2008-2012 report:
The International Geographical Unions Commission on Urban Geography: Emerging Urban
Transformations, C08.33
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 deconcentration, 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
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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 20082012 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
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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
Management and membership
The present Urban Commission is managed according to the rules of the IGU in having an
Executive, (Chair and two Deputy Chairs) and a Steering Committee. Members were chosen from
participants with records of high quality research, had equitable global and gender distribution, and
was elected by vote of the membership at large.
Executive Committee
Name
Address
Institute of Geography and
Geology - University of
Professor Christian Matthiessen Copenhagen
(Denmark)
Oster Voldgade 10
President
1350 Copenhagen K
Denmark
Professor Adrian G. Aguilar
(Mexico)
Associate Chair
Professor Celine Rozenblat
(Switzerland)
Associate Chair
Instituto de Geografia UNAM
Circuito Exterior, Ciudad
Universitaria
04510 D.F
Mexico
E-Mail
cwm@geogr.ku.dk
Adrian@servidor.unam.mx
Université de Lausanne
Institut de Géographie - Faculté
des Géosciences
Bâtiment Anthropole - Bureau celine.rozenblat@unil.ch
4064
Quartier Dorigny
CH-1015 Lausanne
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Members of the Steering Committee
Professor Lilian Barakat
(Lebanon)
Professor Kam-Wing Chan
(USA)
Professor Guoqing Du
(Japan)
Professor Andre Horn
(South Africa)
Professor Lienhard Loetscher
(Germany)
Geography Department
Faculty of Letters and Human
Sciences
St. Joseph University
Beirut
Lebanon
Dept. of geography
Univ. of Washington
Box 353550
Seattle
WA 98195-3550
USA
Rikkyo (St. Paul) University
College of Tourism
Niza Campus
1-2-26 Kitano
Niiza City
Saitama 352-8558
Japan
Department of Geography and
Geoinformatics
Univ. of Pretoria
Pretoria 0002
South Africa
Department of Geography
Ruhr-University Bochum
Universitetsstrasse 150
D-44780 Bochum
Germany
Ibarakat@usj.edu.lb
kwchan@u.washington.edu
guoqingd@rikkyo.ne.jp
ahorn@nsnper1.up.ac.za
lienhard_loetscher@web.de
Dept. de Geografía y Geología
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
Professor Jose Somoza Medina
24071 León
jose.somoza@unileon.es
(Spain)
Spain
Professor Michael Pacione
(United Kingdom)
Department of Geography
Univ. of Strathclyde
26 Richmond Street
Glasgow
United Kingdom G1 1XH
m.pacione@strath.ac.uk
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Professor Petros Petsimeris
(France)
UMR Geographie-cites
13, rue du four
75006 Paris
France
petsimer@univ-paris1.fr
In addition to the formal management of the commission two advisory committees was added in
order to increase participation within the commission: first, the expertise of long-term members is
available in a Mentors Committee, and second, a Younger Scholars Committee is encouraging
participation and ideas from younger participants.
Young scolars committee
A key aspect of the commission is the encouragement of younger scholars to participate in the
commission activities. The group has set focus on the city, and they look on urban space,
revitalization, tourism, social reality, urban identity, image building and urban marketing. As a first
result of the achievements the group has published a book: Pineira Mantinan M.J., Moore N. ed.
2011. New Trends in the Renewal of the City. Five authors from Poland, Cuba, Spain, France and
Ireland present papers on ´Swiebodzin, Havana, Bari, Paris and Dublin in a context of urban theory.
They illustrates that although the various processes causing urban transformations are common to
many countries, the new changes in the geography and marketing of cities, take different but still
similar forms from city to city. The group continues the work and is planning for a second
publication. To encourage activities the commission is using the IGU-grant as price money in paper
competitions for young scolars, Prices are paying for the winner (s) in participating at Commission
meetings. Webssite: http://www.unil.ch/igu-urban/page62288.html
Participation
Below is the list of nations indicating number of participants who have presented one or more
papers during the 4-year period. Alltogether the active participation of the urban geography
commission counts 51 nations and 254 persons.
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Active participants in the urban geography commission 2008-2012
Number per nation
Argentina
4 Hong Kong
1 Portugal
7
Australia
1 India
27 Rumania
1
Austria
1 Iran
1 Russia
1
Belgium
1 Iraq
1 Saudi Arabia 1
Brasil
9 Ireland
3 Slovenia
2
Canada
5 Israel
8 South Africa
7
Chile
5 Italy
2 South Corea
1
China
29 Japan
25 Spain
29
Columbia
2 Libanon
1 Sri Lanka
4
Croatia
1 Luxembourg
1 Switzerland
5
Czech Republic
3 Mexico
6 Taiwan
2
Denmark
2 Netherlands
3 Tanzania
1
Egypt
1 New Zealand 1 Thailand
1
Finland
1 Norway
1 Tunisia
1
France
6 Pakistan
1 United Kingdom6
Germany
12 Peru
1 USA
7
Greece
1 Poland
10 Zaire
1
Total
51 nations, 254 participants
Meetings:
The commission has carried out a series of meetings and joined the major events of the International
Geographical Union.
Tunesia 2008. August 4. - 10. (self organised commission meeting and the last meeting of the 20042008 urban commission, reported by the former steering commission), and 12. -15. at the 31.
International Geographical Union Congress. The congress venue was the KRAM palace, a large
complex of exhibition halls pretty unusable for meetings of the nature of the congress. Badly air
conditioned in the hot 40 C days, and laying all by itself in an industrial area to come. Organisation
was substandard and pricing was high. Definitely not a good experience. Anyway some 23 urban
geography commission papers was presented in a series of sessions.
Hyderabad, India 2009. July 30. – August 9, meeting & international conference. This conference
was held in keeping with the commission's tradition of organising annual meetings and international
conferences in different countries of the world. The conference brought to the fore the fundamental
and applied research on various aspects of urban geography. The objective was to provide a
common platform to the stakeholders from India and abroad to interact and exchange knowledge,
share experiences of success stories in Urban Planning & Development, and discuss constraints,
which will mutually help in evolving sustainable perspective and strategic plans for Urban
Development. The conference in Hyderabad was the 35th meeting of the Urban Geographical
Commission and was the first meeting of the commission in India. The theme of the conference was
“Multilayered Cities and Urban Systems”. The concept is spear-headed by an innovative approach
to understand the complex urban world from historically old ‘Urban Enclaves’ to contemporary
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‘Urban Networks’ in all dimensions of existence and transformations in their structures, functions
and transactions. The conference was organised by professor Geetha Reddy Anant, Osmania
University, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India and her energetic and dedicated team in cooperation
with a series of partners and sponsors and with the university staff and leaders actively
participating. The conference was attended by 65 delegates from 19 nations. It must be noted that
the meeting has comprised the best balance between male and female participants in the history of
the Urban Geography Commission (38:27).
Presentations and discussions took their basis in identification of different monitoring patterns on
urban structure change, urban system change, new types of urban spaces / places / flows and new
analytical tools. Types of processes and measures of change comprise continued migration flows
from rural to urban and continuation and extension of natural increase. Both processes are highly
active in wide parts of the world. Land demand for urban purposes is increasing, car ownership is
rising and continued suburbanisation/de-urbanisation is on the agenda. So is network development
of multinational firms, production- and innovation-chains. We experience rapid social, economic,
political and cultural change, and rich is still dominating poor. We identify new processes of
marginalisation, isolation and establishment of urban enclaves, and we identify new drivers and
innovations behind growth and change. Climatic change and its urban consequences is more and
more given priority on the research agenda. Systems collapse, the planning system failure to deliver
effective solutions, environmental thresholds is surpassed, and the actual financial crisis
demonstrates that neo-liberal globalisation is in jeopardy. System collapse actual have new
consequences in the forms of peri-urban degradation, declining / shrinking cities and new
regulations (e. g. financial markets: nationalisation).
New processes give rise to new responses. The role of local government and governance in solving
urban problems must be improved. Metropolitan government needs to correspond with (greater)
functional urban region. Urban leaders must have much better accessibility to capital. They must
initiate the use of new technologies, and their impact on urban environments at different scales must
be understood. Environmental regulation enforcement is in demand if sustainability policies on land
consumption inclusive of supply restrictions shall have a lift, and if local urban concentration and
diversification policies shall overweigh urban sprawl. Smart growth (growth based on collective
traffic) must be given high priority. Re-cycling of ”used” areas, urban restructuring and
regeneration policies must be activated (especially on shrinking cities in affluent regions).
Field trips during and after the conference were interesting, and the participants got a good
empression of the colourfull and dialectic country of India.
Tel Aviv, Israel 2010. July 7. -17. The commissions 36. meeting was introduced by a preconference
working tour in northern Israel July 6. – 11 led by professor Izhak Schnell. This field trip
demonstrated different urban and settlement types, and discussions with local representatives from
the planning, political and scientific communities from different types of cities spanning arab,
drusian, jewish and mixed cities gave an indication on the magnitude of urban problems within
Israel. The field trip was followed by regulare session activities at the IGU regional conference in
Tel Aviv July 12.- 17. Urban Geography sessions counted 43 papers.
Canterbury, United Kingdom, 2011 (1). August 14.-18. The commissions 37. meeting was hold at
Canterbury Christ Church University, United Kingdom August 14-18, organised by Dan
Donoghue. Theme: “Urban Transformations: Exploring Local, Regional and Global City Regions”
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encompasses a wide range of research currently undertaken by members of the Commission and
provides a framework within which the three main issues identified above can be explored. The
City region concept allows researchers to investigate not just the immediate area of ‘the city’ but to
expand their horizons at a range of geographical scales to look at the vast network of interactions
that occur within and between settlements of all sizes within the wider hinterlands of urban places.
As such this theme keeps in mind the rationale of the Commission to explore the emerging trends
that are rapidly transforming the character of cities and their hinterlands. Although the various
processes causing urban transformations are common to many countries, changes in urban systems
and the internal geography of cities as well as concerns regarding sustainability, take different
forms in different places. This is particularly true for city regions where one can find evidence for
remoteness, peripherality and even exclusion among smaller centres despite their immediate
locations within spheres of influence of larger metropolitan centres.
Santiago, Chile 2011 (2). November 14.-18. The commission joined the IGU Regional conference
in Santiago (38. commission meeting). The following topics were themes for a series of regulare
sessions: dynamics of urban systems, residential segregation and informality, the production of
urban space, suburbanisation and urban sprawl, environment and urbanization, and planning the
metropolis. 33 papers were presented and a large attendance from South- and central America were
noted.
Next meeting, Dortmund and Cologne, Germany 2012. August 21.- 30. The meeting is organised
with a regulare commission meeting in Dortmund August 21.-26, including scientific field trips and
organised by professor Ludger Basten and professor Lienhard Lötscher . The commission meeting
is then integrated in the 32nd International Geographical Congress of the International Geographical
Union in Cologne August 27.-30. The meeting in Dortmund will focus on two key themes derived
from the catalogue of research topics the Commission has decided to study. The special foci of this
meeting are connected to the particular urban experiences of Dortmund and the Ruhr: Governance
and planning for cities and urban regions, and urban economies - urban cultures. The sessions of the
Dortmund meeting will be structured around these key themes. We welcome papers on small or
medium-sized towns and cities just as much as on megacities; papers on de-industrializing and
shrinking city-regions just as much as on newly-industrializing or tertiary growth centres. There are
then four special sessions with other themes in Cologne: Urban social transformations: contested
social spaces, conceptualizing regional governance in Chinese mega-urban regions, complex urban
systems, and a joint session with the IGU Commissions on Transport and Geography on large scale
transport infrastructure and regional and urban impacts.
Publications
Reddy Anant, G. ed. 2009. Multilayerd Cities and Urban Systems. Hyderabad Metropolitan
Development Authority and Osmania University, 857 pages. Comprise 44 full papers.
Pineira Mantinan, M.J. & N. Moore eds. 2011. New Trends in the Renewal of the City. Young
Scholars Committee. IDEGA: Instituto Universitario de Estudios e Desenvolvemento de Galicia,
126 pages Comprise 5 chapters.
The commission is planning for six books:
- Book on different types of cities (Wayne Davies)
- Book on world urbanization: theoretical, empirical (Petros Petsimeris )
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-
Epistemology of the former members of the commission (Petros Petsimeris)
Book on the geography of crime (Andre Horn)
Proceedings from the Canterbury meeting (Daniel O´Donohue)
Book on urban structure (Young scolar committee)
WEB-site
The commission has developed a web-site (igu-urban.com) for relations to the community of
geographers and for internal communication. The address book of the commission contains around
500 addresses. The web-master is professor Celine Rozenblat, and the site is linked to the IGU-site
(igu-online.org).
Program for further research
The commisssion has submitted a proposal to the IGU for continuation 2012-2016. The new
commission is to be named: IGU-urban Commission (CO 8.33): Urban challenges in a complex
world. The proposed chairman is professor Celine Rozenblat, Lausanne, Switzerland.
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