The main urban issue that sub-Saharan Africa is facing is rapid growth in its urban population without the urban governance structures in place that can meet their responsibilities and manage the change. This has created very large deficits in infrastructure and service provision which exposes much of the urban population to high levels of risk. Without competent, effective and accountable urba...

The human pressure on natural ecosystems and protected areas is steadily increasing. Urban growth is undeniably and irreversibly converting natural habitats as it is constantly expanding with population growth. In this study we analyze the urban expansion of mega city Calcutta over four time-steps (1975, 1990, 2000, 2010) as an example of expansion over time and threat to the surrounding enviro...

Asia Pacific is experiencing multiple dynamics of urbanisation, economic growth, poverty and environmental deterioration. It is the largest region with more than 60 percent of the world population. About 43 percent of the total population in the region live in urban areas, of which 40 percent live in slums and substandard conditions. In the past 30 years, the urban population in Asia Pacific ha...

In urban planning, sophisticated simulation models are key tools to estimate future population growth for measuring the impact of planning decisions on urban developments and the environment. Simulated population projections usually result in bulky, large-scale, multivariate geospatial data sets. Millions of records have to be processed, stored, and visualized to help planners explore and analy...

Urbanization is defined by the United Nations as the movement of people from rural to urban areas, whose population is projected to amount to half of the world’s population in 2008, rising to about 60% in 2030. As an increasingly higher number of people leave farms and villages to live in cities particularly in the developing countries, urban centres will grow at a rate previously unseen in man...

This research explores urban growth based scenarios for the city of Nairobi using a cellular automata urban growth model (UGM). African cities have experienced rapid urbanization over the last decade due to increased population growth and high economic activities. We used multi-temporal Landsat imageries for 1976, 1986, 2000 and 2010 to investigate urban land-use changes in Nairobi. Our UGM use...

Urban forests have played important roles in social, cultural, economic and environmental development of urban centers in West Africa through benefits such as landscape enhancement, provision of recreational and cultural facilities, erosion control, watershed protection and supply of fruits and fuelwood. The growing population and rapid urbanization occasioned by demographic switch from rural t...

The question of where to accommodate future urban expansion has become a politically sensitive issue in many regions. Against the backdrop of `urban compaction' policy, this study uses population surface modelling and cellular automata (CA) to conduct an empirical urban growth simulation for Southeast England. This implementation leads to a consideration of the proper balance between the theore...

strong sentiment against the phenomenon known as “urban sprawl” has emerged in the United States over the past few years. Critics of sprawl argue that urban expansion encroaches excessively on agricultural land, leading to a loss of amenity benefits from open space as well as the depletion of scarce farmland resources. The critics also argue that the long commutes generated by urban expansion c...

Urban economics dictate that cities must grow to maintain their vitality. Small cities increase their population and economic base, thereby expanding their city limits. Large cities manage growth so that expansion is controlled, avoiding real estate and economic depressions. Former Albuquerque Mayor David Rusk argues in Cities Without Suburbs that cities with aggressive growth strategies prospe...