The story of Niyom and Ae, two street vendors in Bangkok. Of all the iconic images that define Bangkok in the world's eyes -- its serene temples, its swarms of motorcycles, its monumental malls -- perhaps none are as conspicuous as its thousands of street vendors.

Robert Neuwirth spent four years among the chaotic stalls of street markets, talking to pushcart hawkers and gray marketers, to study the remarkable "System D," the world's unlicensed economic network. Responsible for some 1.8 billion jobs, it's an economy of underappreciated power and scope.

Robert Neuwirth, author of "Shadow Cities," finds the world’s squatter sites -- where a billion people now make their homes -- to be thriving centers of ingenuity and innovation. He takes us on a tour.

Robert Neuwirth tells us about life in the informal economy, what French culture classifies as System D. 1.8 billion people on the planet subsist through economic transactions that happen outside legal spheres and, by 2020, two thirds of our planet will be doing business in this domain. The future is the free market vs. the flea market.

D.I.Y. City: Robert Neuwirth at TEDxHamburg

Welcome to the world-class city. It has towers, expressways, shopping malls, airports, private schools, and gated condominiums with golf courses, swimming pools and tennis courts. It has no slums, but the world-class city is built by slums — a paradox isn't it? To see the city from the slum provides a different view, a view of the global urban future.

Future African Cities: the new post-colonialism

Charles Leadbeater went looking for radical new forms of education -- and found them in the slums of Rio and Kibera, where some of the world's poorest kids are finding transformative new ways to learn. And this informal, disruptive new kind of school, he says, is what all schools need to become.

Fabienne Hoelzel - Upgrade Your Slums

An animation done for the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership (CPSL), inspired by a discussion held at COP17 in Durban between two CPSL Senior Associates, development economist Anton Cartwright and the late Peet Du Plooy. Jincom distilled the 90 minute discussion down to its key elements and brought the future alive through thought-provoking yet humorous visuals and animation. It looks at a future where electricity is cheap (while carbon is taxed heavily), inequality is less and South Africa is doing well because of smart choices and smart investments.