Miguel Robles-Duran, Assistant Professor of the New School (New York, USA), shared his outlook on urban planning and strategic development at the Institute of Management, Economics and Finance.

Dr. Robles-Duran spoke about current problems of urban development and the influence of economic processes on urbanization. He started by dispelling a common misconception about the outstanding affluence of such cities as New York, Paris, and London.

Those cities have significant number of homeless people, the environment for average inhabitants is pretty tough as well. He then elaborated about gentrification which is a widespread phenomenon in the USA, Europe, and Australia. The rising rent and property taxes drive away low-income families, which in turn often leads to their marginalization.

This also changes the architectural and economic landscape of the particular neighborhood: removing of industrial facilities, renovation of old buildings and former plants and factories, development of office blocks and luxury real estate, expensive restaurants, and shops.

Dr. Robles-Duran mentioned that Moscow has changed immensely in the last 20 years. He chose to characterize Moscow as a “luxury” city with lots of posh and expensive developments which, however, are not of much use to average locals.

Modern metropolises utilize new development strategies which include space planning, environmental analysis, sociocultural studies, and human development studies. Cities cannot develop without capital. That's why urban growth and improvement of the environment must be a shared responsibility of both governments and businesses.