The phenomena of the multi-layered urban development and urbanisation are among the main topics of the current global cultural context. While the countries of the 'traditional' industrialisation are dealing with ‘'shrinking cities', the increasing megalopolises, particularly those in Latin America, Asia and Africa, are in a process of immense and uncontrolled growth. The panel 'Unfinished Cities' presents positions which consider the exuberant growth and the insecurity which go along with it not as a form of dysfunction, but as a potential. The image of the permanently unfinished, insecure and complex city creates novel spatial constellations that accelerate the urban practice of appropriation and the creation of new forms of public spheres, thus preventing any state of closure.