ABSTRACT
The year 2008 was an important milestone in the history of human civilisation, when, for the first time, urban areas became home to more than half the world’s population (Martine 2007). The twenty-f irstcentury has been referred to as the ‘Century of the City’. It is anticipated that most regions of the developing world, which have the highest urban growth rates, will be predominantly urban by the middle of the century and home to an estimated 5.3 billion people of whom approximately 63 per cent will live in Asia (UN Human Settlements Programme, 2008).
