Global Cities Development

Sectors

Urban planning & development

What has to exist before a district can be drawn — clear land tenure, a development control framework in law and one master developer accountable for the plan — and how districts are then delivered, each through a company of its own at the sector-delivery layer.

Overview

Urban development is where a programme becomes a place: a plan that allocates land, sets densities and fixes the order in which districts open. It is also where most of the long-term value and most of the risk are created, well before construction begins, because decisions taken at plan stage are the hardest to reverse.

Global Cities Development’s work in this sector is upstream of design. Before a district can be drawn, land tenure has to be clear, the development control framework has to exist in law, and one party has to be accountable for the plan as a whole. That accountability belongs to the master developer and is deliberately held in a single entity rather than distributed among contractors, so that government has one counterparty on planning matters and plot-level investors have a rulebook that does not move.

The plan is written to be delivered in phases that each stand on their own. A first phase has to function as a settlement — housing, water, power, a school, a route to work — not as a fragment waiting for the rest of the city to arrive. Phasing is therefore set against committed infrastructure rather than against intention, and the plan reserves corridors and sites for infrastructure that will only be needed, and only be financeable, much later.

Clear City, the company’s single programme, is in preparation on this basis; its current workstreams are land rights, the zone’s legal framework and the delivery structure.

Schematic

The parts and how they connect

Schematic of a district grid, its building density and the land held for later phasesPlan-style schematic. A grid of streets divides the area into blocks. Building footprints grow denser from west to east; one block is subdivided into plots, another is left as public open space with a dashed walking route through it. A dashed phase boundary near the eastern edge leaves the land beyond it uncommitted.PLATE 01 / 10SCHEMATIC · NOT TO SCALE0102030405Schematic of a district grid, its building density and the land held for later phasesPlan-style schematic. A grid of streets divides the area into blocks. Building footprints grow denser from west to east; one block is subdivided into plots, another is left as public open space with a dashed walking route through it. A dashed phase boundary near the eastern edge leaves the land beyond it uncommitted.PLATE 01 / 10SCHEMATIC · NOT TO SCALE0102030405Schematic of a district grid, its building density and the land held for later phasesPlan-style schematic. A grid of streets divides the area into blocks. Building footprints grow denser from west to east; one block is subdivided into plots, another is left as public open space with a dashed walking route through it. A dashed phase boundary near the eastern edge leaves the land beyond it uncommitted.PLATE 01 / 10NOT TO SCALE0102030405
  • 01Street grid and the blocks it forms
  • 02Plot subdivision inside a block
  • 03Building footprints, density rising eastward
  • 04Public open space and the walking route
  • 05Phase boundary; land beyond it uncommitted
  • Direction of phasing, first blocks to the boundary
Illustrative. Schematic of a district grid, its building density and the land held for later phases. Not a site plan or a design, and not a depiction of any existing or planned facility.

What this covers

Scope of work in urban planning & development

In the structure

How the sector is held

Urban development sits closest to layer 3. The master developer holds the plan, the land-use rights and the development standards, and is the single interface with government on all three. Individual districts are then delivered through their own vehicles at layer 4, inside that plan and bound by it. The crosscutting digital layer carries the cadastral, tenure and permitting records the plan depends on; without them, development control is advisory rather than enforceable.

The layers of building a city

Partners and capital

How partners and capital enter

Planning, engineering and design firms are engaged by the master developer under ordinary professional appointments. Partners who want to build take a district or an asset class rather than the plan itself, through a vehicle at layer 4 with its own governance and its own balance sheet. Capital enters at that level, against defined phasing and development obligations, and not against the programme as a whole.

Crosscutting

Sustainability and resilience in urban planning & development

Density, orientation and the walking distance between housing, work and transport are settled at plan stage, while they are still inexpensive to change; flood exposure, heat and water availability are carried as planning constraints on the land use map rather than left as engineering problems for a later phase.

Related

All ten sectors