What Does a City Need?

One of the wicked problems I am interested in is the sustainable urban landscape. Or more precisely, how can we continue to have larger cities that are sustainably fed and powered? However there are other issues associated with urbanization. Public health, transportation and distaster resiliency to name a few. Solving the city problem is important because we can take the city as a microcosm of the globe. Whatever problem a city has, the world has it larger. Adopting a piecemeal approach and solving each city's sustainability challenges we can make a huge step towards solving those of the entire planet.

What does the city of the future need?

• Affordable sustainable energy generation
• A smart grid that conserves and distributes energy equitably
• Inspired urban planning and regeneration
• Resilient urban structures and smart infrastructure that respond to disasters and ambient conditions
• Greenscapes that allow community-based or community-supported agriculture, urban farming
• Novel public transportation means that are more efficient and efficacious making personal transportation obsolete.
• Economic and political systems that support the community, increase participation and distribute equitably

These are the challenges that we need to solve and it can't be done in incremental steps. We simply don't have the time. We need to make bold steps that implement invention and innovation rapidly and thoroughly. The best way would be for every city to solve its most dire problem. Once this has been achieved the knowhow and expertise developed on each problem can be exchanged for that of other cities.

Creating the solution for these problems and in the process the city of the future, we will need to engage and challenge minds in every field. This must be our goal as citizens and humans.