City Governance in the Urban Century

A universal feature of the worldwide revolution is the movement of people into urban sett lements at an ever faster rate. World population increases by 2 per cent a year, urban population by over 4 per cent. In the next forty years, more urban construction will take place than hitherto in the whole history of man. It is already evident that wrong projections of urban development produce inexcusable waste. The absence of any forecasts leads to chaos in the cities, to the undermining of civic order and the destruction of precious and diverse historical traditions. Thus the need for the rational and dynamic planning of human sett lements both now and in the foreseeable future is inherent in the urban situation today.