By Edward Glaeser
Notes
- Crime, Congestion and Pollution mark all cities, from Los Angeles to Mumbai
- In fact, the crush of people living in close quarters fosters the kind of collaborative creativity that has produced some of humanity's best ideas, including the industrial revolution and the digital age
- Recent research that is forming a multidisciplinary science of cities is beginning to reveal the answer: cities concentrate, accelerate, and diversify social and economic activity
- The numbers show that urban dwellers produce more inventions and create more opportunities for economic growth
- Often large cities are also the greenest places on the planet because people living in denser habitats typically have smaller energy footprints, require less infrastructure and consume less of the world's resources per capita
- On average, the bigger the city, the more efficient its use of infrastructure, leading to important savings in materials, energy and emissions
- Curiously, these deviations persist for decades: cities tend to stay remarkably close to their overperforming or underperforming histories
- Processes such as the development of a spirit of local entrepreneurship, a reputation for cutting-edge novelty, and a culture of excellence and competitiveness, are difficult to design through policy because they rely on the dynamics of a city's social fabric across many dimensions
- Economic pressures push urbanites to come up with new forms of organizations, products and services that carry more value added
- Environmental efficiency becomes more challenging for developing nations (India or China), where much urban infrastructure still needs to be built, although the trade-offs between a need for rapid growth versus the steps to achieve clean growth remain poorly understood
- The ongoing challenge for urban growth is whether human creativity can keep innovating sufficiently fast to sustain ever expanding urban populations while decreasing our per capita consumption of resources and impact on the planet
- Technology lets us hold virtual meetings, and the Internet keeps us in touch 24/7, but neither can be a substitute for the types of social cues when people meet in an office, bar or gym
- Cites can breed health as well as economic productivity
- The cities of the developing world are not yet healthy, in part because their governments have been unable to provide the basic infrastructure that cities need
- Humankind continues to confront enormous challenges, from endemic poverty to global warming, but the track record of our urban species makes me optimistic
Summary
There has been a lot of change with the world especially as of today with its cities all around. Cities have begun to change with this new revolution same as the Industrial Revolution and the Digital Age which is occurring now. Cities seem to be the answer for everything as they concentrate, accelerate, and diversify social and economic activity. They also provide benefits as the people living in it are able to create inventions that would lead to more opportunity for the future. Not always negative, they do provide much more as they are one of the greenest places on the planet because people living in denser habitats typically have smaller energy footprints, require less infrastructure and consume less of the world's resources per capita. Economic pressures push urbanites to come up with new forms of organizations, products and services that carry more value added. Environmental issues in efficiency play a big challenge as countries such as India and China have many problems that they must resolve in order to maintain a good overall body. The ongoing challenge for urban growth is whether human creativity can keep innovating sufficiently fast to sustain ever expanding urban populations while decreasing our per capita consumption of resources and impact on the planet.
Opinion
This is a very big eye-opener for me as I wasn't aware of all the benefits of what cities do provide for people. I thought they had all been just naturally bad overall and nothing more but now I can see the error in what I had used to believe. Seeing now that they provide many positives that I was never aware of with being able to contribute to concentrate, accelerate, and diversify social and economic activity. I can now see what is a major cause for developing nations (India or China) to struggle, the issue of Environmental efficiency where much urban infrastructure still needs to be built. This is a positive as this will leave the future of our cities to evolve for the future leading to a better economy. This will soon become a big breakthrough for our world and doesn't seem to stop any time soon.