City Development: Issues and Best Practices

Editorial Introduction – Inaugural Issue

City Development: Issues and Best Practices (CDIBP)

It is with great pleasure that we present the inaugural issue of City Development: Issues and Best Practices (CDIBP), a peer-reviewed, diamond open-access online journal dedicated to advancing inclusive, practice-oriented, and globally connected knowledge on urban development. Published through the University of Ottawa, the journal seeks to make high-quality work widely accessible and to provide a platform where diverse voices can meaningfully contribute to contemporary urban debates.

More than an academic journal, CDIBP is designed as an open forum where researchers, practitioners, municipal actors, civil society organizations, community leaders, and policymakers can share not only scholarly research, but also applied case studies, policy analyses, field innovations, pedagogical experiences, and best practices. This wide scope reflects our conviction that sustainable and inclusive cities emerge from the interplay of empirical evidence, grounded practice, community insight, and policy innovation.

From ICCCASU to CDIBP: Global Ideas, Local Solutions

The journal grows out of the momentum built by the International Council on Canadian, Chinese and African Sustainable Urbanization (ICCCASU), a global urbanization network co-founded with UN-Habitat. Over the past decade, ICCCASU has fostered a unique triangular dialogue among Canada, China, and Africa, engaging partners from more than 50 countries and strengthening both South–South and North–South collaboration on sustainable urbanization.

CDIBP reflects and extends this mission. As ICCCASU embraces its renewed vision of “Global Ideas and Local Solutions,” the journal provides a dedicated platform where global debates can be connected to grounded, context-sensitive innovations. Through multilingual publication (English, French, and Simplified Chinese) and an inclusive review and editorial process, CDIBP lowers structural barriers that often restrict access to indexed journals—particularly for authors from the Global South.

In launching this journal, ICCCASU reaffirms its commitment to supporting equitable knowledge production, amplifying regional and local experiences, and ensuring that insights emerging from Canada, China, Africa, and their global partners contribute meaningfully to international dialogues on city development.

Themes of the Inaugural Issue

The ten contributions featured in this inaugural issue speak to some of the most urgent challenges facing cities today. While they vary in disciplinary lens, methodological approach, and geographic focus, they collectively offer a rich, interconnected picture of urban change and urban possibility.

A first theme concerns the transformations of rapidly urbanizing regions, particularly in Africa, where formal planning systems coexist—and often collide—with informal, incremental, or spontaneous modes of settlement. These works reveal how densification, unregulated expansion, demographic pressure, and institutional weaknesses are reshaping urban forms and environmental conditions. They emphasize that informality is not merely a deviation from planning, but a structural response to unmet housing and infrastructure needs.

A second theme explores the evolving landscape of local governance, decentralization, and community participation. Here, contributions examine how municipal reforms, participatory mechanisms, and grassroots initiatives—including youth-led resilience actions—shape development pathways. These analyses underscore that inclusive governance depends not only on institutional frameworks, but also on community agency, local knowledge, and the capacity of individuals and groups to influence decisions affecting their lives.

A third theme examines social infrastructures—from housing and pedagogical environments to long-term care systems—as foundations of equitable and resilient cities. These works remind us that urban development is not only about physical form, but also about the social, ethical, and political responsibilities embedded in care, education, and collective well-being.

Finally, the issue highlights core concerns related to urban services and infrastructure, such as solid waste management, transport systems, and service delivery in rapidly changing contexts. These contributions emphasize that sustainable infrastructure is intertwined with governance, regulation, community engagement, and long-term planning. Technical solutions alone are insufficient; they must be accompanied by institutional capacity and social legitimacy.

Together, these themes demonstrate that city development is a multidimensional process: technical and social, political and environmental, global and deeply local. This inaugural issue illustrates the value of integrating research, field experience, and policy insight to understand and shape the trajectories of contemporary cities.

Looking Forward

As we celebrate the launch of this inaugural issue, we envision CDIBP as a growing home for global collaboration, local innovation, and inclusive knowledge sharing. The journal will continue to bridge theory and practice, elevate perspectives from underrepresented regions, and support a diverse community of contributors engaged in building more sustainable, equitable, and resilient urban futures.

We express our sincere gratitude to all authors and reviewers who have contributed to this first issue, and to the broader ICCCASU community whose vision, dedication, and global partnerships have made this publication possible.

On behalf of the editorial team, we warmly invite readers, authors, and partners to engage with this issue, share it widely, and join us in building a dynamic, accessible, and globally connected forum on City Development: Issues and Best Practices.

Editorial team