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Serious concerns with accelerating global warming have been translated into urgent calls for increasing urban densities: higher densities are associated with lower greenhouse gas emissions, especially those related to vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT). In order to densify meaningfully in the coming decades, cities need to make room within their existing footprints to accommodate more people. In the absence of adequate room within their existing footprints, cities create more room through outward expansion, typically resulting in lower overall densities. We introduce a quantitative dimension to this process, focusing on the population added to a global stratified sample of 200 cities between 1990 and 2014. In three-quarters of the cities we studied, the areas built before 1990 gained population and thus densified significantly. On average, however, only one-quarter of the total population added to the 200 cities in the sample in the 1990–2014 period were accommodated within their 1990 urban footprints, while three-quarters were accommodated within their newly built expansion areas. That resulted in an overall decline in average urban densities during the 1990–2014 period despite the near-global, decades-old and rarely questioned consensus that urban expansion must be contained.
Shlomo Angel; Patrick Lamson-Hall; Alejandro Blei; Sharad Shingade; Suman Kumar. Densify and Expand: A Global Analysis of Recent Urban Growth. Sustainability 2021, 13, 3835 .
AMA StyleShlomo Angel, Patrick Lamson-Hall, Alejandro Blei, Sharad Shingade, Suman Kumar. Densify and Expand: A Global Analysis of Recent Urban Growth. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (7):3835.
Chicago/Turabian StyleShlomo Angel; Patrick Lamson-Hall; Alejandro Blei; Sharad Shingade; Suman Kumar. 2021. "Densify and Expand: A Global Analysis of Recent Urban Growth." Sustainability 13, no. 7: 3835.
Shlomo Angel; Patrick Lamson-Hall; Zeltia Gonzalez Blanco. Anatomy of density: measurable factors that constitute urban density. Buildings and Cities 2021, 2, 264 -282.
AMA StyleShlomo Angel, Patrick Lamson-Hall, Zeltia Gonzalez Blanco. Anatomy of density: measurable factors that constitute urban density. Buildings and Cities. 2021; 2 (1):264-282.
Chicago/Turabian StyleShlomo Angel; Patrick Lamson-Hall; Zeltia Gonzalez Blanco. 2021. "Anatomy of density: measurable factors that constitute urban density." Buildings and Cities 2, no. 1: 264-282.
Recent research indicates that a simplified approach to urban planning in Sub-Saharan African cities can address the challenges of rapid urban growth. Current plans focus too heavily on the existing area of the city and offer unrealistic agendas for future urban growth, such as densification, containment and high-rise development; plans that are often too complicated and too costly to be deployed in a developing-world context. In response, New York University and the Government of Ethiopia have created a programme to deploy a simple methodology called Making Room for Urban Expansion in 18 Ethiopian cities that are experiencing rapid growth. The programme is called the Ethiopia Urban Expansion Initiative. The Initiative set aside a number of standard planning objectives and instead focused only on expanding city boundaries to include adequate land for expansion, designing and protecting a network of arterial roads spaced approximately 1 km apart, and identifying and protecting environmentally sensitive open spaces. These efforts focused on areas that had not yet been occupied by development. This article reports on the preliminary results from the four Ethiopian cities participating in the Initiative that began in 2013. The results from the first four participating cities show that simple plans can lead to the creation of new arterial roads, increasing access to peripheral land and potentially bringing the available land supply in line with projected growth. These activities can be done at the local level and implemented with limited support from consultants and from the regional and national government, and it requires minimal public investment.
Patrick Lamson-Hall; Shlomo Angel; David DeGroot; Richard Martin; Tsigereda Tafesse. A new plan for African cities: The Ethiopia Urban Expansion Initiative. Urban Studies 2018, 56, 1234 -1249.
AMA StylePatrick Lamson-Hall, Shlomo Angel, David DeGroot, Richard Martin, Tsigereda Tafesse. A new plan for African cities: The Ethiopia Urban Expansion Initiative. Urban Studies. 2018; 56 (6):1234-1249.
Chicago/Turabian StylePatrick Lamson-Hall; Shlomo Angel; David DeGroot; Richard Martin; Tsigereda Tafesse. 2018. "A new plan for African cities: The Ethiopia Urban Expansion Initiative." Urban Studies 56, no. 6: 1234-1249.