“The 21st century will be urban”: since 2009 the biggest part of the world’s population concentrates in urban areas. Southeast Asia has seen significant urbanisation within the last decades, a process which took place parallelly to rapid economic development and population growth. At the same time, these developments pose important social, economic and environ-mental challenges.The ASEAN community strives to be people-centred, economically strong, inclusive, connected and environmentally sustainable. This paper argues that these ASEAN goals have an important urban dimension.