Tracking the global urbanists

In this commentary, I want to try to add to the wide-ranging and textured set of articles that do so much to chart out and provide evidence for the emergence of a globalized urban built environment profession. It is worth noting the use of the term 'transnational' in the title of this special issue, a restrained acknowledgement of the fact that many built environment tools and models are tried and tested within a small number of national regulatory and financial contexts. Yet, there is sufficient evidence of both firms and ideas operating in many countries and cities around the world to assert that this is indeed a research problem of global scope.