Towards Inclusive Urban Governance and Planning: Emerging Trends and Future Trajectories

In recent decades, the pace and scale of urbanization in many developing nations of Asia and the Pacific have been unprecedented. Globalization and neoliberal institutional reforms have accelerated the flow of capital and people into cities. Growing income/wealth inequality in societies across the world, both within cities and between urban and rural areas, has lately also been cause for deep concern. Whilst urbanization’s challenges are broadly common, this book signals the pressing need for seeking contextually appropriate responses founded on the premise of good governance. The enormous diversity within and across countries of the Asia-Pacific region makes urbanization related issues more complex, and attaining good governance and effective planning bedevilling. This chapter reflects upon and interprets the highlights of the book’s earlier chapters to clarify how emphases, approaches, and outcomes of planning endeavours vary across cities, and how their governance forms and reforms have been useful and/or wanting. It draws attention to some disconcerting trends as well as ingredients of success, which could prove instructive across contexts. It concludes by gleaning discernible trends and desirable trajectories for progressing urban governance—decentralization’s impacts on planning institutions and urban governance; prioritizing large infrastructure projects and spatial planning over basic services; advancing the use of technology to improve governance; and continuously enhancing the quality of participatory urban planning and governance. In stressing that outcomes are heavily shaped by the nature and capacities of extant institutions, the chapter reiterates the cliche-sounding importance of understanding and responding to context.