Columbia Presents: “The Future of the City”

From the World Policy Institute:

Philosophers, emperors, and artists have long succumbed to the pull of urban magnetism. Plato wrote of Atlantis; Petersburg rose from swamplands at the word of a czar; L. Frank Baum pictured an Emerald City; and William Gibson imagined a Sprawl. As our cities transform so too do our dreams and fears for their future. But with the World Health Organization’s estimate that by mid-century the global urban population will double to 6.4 billion, these dreams take on a sense of urgency.

By 2030, six out of every ten people will live in a city, and the most pressing global challenges will increasingly play out in urban locations. With this growth comes a host of challenges: pollution, lack of access to clean water, snarling traffic, congested metro stations, and tons of garbage. Given this, it is clear that the growth of cities cannot be left unplanned. How, by whom, and to what end this planning should be done, however, is far from clear.   

It is with these and other questions in mind, the Journal of International Affairs, with the help of the World Policy Institute, and Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs held a thought leadership forum on the future of the city on April 23rd. Columbia University Professor Ester R. Fuchs moderated an eclectically staffed panel of seven speakers. Yale University professor Alexander Garvin and Jeffrey Inaba, founding director of C-lab–a think tank at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture–brought urban design perspectives to the discussion. Famed Columbia sociology professor Saskia Sassen; Greg Lindsay, author of Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next; Kavitha Rajagopalan, author of Muslims of Metropolis and a World Policy Institute fellow; Carne Ross, the founder and executive director of Independent Diploma, a nonprofit diplomatic advisory group; and Jesse M. Keenen, the research director at the Center for Urban Real Estate, rounded out the group.