The sustainability of one “smart city,” for example, can entail environmental degradation and social exploitation in another part of the world, as is the case with the mining of raw materials that go into making smart sensors, or the labor practices employed in the construction of some new eco-cities. If not, fundamental problems around access, informality and affordability remain unaddressed. But they are interrelated challenges that must be tackled together. Often left underexamined in fiction and life is the close relationship between climate change and inclusiveness. Have we solved their plight in this gleaming future? More than 1.2 billion people – one in three people in cities – live in informal settlements today. While these may seem appealing solutions, the sanitized version of the city they portray is difficult to reconcile with the much messier reality of most cities across the globe. And we are nudged to imagine ourselves living in glass-and-steel high-rises covered with plant life or solar panels, delivered by self-driving cars, and directed by artificial intelligence. We do find stories about optimistic, technology-driven lives enhanced by automation in the renderings of architecture studios and engineering firms, cities where the sky is always blue.
There are far fewer sunny versions of what cities of the future might be like. And there is good reason, as destructive bushfires, floods and heat waves are no longer just the stuff of fiction. As Hollywood’s new supervillain, climate change is a common apocalyptic backdrop in science fiction. There are plenty of pop culture tropes of a dystopian future, ravaged by climate change. We must do it in ways that don’t exacerbate existing inequalities and find ways to leave no one behind. This is a major, immediate and unprecedented transformation, changing almost everything about the way we live in, build and power our cities. Brave New WorldsĪs we begin the most important decade for climate action yet, cities need to tackle climate change and the continued growth and stubborn persistence of urban inequality together. What does this future city look like? Sadly, our collective imagination is failing us. They also need to find ways to lift up already vulnerable and marginalized groups. Projections by the world’s leading scientists say future cities need to have a near-zero-carbon footprint, eliminate their reliance on fossil fuels and be able to manage weather extremes such as heavy rains and heat waves. Low-income groups are disproportionately affected, as they are more likely to live in less robust homes and be in the path of natural hazards such as floods and heat waves – not to mention, they have fewer resources available to respond when disaster does strike. The result is deeply unfair: those who have contributed and benefited least from carbon-fueled growth are its frontline victims. As more people move to cities, they face rising housing prices, unequal access to employment opportunities and public amenities, and they now also contend with the weather extremes of a changing climate.
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In turn, climate change, one result of carbon-fueled growth over the last two centuries, is also a driver of urban inequality.īy 2050, an additional 2.5 billion people could be living in cities. How does climate change fit into this picture? Leading urban experts think that the current path of cities far exceeds planetary boundaries of what is sustainable.
In some cities, like those in South Africa, well-meaning policies and investments in transit and housing have actually deepened the inequality and segregation experienced by low-income communities. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the world’s cities, where extreme wealth can exist next door to concentrated poverty. In the 21st century, a seemingly global prosperity masks an unequal distribution of benefits.
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