A CRISIS OF PERCEPTION For centuries, cities evolved gradually in terms of their physical and population size. This trend, however, dramatically shifted in the last 50 years, with urban growth occurring at an exponential scale and rate as urban population numbers spiked. By 2050, two-thirds of the world’s projected 9.7 billion population will live in urban areas, adding an estimated 2 billion people to cities mostly concentrated in Africa and Asia1
. This
, equivalent to the size of South Africa. This in turn drives habitat losses and threatens biodiversity. Extinction is already happening at about 1,000 times the historical rate4 global primary vegetation land cover have been destroyed in biodiversity hotspots5
around the world could also be lost5
. The situation is further aggravated by the vast suburbs and hinterlands of cities as they expand, with urban land growth far outpacing urban population growth. If the current trajectory of unsustainable urban sprawl were to continue, humanity will potentially urbanise another 1.2 million square kilometres of land by 20503
astounding rate of urban growth is equivalent to building a city with the population of London every seven weeks2
, and as of year 2000, 88 per cent of . By 2030, urban growth
could further destroy natural habitats that currently store carbon equivalent to emissions from 931 million cars on the road in one year2
. Up to 40 per cent of the species in some of the most biologically diverse areas .
Cities drive the global economy and global environmental change. It is therefore largely in the urban environment where the pressure, and opportunity, for change lies. Despite occupying only 3 per cent of the world’s land, cities today consume 75 per cent of all natural resources, produce 50 per cent of all waste, and account for 60 to 80 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions6
. The materials used by the global
economy have also more than tripled over the last 50 years and now exceeds 100 billion tonnes every year. About 91.4 per cent of this continues to be extracted from Earth’s finite resources, with only 8.6 per cent of our global economy being circular in 20177
. Majority (52.2 per cent) of the materials entering the global
economy every year are used by society as short-lived products, which then become waste. Such rapid and unsustainable urbanisation along with unrelenting material consumption and irresponsible lifestyle patterns over recent decades have resulted in the irreversible exploitation of natural resources, severe biodiversity and habitat losses, unmanaged generation of waste, significant environmental degradation, and unprecedented climate change. This makes the world more vulnerable than ever to extreme natural events/disasters and rising sea levels as a result of global warming that poses a major and imminent threat, especially to the highly populated low-lying coastal regions of the world, including island nations like Singapore.
century unfolds, it is becoming increasingly evident that the major challenges of our time—the environment; climate change; food; energy; water; and financial security—cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems; in that they are all interconnected and interdependent. The situation urgently demands global political action and integrated responses towards sustainable urbanism across all sectors, but this is not happening holistically or fast enough, with the greatest obstacle being our collective mindset.
As the 21st
“Ultimately, these problems must be seen as just different facets of one single crisis, which is largely a crisis of perception. It derives from the fact that most people in our modern society, and especially our large social institutions, subscribe to the concepts of an outdated worldview, a perception of reality inadequate for dealing with our overpopulated, globally interconnected world8
.”
To arrive at solutions for the 21st century, therefore, first requires a radical shift in our global perceptive, thinking and values.
2
1 Aeria view of WOHA’s proposal for a Self-Sufficient City for Jakarta 2 Singapore’s Kampung Admiralty: Biophilic features are incorporated throughout the development
62 FUTURARC
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