Accommodating Growth in the Global South

Most of the world's urban growth over the next few decades will happen in cities that don't yet exist at scale — concentrated in the Global South, where population growth is fastest and infrastructure is least locked in. Whether that growth compounds sprawl-driven emissions or avoids them depends on choices being made right now about street networks, block structure, and land policy — decisions with far longer shelf lives than any single housing bill. This panel draws on the Lincoln Institute's decades of on-the-ground engagement, paired with new tools for modeling how cities expand, to explore how planners and local governments can lock in compact growth before sprawl becomes the default. This session is hosted by Gehl Architects, the NYU Marron Institute, the Parking Reform Network, and WRI and is a part of The Urban Climate Solution track at NYC Climate Week 2026. View all events in the track at https://www.urbanclimatesolution.org/.