No other region in the world is more exposed to all sorts of natural disasters. Demographic pressure weighs on natural resources. In their pursuit of economic growth, they have not paid sufficient attention to urban environment and climate change issues. Another, daunting challenge is now facing Asian-Pacific cities. It is incumbent on national and local government to deploy the strategies that will ensure a fairer distribution of the benefits of urban prosperity. Still, much remains to be done to reduce poverty in cities, where inequality is on the rise.
These remarkable achievements have enabled Asia-Pacific to take the lead in socio-economic progress, too, with significant reductions in extreme poverty as well as improved conditions for slum-dwellers, an area where some countries have already reached the Millennium Development Goals. Productivity and creativity now enable some Asian-Pacific cities to diversify away from manufacturing and move into the global ‘knowledge economy’. New configurations like mega urban regions, urban corridors and city-regions testify to the close links between urban prosperity and new patterns of spatio-economic activity.
Regardless of average income, cities and towns have been acting as the engines of economic growth in the region, which now hosts half of the world’s mega-cities. This reflects the region’s remarkable integration into the world economy, largely based on export-led growth policies. Half the world’s urban population lives in the Asia-Pacific region, whose economy is the most dynamic in the world, accounting for 30 per cent of global output.