A defining feature of many of the world’s cities is an outward expansion far beyond formal administrative boundaries, largely propelled by the use of the automobile, poor urban and regional planning and land speculation. A large proportion of cities both from developed and developing countries have high consuming suburban expansion patterns which often extend to even further peripheries. Cities need to accommodate new and thriving urban functions such as transportation routes, etc. as they expand.

Geoffrey Payne outlines five fundamental propositions that are key to his understanding of tenure issues and policy options.

These are:

1) That access to affordable land with adequate security of tenure and associated rights is a pre-condition for realising the goal of adequate housing and poverty reduction;

The Latin American and Caribbean Urban CSO Cluster, part of the Global Land Tools Network (GTLN), together with Habitat for Humanity’s Solid Ground Campaign and the Land Portal Foundation, launched an online debate on Urban Land Conflicts in Latin America and the Caribbean in January 2017. Responding to the common interest to make information easy to access and flow to boost collaboration among stakeholders as a critical basis to improve land governance.

This case study provides a comparative analysis of two different initiatives designed to grow small
scale agricultural production in Cape Town.

This study was requested by the Ministry for Coordination of Environmental Affairs (MICOA), through the National Directorate of Territorial Planning (DINAPOT) in conjunction with the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT); for this purpose, the team of the Cruzeiro do Sul – Research Institute for Development counted with the participation of a group of students of the Master degree course in agricultural development at the Faculty of Agronomy and Forestry Engineering (FAEF) of the Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM).

O Perfil Rápido do Sector Urbano para Sustentabilidade (RUSPS) é um processo de avaliação rápida e proactiva de necessidades urbanas e lacunas de capacitação institucional a níveis nacional e das cidades. Esta avaliação está sendo implementada actualmente em mais de 20 países em África e Estados árabes. A metodologia RUSPS consiste em três fases: (1) uma abordagem participativa de perfil urbano, a níveis nacional e local, com enfoque na

Este estudo foi solicitado pelo Ministério para a Coordenação da Acção Ambiental, através da Direcção Nacional de Planeamento e Ordenamento Territorial em conjunto com a Agência HABITAT das Nações Unidas, para a sua realização a equipa do Cruzeiro do Sul – Instituto de Investigação para o Desenvolvimento contou com a participação de um grupo de estudantes do Curso de Mestrado em Desenvolvimento Agrário da Faculdade de Agronomia e Engenharia Florestal da Universidade Eduardo Mondlane.

Urbanization deserves urgent attention from policy makers, academics, entrepreneurs, and social reformers of all stripes. Nothing else will create as many opportunities for social and economic progress. The urbanization project began roughly 1,000 years after the transition from the Pleistocene to the milder and more stable Holocene interglacial. In 2010, the urban population in developing countries stood at 2.5 billion. The developing world can accommodate the urban population growth and declining urban density in many ways.

Today, 370 million people live in cities in earthquake prone areas and 310 million in cities with a high probability of tropical cyclones. By 2050 these numbers are likely to more than double, leading to a greater concentration of hazard risk in many of the world's cities. The authors discuss what sets hazard risk in urban areas apart, summarize estimates of valuation of hazard risk, and discuss implications for individual mitigation and public policy.

In less than fifty years, Brazil evolved from a predominantly rural society and economy to a highly urbanized country in which 85 percent of its people now live in urban areas and more than 90 percent of the country’s GDP is generated in the cities. This rapid urbanization process was characterized by a lack of planning and an enduring framework of inequality, resulting in high degrees of concentrated poverty in the urban areas. Much of this urbanization has taken place in metropolitan regions (MRs).

The accumulation of decent housing matters both because of the difference it makes to living standards and because of its centrality to economic development. The consequences for living standards are far-reaching. In addition to directly conferring utility, decent housing improves health and enables children to do homework. It frees up women's time and enables them to participate in the labor market. More subtly, a home and its environs affect identity and self-respect.