Cities in the 1990s The Challenge for Developing Countries Highlights from a Workshop of Representatives of International Aid Agencies and Govern

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As a privileged insight into operational thinking within governments and aid agencies, Cities in the 1990s addresses the key issues facing urban areas in developing countries. Based on an important workshop involving representatives and senior officers from a host of aid agencies and governments, it exposes to public scrutiny the approaches emerging in the wake of a sea-change in aid policy away from rural development and towards urban areas. In 1991, the World Bank and the United Nations separately published new policy agendas on urbanization in the 1990s. These argued a new case in the face of burgeoning urban growth in developing countries, where the cities and mega-cities accommodate not simply the majority of the population but also most of the poor. This predominance of the urban domain is acknowledged and reflected in the main thrust of the new agendas: that cities are the main means of transforming society as a whole in economic terms and of alleviating poverty in developing countries. Published in association with the Overseas Development Agency, the book includes summaries of these policy documents, two major papers by Kenneth Watts and Nigel Harris, and the main speeches discussions and summaries at the workshop, which was convened by the Development Planning Unit at University College London. The editor's introduction lays out the context of thought, policy and action within which the new agendas can be located. The book is far from being a work of "ivory-tower" scholarship: the discussions are about how governments should act, and how realistic and relevant the new policy directions are in operational terms. Cities in the 1990s is sure to be regarded as essential reading for anyone concerned with the staggering problems and challenges facing the developing countries today.