Telescopic urbanism and the poor

In 2003, UN-Habitat warned that by 2030 around a third of the world's 9 billion humans could be suffering from multiple deprivations, living in slum-like conditions in the world's cities. Urban attention is beginning to turn to this problem, and to questions of sustainable urban competitiveness and growth, but without much referencing of the one to the other. This paper claims that the city of the future is being looked at through the wrong end of the binoculars, with ‘business consultancy’ urbanism largely disinterested in the city that does not feed international competitiveness and business growth, and ‘human potential’ urbanism looking to the settlements where the poor are located for bottom-up solutions to well-being. The paper reflects on the implications of such an urban optic on the chances of the poor, their areas of settlement and their expectations of support from others in and beyond the city. While acknowledging the realism, inventiveness and achievements of effort initiated or led by the poor, the paper laments the disappearance of ideas of mutuality, obligation and commonality that telescopic urbanism has enabled, in the process scripting out both grand designs and the duty of distant others to address the problems of acute inequality and poverty that will continue to plague the majority city.