Many of us grew up seeing global urbanization as E.F. Shumacher did -- as possibly the deadliest trend facing the world.
We were wrong. Far from threatening humanity, cities are the key to building a future our planet can sustain.
We may think of them as overcrowded places. But actually, it is the growth of cities that may ultimately allay predictions of population Armageddon. Across the world, as people urbanize, family sizes fall dramatically.
We may think of them as polluted. But actually, the average carbon footprint per individual in cities is far smaller than that of those who live in suburbia and rural communities. People commute shorter distances, and by living on top of each other in smaller homes, heating and air-conditioning use per household is lower.
We may think with dismay of the teeming slums of the developing world. But as TED2012 speaker Ed Glaeser persuasively explains in his book Triumph of the City, it's not that cities create poverty. Rather, successful cities attract poor people, and in time, offer them a route out of poverty.
Urbanization may well be the planet's largest systemic change in centuries. In the next seven decades we'll have to build as much urban living space as in all of human history to date. That's the equivalent to a new city with a million residents, every week, for 70 years.
It's a daunting task, but also an amazing opportunity.
The rise of a new kind of city is inevitable. With each vote of a politician and choice of a citizen, transportation, energy, public space, housing and law are shaping a new urban future. But what will it look like? The creation and redevelopment of the world's cities offers us all -- citizens and leaders, amateurs and experts -- the ultimate design challenge. We must seize this moment.
Yesterday at TED2012, we granted this year's TED Prize not to a person, but to a big idea: the City 2.0. The city of tomorrow. And as part of that prize we're launching a new online platform. It will allow citizens around the world to connect with their neighbors and get to work re-imagining the cities in which they live. And it will allow visionary companies and organizations to share tools and resources to empower those grassroots efforts. The dream is to create cities where innovation, inclusiveness, health, soul and opportunity come together to reset the trajectory of the human race.
We invite mayors, architects, engineers, urban planners, nonprofits, multinational companies and ordinary citizens to use this platform. Already it offers some cool tools and the ability to connect with like-minded souls. But with your participation, it can become something truly amazing.
Just like cities, the TED Prize is based on the power of radical collaboration. Join us at thecity2.org. Tell us what you will contribute. Partner with other concerned citizens around you. Get started with building your own City 2.0.
Guy Horton: The 2012 TED Prize and the Future of Cities
Amy Novogratz: The City 2.0 - Dream It, Build It
Such a network has been proposed to change the way commuters circulate and distribute themselves at logical destinations. The showcase for this will be above the freeway next to the new Apple campus in Cupertino.
For mor information click on the following link
http://markbrodsky.com/Cupertino%20Citizen%202011b.pdf
That statement is entirely unjustified in the video but simply stated as an inevitability. In reality, more urbanization is the exact opposite of what society needs.
Technology is easy. Technology is seductive. Technology is profitable.
But, technology is not the answer.
The idea is YOU, make the city of the future and we will sit back and watch. Wow, OK. I have a new way to cure cancer... I'll make a web site and YOU guys can come up with ideas to cure cancer. Pointless and meaningless but it sounds good.
This makes me sick. First of all, where do we get the land, the energy, and the materials? A quick education in this is the "MOST IMPORTANT VIDEO YOU WILL EVER SEE" on You-Tube where an elderly old scientist talks about how incomprehensible the "exponential" function is to human beings, and then there is "Collapse", "The End Of Oil" and some others that talk about the crisis and rising cost of getting resources, growing good, and transporting goods.
Why do we need so many people? And how is the natural world going to survive. The answer is, it is not, and this guy's vision of the world is a fool's fantasy.
As the saying goes, we either have birth control or we have death control.
Like I said start from Googling "MOST IMPORTANT VIDEO YOU WILL EVER SEE" and think about it.
Western economists such as Harvard's Ed Glaeser tend to serve these interests as well.
That's my wish list. How we get from where we are today to that gleaming, utopian future is the question.
Ok, I'll give you that the carbon footprint is lower on a "per individual" basis. BUT, the carbon footprint, when calculated on a per acre or square mile basis, and used as the baseline for comparison, is exponentially higher in the cities due to the concentration of humans living in a given area. Sorry, while there may be valid reasons for urban living, I do not for a moment buy into the argument that states urban areas are less polluted. This is a problem when statistics can be used to support an argument, any argument, if taken out of context.
Also love living by a big body of water, we're a couple of blocks from the lake, the constant breeze means even in August you're comfortable, my trees are filled with migrating birds of every kind in the spring and fall and there's nothing like watching the fireworks on the 4th of July from a boat on the lake.