The number of very large metropolises – i.e. with a population between 5 and 20 million people – keeps increasing. The majority of them are in emerging countries, which makes their management even more difficult: is it possible to govern such vast, complex, and inequality-ridden urban sets? Research has most often answered negatively to this question. However, urban networks and the institutions that allow governing them show that those responsible for urban management have invented the mechanisms of an ordinary government. They did so by solving matter-of-fact, pressing problems: providing electricity and drinking water, transportation services, etc. The authors of the book Métropoles XXL en pays émergents, published by Presses de Sciences Po, will present research done in Shanghai, Mumbai, Cape Town, and Santiago de Chile [flyer].

Conference speakers

Dominique Lorrain is Head of Research CNRS at the Laboratory Techniques, territories, sociétés (Techniques, territories, societies). He holds the chair of Cities at the École nationale des ponts et chaussées (National school of bridges and roadways). For over ten years, his focus has been on the modalities of development and planning of the Shanghai urban region.

Géraldine Pflieger is a professor and a Research Scientist at the University of Geneva (Institute of Environmental Sciences and Department of Political Sciences). She has studied the management of the metropolitan region of Santiago de Chile extensively.

Conference

Photographic credits: © Santiago du Chili, Géraldine Pflieger, 2004.