Cities around the world are growing faster than you can say megalopolis. More than half the world lives in cities, and by 2050, it will be two-thirds. In China alone, 300 million people will move to the city within the next 15 years, and to serve them, China must build the equivalent of the entire built infrastructure of the United States by 2028.
At the same time, 250 million new urban dwellers are expected in India and 380 million in Africa. Even though cities will soon account for 90 percent of population growth, 80 percent of global CO2, and 75 percent of energy consumption, more and more, it’s where people want to live.
Why? Because it’s where 80 percent of the wealth is created, and it’s where people find opportunities, especially women in the developing world. But beyond basic needs from housing to jobs, how do we enjoy the benefits of the city—like cafes, art galleries, restaurants, cultural facilities—without the traffic, crowding, crime, pollution, and disease?
Dozens of MIT faculty are now working to figure it out, and there is no easy fix. The problems, they say, never end—poverty, affordable housing, clean water, transportation, congestion, garbage. And as if that weren’t enough to keep an urban planner busy for life, the entire society, they say, is also now undergoing a worldwide paradigm shift—thanks to mobile communications and the Internet, global climate change, and a struggling economy.
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Read the full issue at MIT Spectrum