The Future of Cities
The 21st century will come to be known as the urban century. For the first time in human history more than half of the 6.8 billion people on Earth live in cities. Over the next 17 years, another 1.7 billion people will join our species – what I call homo urbanis. Canada is no different. In 1867, 20 per cent of Canadians lived in cities; now over 80 per cent do.
As such, getting cities right, and making them as sustainable as possible, is fundamentally important to our survival. Overconsumption of scarce natural capital (water, soil, forests, the ocean’s bounty, oil and gas, coal, minerals) causes major environmental problems – foul air, contaminated water and soil, deforestation and desertification, loss of biodiversity, climate change from human-produced greenhouse gases.
This is largely an urban problem. The vast majority of the planet’s natural resources are consumed by city-dwellers – by their homes, transportation, energy, food, clothes, businesses, industries, and governments. A smaller but still significant portion of our natural capital is eaten up by mines, mills, farms, and other rural industrial activities that produce products used primarily by city-dwellers.
North American cities are by far the worst offenders. If China and India’s rapidly urbanizing population of 2.5 billion consumed natural capital the way we do in Canadian and U.S. cities, we would need the equivalent of four Earths’ worth of natural resources. As we only have one Earth, it’s imperative that we imminently abandon our North American urban model of sprawl, freeways, SUVs, and general overconsumption.
Besides their considerable impact on the environment, 21st-century cities constitute a crucial front in the war against poverty. One billion poor people currently live in urban areas of developing countries, many of whom are forced to inhabit informal and mostly illegal slums. Many more will have to adopt such living conditions if we don’t develop creative, sustainable strategies for building modern cities.
The impact of cities on the world today and over the next century cannot be overstated. Thus, in an effort to build strategies for creating sustainable cities and to conceive of the tools necessary to implement them, I have invited a group of experts to discuss various aspects of the broad subject of cities: ecological footprints, climate change, demographic challenges, social welfare, and more. I hope you will join in the dialogue.
Redefining the Good Life
by Colin Jackson
President, Hands at Work Africa (Canada).
- First Posted: Nov 04 2009 16:22 PM
- Updated: 7 months ago
Collectively, Canadians seem to value consumption above all else. We need to shift the emphasis to curiosity, creativity, connection, and happiness.
It is common to speak of the economic, social, and environmental pillars which, when in harmony, yield sustainability. But there is also a forth pillar or, more accurately, a lintel which connects the others – culture. By this I mean a shared sense of community practices and identity – essentially, our common personality. The concern is that the culture of Canada is hypnotized by the means, with little consideration for the ends.
Individually, we care about kindness, generosity, values, and purpose. Collectively, if our political debate is an accurate reflection, our concerns are entitlements and consumption. We are among the wealthiest societies the world has ever seen, yet we build roadways that are soul-sucking trails of veniality leading to suburbs of banality – then lie about what we have done. (In my hometown of Calgary, Crowchild Trail is an eight-lane freeway jammed with cars, and a suburban sprawl development is named "Walden.") We build ugly, sterile, soulless places, then seek soothing through maximizing consumption of the material world.
When the urge to create is supplanted by the drive to consume, we become toxic to ourselves, those around us, and to the planet. We need a new narrative of the good life based on the deep wisdoms that are our shared cultural inheritances. Human beings are meaning makers. Creating narratives, invention, taking joy in discovery, and being uplifted by the beautiful are in our DNA.
One argument for the value of cultural enterprises is attracting and retaining knowledge workers. However, the incentives one place offers can always be matched or exceeded by another to lure the transient tribe of creators. It is more useful to foster and retain, encouraging a culture of learning for the pleasure it produces, creation for the joy, and innovation for the buzz, as well as the admiration – and financial rewards – of being a contributor. Such a place becomes "sticky" for its residents, through webs of social connection, shared pride in achievements, admiration for the artful, and anticipation of the exceptional yet to come. These places retain the core of their human capital through both lean and good times.
One organizing principle for cultural transformation could be to foster place-specific, broad innovation systems with ambitious goals. How to live in harmony with the environment while producing and exporting energy would be a great start for my beloved Calgary.
How about a national culture foundation to encourage innovative and entrepreneurial behaviours, connecting good ideas and linking idea generators across disciplines? Or awards for innovation, not just in the arts and sciences, but also in family life, politics, and education? How about research friendly tax regimes, support for commercializing concepts, and annual gatherings to check out what the rest of the world is doing and how we are doing in the world? Why not no more ugly buildings that kill street life and pollute our public space? How about privileging bikes and pedestrians over cars? Or defining the arts not as the preserve of the privileged but as the birth right of all? How about we set the national goal that Canada be a global hotspot for innovation, with the first step being to ensure that every child in Canada has an arts and creativity-infused education every year of his or her schooling?
Utopian, you say? Maybe, but the Bhutanese are practising Buddhist economics where they assess the value of economic activity by the impact on the Gross National Happiness. We know the value of the timber when a tree is cut down, but what is the happiness contribution of the forest left standing? An inquisitive, not acquisitive, culture asks such questions. Let us write a new narrative of the good life based on human curiosity, creativity, connection, and happiness. In short, let us shape a culture of sustainability.
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