Cities from perspective of Asia and Africa

We are often used to the Western perspective on cities, where men are often put in the center, bringing together all other “artificial” concepts of
comfort, safety, cleanliness. What if we would not put these concepts at the head, yet would try to put the “harmony between men and nature” to the center of the city? How then the cities would be.
We are now starting series of lectures, podcasts about different projects, which were held in Asia and Africa to extend our views on cities in various countries.
Many towns in Africa have a tree in their heart-center, started from the placing the central square to the main center. Bigger urban entities, like fast growing cities of Asia are creating new vibrant new communities in fast growing newly converted urban areas, like Johannesburg [talk on urban governance in South Africa].
Working with cities in Asia and Africa one cannot simply apply the same rules and guidelines written for European cities, this is clear from various report [urban agenda]. In the recent talk and discussions with urbanist and architect from Pakistan we see how on the stage of city problems identification we already observe such a big differences between cities in Europe and Asia [projects in Pakistan].

References:
[projects in Pakistan] Discussions with S. Shachid
[talk on urban governance in South Africa] Discussions with A.Nikitin
[urban agenda UNHABITAT report] link