This book explores significant aspects of the New Urban Agenda in the Asia-Pacific region, and presents, from different contexts and perspectives, innovative interventions afoot for transforming the governance of 21st-century cities in two key areas: (i) urban planning and policy; and (ii) service delivery and social inclusion. Representing institutions across a wide geography, academic researchers and development practitioners from Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America have authored the chapters that lend the volume its distinctly diverse topical foci. Based on a wide range of cases and intriguing experiences, this collection is a uniquely valuable resource for everyone interested in the present and future of cities and urban regions in Asia-Pacific.

The book describes the world’s oldest human settlements during the rather long and diversified sets of civilizations and cultural epochs in the regions, which are now situated within the territorial limits of Pakistan, and highlights three historical periods, namely (i) the age of neolithic settlements, (ii) the Indus Valley civilization, and (iii) the period of precolonial empires and kingdoms and against this backdrop deals with the human settlements of the colonial and postcolonial period in Pakistan. The main motivation for writing this book has been threefold. First, to increase the awareness among the current and prospective students of town planning in particular and the planners at large, in general, about the evolutionary process of town planning in Pakistan. Second, to identify some of the shortcomings, gaps, and overlapping in the process of planning and development of towns in Pakistan. And third, to emphasize the need to undertake further research about the various facets of the subject area. This book is a time series rather than a cross-sectional analysis of the Evolution of Town Planning in Pakistan. It attempts to highlight the various processes and geopolitical landmarks during the nine-thousand-years-long evolutionary processes of physical planning and development in the Indian subcontinent in general and those in Pakistan in particular. It traverses a long temporal and evolutionary progression of town planning processes in Pakistan. This book is a very modest effort to fill a huge gap and may even provide an incentive for the future planning historians and academicians to undertake more in-depth cross-sectional analysis of various processes comprehensively.

Fifty years after the British annexed the Punjab and made Lahore its provincial capital, the city—once a prosperous Mughal center that had long since fallen into ruin—was transformed. British and Indian officials had designed a modern, architecturally distinct city center adjacent to the old walled city, administered under new methods of urban governance. In Making Lahore Modern, William J. Glover investigates the traditions that shaped colonial Lahore. In particular, he focuses on the conviction that both British and Indian actors who implemented urbanization came to share: that the material fabric of the city could lead to social and moral improvement. This belief in the power of the physical environment to shape individual and collective sentiments, he argues, links the colonial history of Lahore to nineteenth-century urbanization around the world. Glover highlights three aspects of Lahore’s history that show this process unfolding. First, he examines the concepts through which the British understood the Indian city and envisioned its transformation. Second, through a detailed study of new buildings and the adaptation of existing structures, he explores the role of planning, design, and reuse. Finally, he analyzes the changes in urban imagination as evidenced in Indian writings on the city in this period. Throughout, Glover emphasizes that colonial urbanism was not simply imposed; it was a collaborative project between Indian citizens and the British. Offering an in-depth study of a single provincial city, Glover reveals that urban change in colonial India was not a monolithic process and establishes Lahore as a key site for understanding the genealogy of modern global urbanism. William J. Glover is associate professor of architecture at the University of Michigan.

This guide is the result of a UN-Habitat initiative to provide local leaders and decision makers with the tools to support urban planning good practice. It includes several "how to" sections on all aspects of urban planning, including how to build resilience and reduce climate risks, with an example from Sorsogon, Philippines. It outlines practical ways to create and implement a vision for a city that will better prepare it to cope with growth and change. The overall guide offers insights from real experiences on what it takes to have an impact and to transform an urban reality through urban planning. It clearly links planning and financing and presents many successful practices that emphasize strategies to address real issues. It aims to inform leaders about the value that urban planning could bring to their cities and to facili.