Themes Emerging, Questions Outstanding, and the Value of a Multidisciplinary Approach1

This chapter states that the studies in this volume represent a significant advance in our understanding of urbanization and development. Approaching the problem from a number of disciplinary and methodological perspectives, they shed light on the three questions posed in the introduction to this volume: (i) What is so special about the urban context? (ii) Why is urbanization and urban growth important to development in the current conjuncture? (iii) What are the strengths and limitations of our current state of knowledge about urbanization and development from a policy perspective? Answers to these questions have already been proposed in the introductory chapter. In this epilogue to the volume the last of these three questions are revisited, focusing in particular on the issues outstanding for analysis and research, and it concludes with an answer to the fourth question posed in the introduction: How can a multidisciplinary perspective on the urban context add value to development research and policy?.