Overview

Urban sprawl constitutes one of the major challenges faced by the rapidly growing cities in Asia today. The extremely rapid increase of urban population in Asia leads to a high demand for land and subsequently for urban services. This creates a high risk of urban sprawl which causes economic challenges in terms of the efficient use of resources, contributes to social segregation and is harmful to the functioning of ecosystems. Moreover, unplanned and uncontrolled extensions of urban space most often cannot be adequately served by public infrastructure. However, various approaches to managing urban sprawl exist and good practices have been implemented in some places.

In search of innovative solutions to the varied and complex tasks of managing undesired urban expansion, practitioners and experts on urban development gathered in Surabaya, Indonesia, for the 2nd Asian Connective Cities Practitioners' Workshop that took place from 21-23 April 2015.

Urban planning and design processes which are addressed by land-use planning instruments (e.g. master planning, urban growth boundaries, zoning) and define potentials for redevelopment and brownfield development for compact cities or identify opportunities for upgrading of buildings and infrastructure in informal settlements for a sustainable and equitable urban development featured prominently in the good practices presented.

Keynotes

Results

The representatives of twelve municipalities from the region as well as from Germany further engaged in an intensive exchange on current challenges experienced in their cities with regard to managing urban sprawl towards the goal of sustainable urban development. During three days of dynamic workshop sessions, the participants explored the specifics of their cities' approaches to sprawl management, identified opportunities for improvement and worked on strategies to resolve concrete problems. In the subsequent action planning session, practitioners continued working with a selection of action planning tools to develop outlines of potential action plans which will be reviewed and further elaborated upon return to their cities.

In a future phase of networking and collaboration Connective Cities will strive to provide further support to emerging projects ranging from regional or metropolitan area planning as a focus of spatial planning, to infrastructure projects in line with local environmental preconditions, and stakeholder involvement and communication by linking up with expertise and through topic-related services to strengthen capacity among participants as well as in their cities.