The Urban Moment
July 24, 2015 — Blog
This post is part of our Seizing the Urban Moment discussion series, following the fourth edition of the New Cities Summit in Jakarta in June 2015.
It is impossible for a country to become a developed nation without urbanization.
Greg Lindsay, Senior Fellow, Mobility Initiative, NewCities
“Many countries have yet to seize their urban moment,” said Greg Lindsay, Senior Fellow at NewCities. For example, by 2050, India will have a higher urban population than the combined population of Brazil and Indonesia, he said. Thailand will have an urban population of 44 million – higher than the population of Argentina today.
It is impossible for a country to become a developed nation without urbanization. Yet while urbanization is intertwined with economic growth, it also comes with great challenges. For example, “cities with populations in the billions will be the first to feel the impact of rising sea levels.”
As cities grow, their governments are gaining power on the world stage, reshaping the global order. “Mayors are the ones who are ruling the world,” he said.
However, mayors cannot govern with a top-down approach, Lindsay warned. His key message was that cities must allow their citizens to shape them. “If we’re going to create an opportunity for people in cities to seize the urban moment… We need to recognize the people building their own homes and allow them the resources to build their own cities.”
Cities are not just created by urban planning, but by citizens planning out their own areas. Tokyo after World War Two decentralized a huge amount of planning down to its citizens so that the city could quickly rebuild. “They did not have the resources to rebuild everything themselves, so they allowed people to carve out their own spaces.”
Growing cities need to find a way to support the redevelopment of their slum areas and include the residents of those localities. “This is how cities have always developed,” he said.
Speaker
Greg Lindsay, Senior Fellow, Mobility Initiative, NewCities – @Greg_Lindsay / @newcitiesfound