My Wildest Prediction is a podcast collection from Euronews Enterprisethe place we dare to think about the long run with enterprise and tech visionaries. On this episode, Tom Goodwin talks to Greg Clark, an professional on sustainable city transition.
Right this moment, round 4.4 billion individuals, simply over half the worldwide inhabitants, reside in city areas.
This urbanisation development is predicted to proceed within the coming years, elevating necessary questions: How will individuals feed themselves? How will they navigate their cities? Will they’ve entry to wash air and clear power?
To handle these doubts, My Wildest Prediction talks to Greg Clark, a world urbanist and advisor, who shares his ideas on the way forward for cities.
The numerical peak of human inhabitants
“By 2080, that is 55 years away, there will likely be greater than 10 billion human beings,” Clark mentioned about his wildest prediction. “Virtually 90% of us will likely be residing in cities and in city areas,” he added. In keeping with Clark, the human inhabitants could have reached its numerical peak by 2080. But, he defined that disruptors like local weather change, wars and pandemics might trigger the height to occur even earlier.
Clark believes that after the worldwide inhabitants crosses the ten billion mark, the world will start to expertise developments already seen in components of the world, akin to individuals residing longer on common whereas having fewer youngsters. “Finally, the whole inhabitants will stabilise, after which it is going to start to say no,” he added.
Clark emphasised that inhabitants progress would require constructing adaptable and sustainable cities. He famous that when international numbers begin to decline, there can be a necessity for methods to redistribute the world inhabitants in ways in which protect the planet’s well-being.
“So it’s kind of of a quest,” he added, “I feel it’s kind of of a frontier of discovery”.
Upcoming city challenges and options
Greg Clark’s prediction of an rising urbanisation doesn’t come with out challenges. The urbanist highlighted the hidden penalties of city focus of inhabitants, akin to inequality and environmental air pollution, which might be usually overshadowed by the financial productiveness and progress that cities drive.
“Everlasting inhabitants progress and everlasting financial growth,” he mentioned, “I feel we now have to revise all of that and begin to assume in a different way”.
Clark outlined meals, housing, and transport as essential sectors that can require main innovation to accommodate rising city populations.
He expressed optimism concerning the transport sector, citing progress in low-emission autos, shared mobility, and the revival of strolling and biking as indicators that efficient options are already taking form.
“The housing and the meals issues are going to take extra ingenuity,” Clark famous.
He emphasised the necessity to remodel meals techniques by way of city farming, agri-tech, water effectivity, and artificial meals innovation, whereas additionally addressing the housing disaster by constructing extra reasonably priced, well-serviced properties and shifting the mindset from housing as funding to housing as an amenity.
Clark additionally famous that inequality in cities usually results in larger crime charges, threatening security and eroding the general civic expertise.
“So crime and insecurity associated to inequality is the factor which I feel we will need to work on far more than we now have been,” he mentioned.
Reconnecting Cities with Nature
Clark argued that, together with tackling city challenges by way of expertise and infrastructure, an enduring resolution should additionally contain reconciling cities with the pure world.
“Nature is coming again into cities whether or not we prefer it or not,” mentioned Clark as he careworn on integrating nature into the city panorama, “Whether or not it returns as a pandemic, an infestation of rats, or one thing else, it’s a alternative we should make”.
He highlighted the significance of creating what he referred to as natural cities, saying that integrating nature into city areas may deal with many urgent challenges, from flooding and overheating to enhancing air high quality.
Clark additionally identified the abundance of assets, akin to timber and pure processes for water recycling and lightweight filtration, which may make cities extra sustainable. Moreover, he famous that many cities had been initially designed with nature in thoughts, and returning to those roots may assist create a greater future.
“However in the long run,” remarked Clark, “I feel what you must do is say, ‘that is about the way forward for the human race. Are we going to have the ability to handle and preserve our habitat in methods that can assist life once we’ve gone?’”