1 Copyright © 2018, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 1 DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-2659-9.ch001 ABSTRACT Urban theory has been dominated by the accumulation of social theories and has signifcant impact on global urbanization. The urban is becoming more complex and more global due to the contesting technological, political, social, economic and environmental forces. These disciplinary forces may be added to the global shifts in population and political power from rural to urban and from the developed to the developing nations, creating new global challenges. To cope with these challenges, the prevailing urban theories need a shift. By critically revisiting urban theories and testing them against emerging challenges, this chapter is advocating for and pointing to a new direction. The chapter revisits urban sociological theories, those global theories advocating planetary urbanization, the models responding to glocal forces as well as those promoting world systems. This is followed by an outline of the proposal for Activity Theoretical Framework. Possible future research direction for the inclusive and universal urbanization is identifed. 1. INTRODUCTION In this Information Age, there is a pressing need to revisit urban theories that were the abstraction of the conditions of cities in the early Industrial Age. Most of the classical urban sociological theories emerged from the experiences of the industrial revolution in Europe and USA cities. The ecological urban theory of the Chicago School is an important example (Tonkiss 2005). Similarly, the theories of urban and regional spatial structure have been influenced by ideas of the garden city (Howard, 2016), from which new towns theory emerged (LeGates, 2004). From their European and American roots, these theories Revisiting Urban Theories: Their Impacts on the Developing World’s Urbanization Umar Benna Benna Associates, Nigeria Indo Benna Mohammad Al-Mana College of Health Sciences, Saudi Arabia