Urbanization and the future of cities - Vance Kite

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About 10,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers, aided by rudimentary agriculture, moved to semi-permanent villages and never looked back. With further developments came food surpluses, leading to commerce, specialization and, many years later with the Industrial Revolution, the modern city. Vance Kite plots our urban past and how we can expect future cities to adapt to our growing populations.

Lesson by Vance Kite, animation by ATMG Studio.

Today ,more than half of all people in the world

live in an urban area.

By mid-century, this will increase to 70%.

But as recently as 100 years ago,

only two out of ten people lived in a city,

and before that, it was even less.

How have we reached

such a high degree of urbanization,

and what does it mean for our future?

In the earliest days of human history,

humans were hunter-gatherers,

often moving from place to place

in search of food.

But about 10,000 years ago,

our ancestors began to learn the secrets

of selective breeding

and early agricultural techniques.

For the first time,

people could raise food

rather than search for it,

and this led to the development

of semi-permanent villages

for the first time in history.

"Why only semi-permanent?" you might ask.

Well, at first, the villages still had to relocate

every few years

as the soil became depleted.

It was only with the advent of techniques

like irrigation and soil tilling

about 5,000 years ago

that people could rely on a steady

and long-term supply of food,

making permanent settlements possible.

And with the food surpluses

that these techniques produced,

it was no longer necessary for everyone to farm.

This allowed the development

of other specialized trades,

and, by extension, cities.

With cities now producing surplus food,

as well as tools,

crafts,

and other goods,

there was now the possibility of commerce

and interaction over longer distances.

And as trade flourished,

so did technologies that facilitated it,

like carts,

ships,

roads,

and ports.

Of course, these things required even more labor

to build and maintain,

so more people were drawn

from the countryside to the cities

as more jobs and opportunities

became available.

If you think modern cities are overcrowded,

you may be surprised to learn

that some cities in 2000 B.C. had population densities

nearly twice as high as that of Shanghai or Calcutta.

One reason for this

was that transportation was not widely available,

so everything had to be within walking distance,

including the few sources of clean water

that existed then.

And the land area of the city

was further restricted by the need for walls

to defend against attacks.

The Roman Empire was able to develop infrastructure

to overcome these limitations,

but other than that,

modern cities as we know them,

didn't really get their start

until the Industrial Revolution,

when new technology deployed on a mass scale

allowed cities to expand and integrate further,

establishing police,

fire,

and sanitation departments,

as well as road networks,

and later electricity distribution.

So, what is the future of cities?

Global population is currently more than 7 billion

and is predicted to top out around 10 billion.

Most of this growth will occur

in the urban areas of the world's poorest countries.

So, how will cities need to change

to accommodate this growth?

First, the world will need to seek ways

to provide adequate food,

sanitation,

and education for all people.

Second, growth will need to happen

in a way that does not damage the land

that provides us with the goods and services

that support the human population.

Food production might move

to vertical farms and skyscrapers,

rooftop gardens,

or vacant lots in city centers,

while power will increasingly come

from multiple sources of renewable energy.

Instead of single-family homes,

more residences will be built vertically.

We may see buildings that contain everything

that people need for their daily life,

as well as a smaller, self-sufficient cities

focused on local and sustainable production.

The future of cities is diverse,

malleable,

and creative,

no longer built around a single industry,

but reflecting an increasingly connected

and global world.