Watch the full video (above) of the talk by Christian Schmid, where he presents results of a comparative study of urbanisation processes in eight large metropolitan territories across the world: Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong / Shenzhen / Dongguan, Kolkata, Istanbul, Lagos, Paris, Mexico City, and Los Angeles.

In the last decades, urbanisation has become a planetary phenomenon. Urban areas expand and interweave, and novel forms of urbanisation emerge. In this process, new urban configurations are constantly evolving. Therefore, an adequate understanding of planetary urbanisation must derive its empirical and theoretical inspirations from the multitude of urban experiences across the various divides that shape our contemporary world.

The main goal of this project is to develop new conceptual categories for better understanding the patterns and pathways of planetary urbanisation.

Christian Schmid is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich.

The question and answer session that followed can be accessed here. Find all the available videos of our previous workshops, here.