2022
Authors:
The document serves as a handbook summarizing six debates held in 2021 and 2022 under the Urban Age Program, focusing on the challenges cities face in the 2020s amid significant global changes. Established in 2004, the program investigates the future of urban environments, particularly as more than half of the world’s population now resides in cities. The handbook highlights how previously reliable urban growth projections and the potential for gradual carbon emission reductions have been disrupted by evolving dynamics, including shifts in the financial sector, the complexities of urban green growth, and the impact of populism. It also questions long-held beliefs regarding gentrification, the role of consumer cities, and the sustainability of urban development practices. As cities continue to adapt, understanding these challenges becomes crucial for envisioning their future.
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.