2022
Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft and others
The "Urban Age Debates: Cities in the 2020s" handbook summarizes discussions from 2021/2022 that explore how cities are adapting to significant global changes. The Urban Age Programme, established in 2004, investigates urban development trends as the majority of the world's population transitioned to urban living. Initially, urban growth predictions were based on reliable trends, and there was hope for gradual carbon emissions reduction and urban democracy. However, many assumptions about cities have been challenged in recent years, including the financial sector's influence, urban green growth, responses to populism, and the sustainability of consumer-driven cities. The handbook reflects on these changing narratives and the complexities facing urban environments in the current decade.
This handbook is summarizing six debates / conversations that took place in 2021/2022 within the program: URBAN AGE DEBATES CITIES IN THE 2020S: AN EXPLORATION OF HOW CITIES ARE RESPONDING TO PROFOUND GLOBAL CHANGE The Urban Age Programme was established as a worldwide investigation into the future of cities in 2004, not long before the headline-grabbing moment when the majority of the world’s population were urban rather than rural dwellers. At that time urban growth projections based on extrapolation of recent trends were reliable, the possibility of gradual carbon emission reduction to achieve a safe climate was still possible and urban democracy was a project motiv- ating decentralisation reforms and city leadership. Since then, many of the certainties that were directly connected with a global narrative about cities have been challenged: the role of the financial sector, urban green growth, a cosmopolitan insulation against populism, the trickle-down potential of super- star cities, gentrification without displacement, the purpose of consumer cities, and manageable levels of planetary extraction to support city building.