• Asian Cities
• Global Asia
• Asian Heritages

The "Asian Cities" cluster deals with cities and urban cultures with related issues of flows and fluxes - of ideas and goods, cosmopolitism, "métissage", and connectivity at their core, framing the existence of vibrant "civil societies" and political micro-cultures.

More than 60 percent of Asian populations today live in cities. This trend is bringing tremendous changes in the social, cultural and political economy of Asian societies and cities. Modern urban planning and management has to take into account the challenges of a diversity of urban societies of unmatched size and global connectivity with their heterogeneous populations, cultures and identities.

The central role of the city in many regions of Asia is not new. Cities and urban cultures have long been a feature of Asian history. While some present-day metropolises have made use of Western models, they have also retained their indigenous development paradigms.

The social-spatial dynamic follows different models associated with political, economic but also religious configurations. In the present context of Asia's assertion Asian cities are cradles of new forms of modernity.

Aim
With a special eye on contemporary developments, the cluster aims to explore the longstanding Asian urban "tradition", by exploring the origins of urbanism and urban culture in different parts of Asia and linking the various elements of city cultures and societies, from ancient to modern (colonial and post-colonial) times.

Through an international knowledge-network of experts, cities and research institutes it seeks to encourage social scientists and scholars in the humanities to interact with contemporary actors including artists, activists, planners and architects, educators, and policy makers. By bringing together science and practice, IIAS wishes to initiate a productive dialogue where each participant can contribute his or her own expertise with the potential to evolve into a broad multi-disciplinary corpus contributing to the actual development of Asian cities today.

Research topics
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, shelter/housing and the quality of the neighborhoods where people live, infrastructural developments, the impact of urbanization on the natural environment, the question of urban heritage, etc.