of quality of life and points on which we 

agree, I now focus on issues on which we do not agree. 

First, "restricting urban growth of a sprawling and bloating 

city by democratic processes would be a possible tool for a 

better life for its citizens". My view is, and this true to most 

sprawling cities in developing countries, that this is not 

feasible. The decadal growth of India's urban population was 

31% in 1991-2001. At the country level, natural increase has 

been the principal source of urban population growth, with 

rural-urban migration contributing around 20% of the net 

increase in the population. To create spatial growth and 

restrictions in large cities just would not work in this scenario 

and would lead to further informal settlement creation. 

52


Second, "in a sprawling city, rolling out basic infrastructure 

costs significantly more and tends to work less efficiently 

than in a well-planned city with appropriate mixes of social 

density". Here we are assuming that unrestricted urban 

growth leads to sprawling cities. It is not so. The growth of 

cities could be planned with an appropriate mix of land use 

and density that is efficient, effective and equitable. Thus, I 

go back to my original premise that managing cities well is 

far more important than restricting their growth. 

Third, "Is it always the case that 'doubling a city's size will 

hugely increase productivity' and does it not depend on a 

range of factors including the time frame in which the 

doubling occurs?" City growth is a dynamic process. Many 

social, economic and environmental factors work together, 

and the issue of time frame remains important. So, I believe 

that increasing city size with appropriate measures will 

increase productivity and quality of life. 

As well as good management, sustainable urban planning 

and monitoring its implementation is crucial for successful 

cities. However, in many developing countries such as India 

urban planning is based on ad hoc decisions that exist only 

on paper and have little or no impact. Exemptions to the land 

use and planning regulations are made either legally or 

illegally and compliance remains an issue. In light of this 

(weak urban planning systems and lack of strong urban 

management), one does not jump to an impractical 

conclusion and charge ahead with the utopian task of 

restricting urban growth to achieve improved quality of life. 

53


Rather, the focus should be on creating better urban planning 

and management systems to tackle the challenges in a more 

sustainable way, especially in the small and medium-sized 

towns/cities that are fast becoming the growth magnets in 

most countries. 

So, in conclusion, my position is that the challenges of urban 

growth call for stronger urban planning and compliance, 

shifting towards a sustainable urban form and ensuring good 

governance and management in order to improve the quality 

of life of all citizens, rather than distribution of urban growth. 

Mr James indicated that he would elaborate in this 

closing round of our exchange on his comment: "Limits to 

growth can be handled with care and deliberative 

democracy." I look forward to seeing what more he has to 

say on this. 

54


Winner announcement 

The winner announcement was originally published on 

January 21st 2011. It can be viewed online at 


The moderator 

Adam Roberts 


Winner announcement 

January 21st 2011 

Final vote: Pro:51% Con:49% 

Some debates erupt into sharp or bitter confrontation, with 

rival camps dismissing each other as foolish or wicked and 

blood pressure rising on each side. Others, such as this one 

on whether or how to restrict the growth of cities, produce a 

more thoughtful, detailed and perhaps more rewarding 

55


interaction. For this, and for their careful and detailed 

contributions, I thank our two main speakers, our guests and 

the many readers who have given their views. 

At the end of our discussion, it is clear that most agree that 

cities of various sizes bring their inhabitants—indeed the 

wider country—many great benefits. London's contribution to 

the economy of Britain, or the large proportion of India's tax 

revenues that Mumbai provides, are just two examples of 

how cities enjoy great advantages as wealth generators. The 

simple fact, too, that humans continue to flock to cities—to 

take advantage of the economic, cultural, political and other 

opportunities that are offered—is a powerful measure of their 

attractiveness. Migrants truly vote with their feet. And 

nobody, as far as I have noticed, has dared to argue that 

hard restrictions—laws preventing the movement of people 

into cities—should be used to stop such flows. 

Yet for all the pleasures that cities bring, our debate has also 

been clear that the fastest-growing ones, the mega cities of 

poorer and emerging countries, also contain horrors. Poor 

planning, massive inequality, rotten transport and the like 

may make some big cities miserable places for some of their 

inhabitants. And the problems found in the slums of such 

places are not easy to fix. For all the entrepreneurialism and 

energy of people crammed together in the poorest corners of 

Lagos, Rio or Delhi, better management of slums would 

surely be a good thing. But planning such places well in the 

first place, rather than after they have grown enormous, 

would surely have been a better way to proceed. 

56


We have heard references to the joys of smaller cities. In 

some places—including in India—efforts are under way to 

build cities that will not be allowed to bloat or sprawl, or to 

become larger than a few hundred thousand people. Where 

restrictions can be enforced (for example, where land is 

entirely owned by a private corporation) this may be possible 

to sustain. It is harder, however, to see how restrictions can 

really be kept in place in a typical, fast-growing town. 

The conclusion, then, seems to be that planning for the 

growth of cities also requires thinking about how whole 

states or countries will grow. India, where I live and work, 

has a strategy of building many new cities in the coming 

decades, for example along an industrial corridor between 

Delhi and Mumbai. Such places may draw people from other 

urban areas, but it is more likely that they will accommodate 

some of the tens of millions of people who will give up living 

in villages in the next few years. 

Those who have voted in this debate have shown an even 

division of views. Many days have produced a direct 50:50 

split. If there has been any trend, it has shown a slight 

shifting of support in favour of the motion—perhaps as it has 

become clearer that the restrictions proposed are soft, hardly 

more than giving incentives for discouraging too rapid growth 

of cities. You could argue that by defining restrictions so 

gently—almost no different from saying cities should be 

managed well—the camp in favour of the motion was rather 

cunning. Perhaps our voters, in plumping in the end for 

57


restrictions, concluded that soft ones were not too scary and 

that size, after all, does matter. 

Background reading 

Banyan: Asia's alarming cities 

A special report on smart systems: Living on a platform 

Slum populations: Slumdog millions 

America's suburbs: An age of transformation 

A survey of cities: Thronged, creaking and filthy 

Cities and growth: Lump together and like it 

Urbanisation: The brown revolution 

58


The supporter: Philips 

Philips' perspective 

It is estimated that half of the world's population currently 

lives in cities, and that this will increase to two-thirds by 

2050. City-dwellers are also living longer, and more often 

they live alone. These trends present new social, economic 

and environmental challenges which require innovative 

solutions. 

With a mission to improve people's lives through meaningful 

innovation, Philips offers many solutions that enhance the 

health and well-being of city inhabitants. Better lighting of 

public spaces, for example, has a positive impact on crime 

rates and road safety, and enhances community interaction. 

Philips' solutions also connect the hospital to the home, 

helping caregivers monitor patients from the privacy of their 

own homes, as well as families caring for elderly relatives 

living alone. 

The Philips Centre for Health and Well-being, a knowledgesharing 

forum to raise the level of discussion on what 

matters most to people and their communities, has recently 

released a report: the "Philips Index for Health and Wellbeing: 

A global perspective". This is based on responses from 

over 31,000 people across 23 countries who share their 

insights on what contributes to their overall health and well- 

59


being. www.philips.com/because 

http://www.philips-thecenter.org/ 

Interview with Katy Hartley, 

Director, The Philips Centre for 

Health and Well-being 


Q: What makes a city livable? 

A: The idea of livable cities is dual: the basics need to be in 

place (that is, clean air and water, energy and waste 

management), but, as for example The Philips Centre for 

Health and Well-being has shown in its Index 

research, quality of life is of equal importance. 

Security and safety, environmental friendliness and 

accessibility to transport, education, health care and 

recreational facilities are just some of the main quality-of-life 

attributes to which city dwellers generally aspire in their 

locality. But providing for all of these simultaneously and on 

a sustained basis is proving to be increasingly challenging, as 

livable city challenges vary greatly the world over. 

60


Q: Does the definition of livability differ in cities in 

developed and developing nations? 

A: In cities of the developed world, for example, crime, 

safety, CO2 emissions, recreational and public transport 

concerns are frequently most prominent. Conversely, 

sanitation and access to water, roads and other essential 

services tend to be the issues of primary concern in urban 

centres across the developing world. And it is in the 

developing world that urban growth is at its greatest, with 

cities gaining an average of 5m residents every month. Such 

widespread movement of citizens potentially poses a threat 

of demographic destabilisation, and requires a swift and 

appropriate response by a range of stakeholders. However, 

although there may be differences in terms of physical 

infrastructure—there are also many commonalities—people 

globally want a place where there are (economic) 

opportunities for themselves and their families; where they 

feel safe and included regardless of their age, sex or race; 

and where they are proud to live. 

Q: What is Philips doing to promote livability in cities? 

A: With a mission to improve people's lives through 

meaningful innovation, Philips offers many solutions that 

enhance the health and well-being of city inhabitants. Better 

lighting of public spaces, for example, has a positive impact 

on crime rates and road safety, and enhances community 

61


interaction. Philips' solutions also connect the hospital to the 

home, helping caregivers monitor patients from the privacy 

of their own homes, as well as families caring for elderly 

relatives living alone. 

It is also essential to provide forums for experts to discuss 

these issues. That is one reason why we established The 

Philips Centre for Health and Well-being, a knowledgesharing 

forum to raise the level of discussion on what 

matters most to people and their communities. The centre 

was launched in December 2009 and assembles think-tanks, 

bringing together multidisciplinary teams of experts from all 

over the world. The livable cities think-tank, working from 

Singapore, is taking a holistic view of a livable city and is 

defining "livability"; this includes a city being resilient, 

authentic and inclusive. The think-tank is also designing a 

self-assessment form that cities can use to take a more 

holistic view of their own "livability". 

We have also established the Philips Livable Cities Award and 

a community programme called SimplyHealthy@Schools. The 

latter is a global initiative that advises school children aged 

9-12 on how to stay healthy, incorporating a programme of 

changing classroom lighting to become more energyefficient. 

The initiative, operated by Philips employees 

working in a voluntary capacity, teaches the adults of 

tomorrow how to create a healthy life, community and 

planet. Topics such as light, air, water, oral health care, 

exercise and environmental conservation are explored in an 

interactive way, and a free-of-charge lighting upgrade is 

62


available for participating schools. Following a successful 

launch in eight countries (India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, 

the Philippines, Russia, Singapore and Thailand), which 

reached 5,000 students, the programme is expanding 

globally in 2011. 

Q: What is the Philips Livable Cities Award? 

A:The Philips Livable Cities Award is another global initiative 

launched in 2010. It is designed to generate practical, 

achievable ideas for improving the health and well-being of 

people living in cities. Individuals and organisations (such as 

businesses, community groups and NGOs) were asked to 

submit their ideas for "simple solutions" that will improve 

people's health and well-being in a city. 

To help translate these ideas into reality, three grants 

totalling €125,000 will be awarded. One overall winning idea 

from any of the three submission categories will receive a 

grant of €75,000, while the two additional ideas will receive 

grants of €25,000. The shortlist will be announced in early 

February and the three winners will be honoured at a 

ceremony in Amsterdam on April 27th. 

I am delighted to be representing The Philips Centre for 

Health and Well-being on the supervisory panel, along with a 

prestigious international panel of experts, chaired by urban 

theorist Richard Florida. 

63


Q: What are some examples of active initiatives that 

are helping to improve the health and well-being of 

people living in cities? 

A: Apart from what Philips is doing to enhance people's 

health and well-being in cities, we see lots of grassroots 

activity to help improve city living. 

One example that is a favourite of mine is "NORCs"—that is, 

Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities. These are 

popping up across America, for instance, and have developed 

in a variety of ways: ageing in place, where a large number 

of senior citizens stay in communities that they have lived in 

for years; in-migration, where a large number of senior 

citizens move into the community; and out-migration, where 

senior citizens remain in the community as younger residents 

move out. Many authorities, including the New York City 

Housing Authority, have embraced these communities and 

formed groups to provide support services. 

Another interesting initiative comes from the non-profit 

organisation KaBOOM!, which is dedicated to saving play. In 

addition to the all-volunteer, done-in-a-day playgrounds it 

builds with communities, KaBOOM! helps cities and 

communities make sure their children have the time and 

space to play every day. KaBOOM! do-it-yourself tools enable 

organisations and cities to build and improve playgrounds 

using volunteer labour. By empowering communities to build 

play spaces, KaBOOM! is creating healthier, happier and 

smarter children as well as greener cities and stronger 

64


neighbourhoods. KaBOOM! has built over 1,800 playgrounds 

and one day hopes to see a place to play within walking 

distance of every child in America. 

These are the types of programmes we hope to support 

through the Philips Livable Cities Award. 

Katy Hartley is director of the Philips Centre for Health and Well-being, which 

is dedicated to improving the quality of life for people around the world by 

identifying barriers to health and well-being and developing solutions to 

overcome them. She is responsible for developing and managing the centre 

as an independent, creative and innovative platform to collaborate with key 

global opinion formers. Before joining Philips in August 2009, she worked at 

Royal Dutch Telecom (KPN), eventually heading the consumer division's 

communications team. She also worked at KPNQwest, a start-up European 

telecoms company, in strategic marketing and business development. She 

began her career as an industry analyst for International Data Corporation 

(IDC), focusing on e-business and the development of broadband internet. 

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