Professor Bettencourt, the Chair of the debates pointed out: ‘The world is urbanising fast. Most of this transformation, in terms of speed and scale, is occurring in Asia and Africa, where cities are struggling to accommodate and service hundreds of millions of people. This challenge is often characterised by vast informal settlements, which in cities like Mumbai or Lagos may house the majority of the population. National and international sustainable development plans call for an unprecedented fast transformation, which must be understood in the context of cities and their neighbourhoods and promoted by new ways of thinking and acting.’

The On Cities Debates were developed in two blocks. Each block consisted of keynotes and a subsequent debate between the speakers followed by a questions and answers session.

List of speakers:

• Luis Bettencourt, Pritzker Director of the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States
• Celine D’Cruz, Founder member of Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers (SPARC) and Slum Dwellers International (SDI), Mumbai, India
•  Ian Goldin, Founding Director of the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
•  Rajeev Kathpalia, Co-founder of Vastu Shilpa Consultants, Ahmedabad, India
• Francis Kéré, Founder of Kéré Architecture and Kéré Foundation, Berlin, Germany
• Janice Perlman, Founder and President of The Mega-Cities Project, New York, NY, United States
•  Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States.