Master of Cities and Governance Lingnan University

Meeting the needs of the 21st century’s cities

Throughout history, people have migrated to urban centres but the scale of today’s metropolises, and their rate of growth, particularly in Asia and Africa, and most notably in China, is unprecedented. In the 1970s, the population of Shenzhen, just across the border from Lingnan, was numbered in the tens of thousands. By 2017 it was home to just under 13 million registered citizens, with the actual population believed to be millions higher.

This is, of course, placing much greater demands on their provision of basic services such as health and housing. However, many challenges are unique to the modern age, explains Professor Ray Forrest, Research Professor in Cities and Social Change and Programme Founding Director of the Master of Cities and Governance. Sustainability, climate change, air quality, and other issues concerning the overall experience of city life, are increasingly seen as interconnected and requiring urgent attention. But one of the most significant pressures on city governance arises from the way in which globalised capital flows are stoking property speculation.

What’s more, the nature of city government itself is also changing, he adds, due to the increasing readiness of the urban government to share responsibility with a wide range of organisations and communities, including NGOs and private sector actors.