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July 2015
Since 2007, for the first time in history more than 50% of the world’s population live in cities. It is predicted that every week until 2050, more than one million new people will move to urban areas. Cities are becoming more important than ever and the issue of urban growth is one that is becoming very apparent. Cities and urbanisation provide both the source of our problems and the source of the necessary solutions. This journal entry begins to explore these ideas.
Urbanisation is the problem
As cities grow, certain impacts of urban life grow super-linearly, meaning more than proportionally to size. For example, the larger a city becomes, the more pollution is generated per capita. This is becoming a huge problem in cities such as Shanghai where poor air quality and visibility is seriously affecting the quality of life of citizens. In Shanghai, 80% of the pollution is caused by motor vehicles, which also cause other urban problems such as congestion. The list of problems is endless, with larger cities having higher crime rates, poorer health and arguably a poorer quality of life.
Urbanisation is the solution
Countering this argument, innovation and creativity are two more positive examples which also cumulate super-linearly in cities. These qualities are overwhelmingly positive and help to portray our urban environments the way we want to see them. Land values and wages also increase more than proportionately as well. Cities are just a physical manifestation of our interactions. A higher population leads to higher interaction as connections between people grow. It’s these interactions which lead to innovation and growth.
Urban areas have the potential to be vastly more sustainable than their rural counterparts. Energy use per capita increases more than proportionately in urban areas. The same can be said for infrastructure such as railways, roads and electricity cables where it is predicted urban areas gain a 15% saving on such features.
The future
What does the future hold? Super-linear growth is destined to fail. It needs resources to maintain our upward trajectory whether that’s population size, wealth, industry, or creativity. Where do we get that resource? Innovation. We need to continually innovate to allow cities to continue to grow as they desire. It’s this innovation that makes cities and the human interactions within them more important than ever.
This raises the question over whether cities can be too big, or grow too quickly? Is there a perfect size for cities? And is there a limit to our capacity to out-innovate the problems presented by urban growth?
