Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo

On Nov. 6, I stood on the One Young World stage at ICM Messe Munich, looking out at 2,500 young leaders from 190 countries. The room fell quiet as I introduced myself in Kinaray-a, my mother tongue from Western Visayas in the Philippines. It was a short greeting, but for me it felt like bringing my whole community into a space where our language is almost never heard.

Markets may be efficient at pricing the present, but they’re terrible at coordinating the future. That’s why every successful economy, regardless of ideology, eventually reaches for some form of masterplan—a long-term, evidence-based roadmap that aligns public goals with private decisions. Call it an industrial strategy, a national development plan, or a citywide spatial framework: the label matters less than the function. A good masterplan doesn’t micromanage; it choreographs. It creates the...

Walk any city block and you’re moving across layered stories—rivers channeled into pipes, fields paved over, names translated or erased. Urban planning decides whose stories keep shaping the place. If Indigenous Peoples are missing from that table, the city is built on a partial truth—and partial truths make for brittle towns: more conflict, weaker ecosystems, poorer health, and fewer chances to belong. Consulting indigenous communities in urban planning isn’t a courtesy; it’s core to building..