Architects aren't ready
By Amelia Gentleman Published: August 20, 2007
NEW DELHI: for an urbanized planet
The world is racing to the city, and the one group of professionals
capable of housing and sheltering the massive human influx to the urban
centers - the architects and the planners - freely acknowledge that they
are ill-equipped to cope.
This summer, the number of people living in cities exceeded the number
living in rural areas for the first time. Of the planet's six billion
people, three billion live in cities, of whom one billion live in urban
slums. Twenty years from now, the total global population is forecast to
increase to eight billion, of whom five billion will be living in
cities, two billion of them in slums.
As the demands on the world's planners grow, academics from around the
world gathered at a recent conference and expressed great unease about
their ability to prepare the next generation of architects to build for
this urban future.
"Every year the urban population increases by 80 million, equivalent to
the population of Germany," said Lars Reutersward, an architect and
director of the global division at UN Habitat, the United Nations
department that looks at urban development.
cont'd....
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/20/asia/letter.php