TOKYO

Tokyo, the largest city in the world and the only mega-city in a developed economy, expanded dramatically after the Second World War. Over 40% of the city is built on landfill encroaching on Tokyo Bay to accommodate this growth. However, given Japan's low demographic dynamism and the policies to curb Tokyo's growth, the city will grow at a relatively modest pace. Like many other cities in Japan, Tokyo is prone to earthquakes and flooding. Home to a relatively wealthy and homogenous population, the city is composed of narrow building plots, closely-packed commercial districts, such as Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ginza or the new centre at Roppongi Hills. The Greater Tokyo area in the Kanto region now accommodates over 34 million people in a consistently dense and multi-centred urban region that is well served by an integrated system of trains, underground and buses, used by nearly 80% of daily commuters.

Despite its scale and complexity Tokyo provides a highly efficient urban model and is now seeking to make more of its assets by creating denser clusters of development near the centre and regenerating its under-used waterfront along Tokyo Bay. The Governor of Tokyo is one of the most powerful figures in the Japanese administration and Tokyo receives more national fiscal resources than it contributes.

Naoya Hatakeyama 1958
Born and works Japan
Tokyo/Mori Building 2003
Framed gelatin silver prints
Commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal. Courtesy the artist, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal
enlarge

Naoya Hatakeyama 1958
Born and works Japan
Tokyo/Mori Building 2003
Framed gelatin silver prints
Commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal. Courtesy the artist, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal
enlarge

Naoya Hatakeyama 1958
Born and works Japan
Tokyo/Mori Building 2003
Framed gelatin silver prints
Commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal. Courtesy the artist, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal
enlarge

Naoya Hatakeyama 1958
Born and works Japan
Tokyo/Mori Building 2003
Framed gelatin silver prints
Commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal. Courtesy the artist, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal
enlarge

Naoya Hatakeyama 1958
Born and works Japan
Tokyo/Mori Building 2003
Framed gelatin silver prints
Commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal. Courtesy the artist, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montreal
enlarge

MEXICO CITY

Sprawling across a high plateau framed by mountains and volcanoes, Mexico City has expanded tenfold in both population and area since 1940. With a population of 18 million plus, the city region generates nearly a quarter of Mexico's wealth, attracting people – many of them young – from the rest of the country to the Aztecs' original 'floating city'.

The region faces a major challenge in co-ordinating services and infrastructure across the administrative boundaries of the two separate governing entities that make up Mexico City's wider metropolitan area – the Federal District and the State of Mexico. Its central tree-lined boulevards and security-guarded shops and offices contrast with the continuous spread of informal housing that clings to the steep hills and extends outwards to the horizon.

The income gap between rich and poor remains wide, and a high crime rate dominates, with security a prime concern alongside pollution and traffic congestion, exacerbated by car-oriented policy and investment, in a city where petrol is cheaper than bottled water. Fear has motivated the presence of security forces and the construction of gated residential and commercial compounds across the city.

The new city mayor is now pushing for more coordinated governance to control sprawl, revitalising its historic centre, introducing more sustainable transport, and starting to tackle its acute water shortage and the crumbling urban fabric that reflects decades of unstructured growth and poor resource management.

SAO PAULO

Sao Paulo is Brazil’s largest and richest city, with a metropolitan region the size of Los Angeles or Shanghai. Its population has nearly doubled in the past 45 years, and growth in the last decade was 9.2%. As the country’s financial capital, with a constituency the size of some European countries, Sao Paulo plays a key role in national politics.

A continuous, dense city that spreads out into the tropical vegetation of the Tietê river valley, Sao Paulo’s boundaries are in a state of constant flux as it expands outwards from its emptying historic core to a disparate periphery, with poor favelas (squatter settlements) close to the exclusive highrises of the rich.

Today six million cars operate on Sao Paulo’s streets and a thousand new cars are registered every day. Just under half of daily journeys are by public bus, while just over half are by private car. Long commute times (four-hour journeys for residents of some outlying districts) and vehicle pollution are major issues, yet investment in other modes of public transport, such as the metro, has been minimal. The invasion and contamination of the city’s watershed by informal housing – whose poor occupants cannot access adequate and affordable housing within the existing city fabric – threatens the provision of drinking water and viability of the sewage system for the wider city region.