What constitutes the ultimate global city?

The perfect city may be an ideological concept, but that should not prevent humankind from attempting to draw up an imperfect blueprint. It has been 503 years since Thomas More described the perfect place: an island of strict rules and no private property, where everyone – male or female – farms and learns another trade on top of that. Everyone’s employed and no one works more than six hours a day. That place is Utopia – meaning “no place”. Three centuries later, designer William Morris revamped that vision with his own 19th century socialist ideal, but he kept the name, “Nowhere”. What More and Morris understood is that nowhere is faultless. But what if it could be? With more than two-thirds of the world expected to live in urban hubs by 2050, and with cities increasingly becoming the barometer for a nation’s economic and political prowess rather than the countries in their entirety, the calibre of our metropolises has never been more important. Is it within the realms of possibility that we could create a city in the future perfectly designed to cater for its inhabitants? One thing is for sure: it would be a challenge. The first problem comes down to precedent. Designing a good city – much less a perfect one – from scratch has rarely worked. “If you do try and sit down and design a perfect city, as some notable architects have done in the past, you’re doomed to failure,” says Francis Glare, head of urbanism for architecture and design firm BDP, who works in both Manchester and New Delhi. Planned cities such as Chandigarh in India or Brasilia in Brazil compartmentalise districts with little regard for how humans go about multitasking in their daily lives. Chandigarh, Glare says, is instantly recognisable from the air, but “just doesn’t work” on the ground. “It separates out what we would have in our very mixed-up lives doing all sorts of different things at the same time,” he argues, which is why his team is working to “humanise” one of its districts with spaces designed with people in mind. You look at the city as an individual city and you build from the ground up, rather than saying, ‘Where you need to be is having a top 10 global destination art gallery, a top 10 Chinese CBD, an international airport or a Russell Group university’ – Peter Hogg | UK cities director | Arcadis Unique places Problem number two is that cities that work are unique. They have a distinctive history, a legacy and a planning framework that residents and businesses build on. Their residents’ needs vary tremendously depending on their demographics or local resources. That’s why Glare has seen a push against global indices ranking cities based on a few narrow metrics. “You look at the city as an individual city and you build from the ground up, rather than saying, ‘Where you need to be is having a top 10 global destination art gallery, a top 10 Chinese CBD, an international airport or a Russell Group university,’” he says. “If you go down that line, there’ll only be 20 decent cities in the world, and that’s patently not true.” But none of this means we shouldn’t be aspiring to build cities that are the best they can be. Rapid urbanisation means that happy, prosperous lives depend on cities that work. The trick is to identify the elements that make a “good city” and tailor them to the needs of each specific location, rather than roll out an unrealistic one-size-fits-all solution. Attempting a blanket approach is likely to do more harm than good – particularly as the art of urban design and development is already extremely complex. The growth of megacities, in particular, has led to a unique set of problems for planners. In its 2018 Sustainable Cities Index, global design and consultancy firm Arcadis ranked fast-growing megacities (such as Tianjin and Cairo) among the least sustainable in the world, partly because of the speed at which they’re growing. “The challenge affecting many of these cities is that they are not always balancing economic and physical growth with the needs of their citizens and environments,” says Peter Hogg, UK cities director at Arcadis. “This consumes open space, drives density and discourages considered investment in mitigating technologies such as electric vehicles, clean energy, comprehensive recycling programmes and city-sponsored environmental education.” Rapid urban growth can also make inequality more obvious if local authorities don’t have the power or the vision to respond to local needs, argues Julio Dávila, professor of urban policy and international development at UCL, whose research focuses on Latin America. “Urbanisation doesn’t necessarily increase the degree of concentration of power and wealth, but what it does is make it more visible spatially, through things like gated communities.” Those with more wealth, he says, can physically segregate themselves from the rest of the city. If there is poor infrastructure, that can isolate less well-off areas, leaving them disconnected from the city’s opportunities. “That is a trend I find terribly worrying. Developers ought to be a little more conscious about how they’re contributing in a negative sense to these processes.” Many-centred cities But just as there are recurring problems, speak to any planner and you will find recurring solutions. Successful cities are often ones that are polycentric. Think Lisbon, Stockholm, New York or Oslo; they have multiple places where people can live, work and enjoy themselves. It can mean having neighbourhoods that are distinct but connected, where problems surrounding affordability can be alleviated because demand isn’t concentrated in one place. While growth is necessary, Dávila says ideal cities also work to reduce sprawl, so the increase in physical space doesn’t outpace population growth. Sprawl can mean longer commuting times and more difficult journeys, which mean cities need to both limit that physical growth and invest in transport infrastructure. “An ideal city is one that takes into account both transport and land use planning, and tries to get them to talk to each other,” says Dávila, adding that this isn’t often the case. Glare, for example, cites parts of South East Asia, where international investment is geared heavily toward infrastructure with the expectation that someone will come along and build around it. Ultimately, all these points come back to a city’s individual needs. Successful cities are ones that have a strong local authority that can set the agenda, build the framework and engage with residents and the private sector to fill that framework with ideas. They build on their history and continue to evolve as they respond to their unique economic or environmental challenges. Real cities can give us a blueprint for how it has worked in the past. But, just as Utopia and Nowhere were pictures of perfection in a single point in time, without context and without evolution, so too do these cities capture what works and what doesn’t work in this particular point in time. Who knows whether they can retain their credibility in years to come? Nevertheless, let’s try. Let’s try to build a Frankenstein’s monster of a perfect city and see which parts of existing cities it could involve. [caption id="attachment_995610" align="aligncenter" width="847"] Lisbon’s culturally discrete neighbourhoods are key to its diversity and success[/caption] ‘Can a perfect city exist?’ By Peter Hogg, UK cities director at Arcadis We will never deliver the ideal city. Humankind’s aspiration, inventiveness and continually deepening understanding of the world around them will always outpace the physical creation and administrative operation of cities. That said, it would be a waste of humankind’s talents and energies if we were to stop trying to achieve perfection. We must strive to get closer and, undoubtedly, we will move in the right direction, but we must understand that, if we were to claim the ideal city, we would implicitly claim that the pinnacle of human achievement has been reached. That seems too far-fetched to be believable, and so we must continue to understand, to learn and to develop towards the ideal whilst being comfortable that it is a journey, not a destination. Historic ‘Utopias’ The polycentrism of Lisbon, Portugal Lisbon, Europe’s second-oldest capital, has not let its expansion centre solely around the historic core. The city is famous for its Bairros – neighbourhoods – each offering something a little different culturally, historically and economically. Combined, they create a city that caters to a range of people and industries in a relatively compact space. It also helps that Lisbon has the Atlantic Ocean on one side and sits on top of its seven famous hills, adding another layer to the experience of wandering and enjoying its streets (though that might be a bit harder to replicate). The inclusive, targeted infrastructure of Medellín, Colombia Faced with isolated areas suffering from poverty, drugs and violence, Colombia’s second-largest city, Medellín, came up with a solution: build an aerial cable car. The Metrocable launched in 2004, connecting poor neighbourhoods in the hills to the city centre, opening up opportunities and transforming people’s lives. A 2012 study in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that the five-year decline in homicide rates was 66% greater in neighbourhoods that were newly connected than in other neighbourhoods. Cable cars might not solve problems in other cities, but an integrated transport policy just might. The renewable energy of Burlington, Vermont, USA More than 100 cities in the US have committed to using 100% renewable energy, but Burlington, Vermont, was the first one to achieve that goal back in 2014. The city, where Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was once mayor, is targeting its next goal: to become a net zero energy city in 2020. That means it will create as much renewable energy as it consumes. That’s the kind of ambition a perfect city in our climate should try to mimic. The smart city strategy of Vienna, Austria Alphabet’s plans for Toronto might make the headlines (especially when controversy around it leads to city officials resigning), but it’s the Austrian capital that can teach other cities a few things about integrated smart city planning. The city has an internal Smart City Agency and a digital framework strategy that spells out how the public and private sectors work together to deliver their digital goals. And its agenda is constantly evolving as it responds to how its smart city policies affect long-term goals like carbon emissions. Vienna has taken responsibility for its smart city credentials in ways few others have. The economic prosperity of Singapore As an established financial centre, Singapore has set the bar high as far as business is concerned. It tops Arcadis’s index measuring cities’ economic health, bolstered by an unemployment rate of just 2% alongside strong digital and physical infrastructure. The city-state ranks among the highest on the World Bank’s ease of doing business index, contributing to its place as the fourth-highest GDP per capita in the world. The cycleability of Copenhagen, Denmark Having cycling infrastructure is a two-birds-one-stone kind of situation. There’s the climate angle of burning fewer fossil fuels, but it also ensures that a city has inclusive, easily commutable roads. The Copenhagenize Index ranks cities globally according to how cycle-friendly they are and, while Europe still dominates the top 20, the latest iteration saw global newcomers on the list in Bogota, Vancouver and Taipei. The broadband speed of Taipei, Taiwan The Taiwanese government is in the process of creating what it calls a “global-leading digital government” based on convenience and transparency. Its vision involves everything from digital ID cards, free Wi-Fi hotspots across the country and the ability to file your taxes in 10 minutes instead of 10 hours. Whatever their digital strategies, cities are increasingly reliant on fast, reliable internet – and Taiwan’s is the fastest in the world, according to Cable.co.uk’s latest Worldwide Broadband Speed league table. The sustainability of London, UK A sustainable city isn’t just one that is environmentally conscious. It’s one that offers economic, social and personal opportunities to its residents. While London rarely ranks at the top in all those categories, and critics will point to continuing challenges around affordability, the city manages to multitask on several fronts. It has a diverse, global workforce scattered across numerous boroughs, while global investment pours in and the city develops environmental initiatives like an ultra low emission zone. But all that has evolved over the course of centuries. Replicating that from scratch would be impossible.