“The world has entered a new era, evolving from an industrial into a knowledge-based society, and into a society that wants to live in harmony with nature.” 

Minoru Mori, considered to be one of Japan’s most powerful and influential developers and one of the world’s richest men before his death in 2012, understood intimately the disadvantages of a decentralised, spread-out urban area and the environmental impacts of “urban sprawl”.  

A decade on, development continues to occur on the fringes of cities globally as land is cleared and new suburbs are erected with often little thought to energy costs, adequate infrastructure, pollution, traffic, trees and open space.