- Features six case studies of urbanisation processes around cities in Egypt, Italy, the US, Vietnam, Oman, and Brazil
- Based a major research project conducted by ETH Studio Basel
- ETH Studio Basel is an internationally renowned research institute affiliated to ETH Zurich
Investigated were six regions on six continents: The Nile Valley with the dense corset of natural landscape surrounding a linear city; Rome-Adria, where territorial cells have formed within the territory, spawning an urban type of tremendous dynamism; Florida, presenting highly complex patterns of territorial organisation; Vietnam's Red River Delta, where recent reform exposed traditional settlement and cultivation of the delta to freer forces; Oman, where urbanisation of a territory essentially means reclaiming the desert with the immediate necessity to develop a system for water distribution; and Belo Horizonte, where natural conditions likewise play a major role in organising the territory as surface mining entails huge transformations of the natural terrain.
The new book features two introductory essays on ETH Studio Basel's research approach and on terminology, concise illustrated reports on the six regions, and four concluding topical essays.