Shaping Urban Futures

This self-paced course on the future of cities incorporates research outputs from China, Colombia, India, South Africa, and the UK. It is designed for urban scholars and practitioners who want to work more rigorously across the theory–practice divide. If we are to make sense of the future of humanity, we must first understand the future of the city. The consequences of rapid, unplanned urbanisation—such as growing inequality, climate change, and inadequate infrastructure—cannot be addressed from within a single discipline, or a single national context. Shaping Urban Futures: Working across Theory and Practice builds upon this premise, drawing on the work of a five-year programme known as PEAK Urban—a collaboration between the African Centre for Cities, Universidad EAFIT, the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, University of Oxford, and Peking University. Across six modules, the course addresses the interrelated challenges of urbanisation through comparative cases from the Global South, examining how informality and livelihoods, environment and public health, and big data and technology intersect to shape cities—and what these intersections might mean for urban futures. You should enrol, if you are: • An urban scholar, with any degree of experience—from early career researchers to veteran urbanists • An architect, planner, or urban designer • A development practitioner working with NGOs, the government, or international organisations • A corporate professional working on urban issues Why you should enrol: This course can help you develop your own methods and frames to view, interpret, and define urban changes in your local geography and context. By the end of this course, you will: • Recognise the new urban sciences driving the understanding of urbanisation across the world • Develop your own lens to examine how social, economic and environmental changes emerge and reshape the working of a city • Be able to visualise how technological change is adopted, adapted and deployed across different urban contexts • Understand how to help shape urban futures through knowledge co-production and exchange