The Noble Savage Turns Urbanite -- Cities as a route to environmental and economic recovery


By James Moore, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, HDR Inc. and Emma Stewart, Ph.D., Senior Manager of AEC Sustainability, Autodesk


We are now an urban species. For the first time in human history, over 50% of humanity lives in cities and, by all accounts, this percentage will only continue to grow. McKinsey & Co estimates that, by the year 2030, the urban population will have grown from 3.5 to 5 billion people. India and China will experience particularly strong urbanization, with 500 million Indians and Chinese inhabiting urban areas by that year. Edward Glaeser observes that “the real city is made of flesh, not concrete.” Cities are more than merely buildings and infrastructure. They are exciting hubs -- centers of economic growth, innovation and social interaction.


Historically, people have come to cities for opportunities; including jobs, education, culture, and an increased standards of living and quality of life. And such increases are desperately needed. According to the United Nations, nearly two thirds of the world population lives below the “threshold for high human development.” At the same time, the other one-third, primarily the so-called “industrialized” countries, have achieved a relatively high standard of living, yet this is generally accompanied by high consumption of energy and other natural resources.


So the


challenge for industrialized countries is to maintain - if not increase - their overall quality of life while, at the same time, reducing the per capita and total demand for non- renewable resources. The challenge for developing counties is to radically improve the quality of life of their citizens without substantially increasing the per capita and total consumption of non-renewable resources. With respect to this challenge, cities are simultaneously part of the solution and part of the problem.


Part of the Solution In social terms, the move to cities has historically represented an overall improvement in the quality of life over rural conditions. As societies urbanize, their


ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE |37|


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