This book, the first in a planned series, reports on the Future Cities Laboratory and its ambitious mission to shape sustainable future cities through science, by design, in place. It offers a global perspective on cities from the vantage point of Asia, where the laboratory is based. This view has particular significance today as the fortunes of Asia, the world's most populous and rapidly urbanizing continent, will also delineate the prospects of the planet. The series as a whole will assemble the necessary indicia--indications, clues, evidence--on how cities grow and flourish, produce and innovate, consume and waste, threaten and destroy, to form practical strategies for future city making. The first volume in the series focuses on the challenges that future cities pose to sustainability. The second will concentrate on the innovative approaches necessary for addressing those challenges. The third will present concrete scenarios and action plans that emerge from such approaches.