AA alumnus Dan Narita (2005) was invited to give a talk last week at The International Forum on Urbanism: From Dichotomies to Dialogues – Connecting Discourses for a Sustainable Urbanism on his recently released monograph, Emancipatory Urbanization.

In this book, the Dongjiang River Basin in Guangdong is taken as a laboratory for alternative and bottom-up urbanisation scenarios. Opportunities are presented for micro-economic scenarios, livelihood diversification and the development of rural-urban habitats located in the hinterland of the coastal zone. The rediscovery of ancient mountain territories as a productive resource is emphasised for a new phase of urbanization. Overshadowed by the dominance of global city networks, liveable cities responsive to climate change, conscious of the scarcity of resources and aware of widening social inequalities may not be found in densely populated urban areas. The underestimated potential of mountain territories with dispersed settlement structures are proposed as an alternative people-oriented urbanity.

Find out more about the forum here.