New Towns | Ralf Otterpohl | TEDxTUHH

Civil and environmental engineering Professor Ralf Otterpohl argues that cities are not the future. In his talk, Professor Otterpohl answers the question, Why are New Towns essential for our survival in the future?

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Who has been to a rural area recently?

Really outside and being there?

Just hands up, please.

So, very, very few.

So, this talk is about rural areas,

but to talk about rural areas,
we need to look at the urban first.

Obviously, today, everybody
thinks the future is urban,

so people move to urban areas.

This year we exceeded 50% of the total
world population living in cities.

Isn't that incredible?

And now, instead of thinking,

"This should end. This is terrible,"

we think, "Well, 2030, we have 70%."

And I consider this nuts.

So, what do we do with that?

We have areas where, on one hand,

the urban - what happens there?

Of course, there are upsides,

so people go there to find a job,
to have a social environment,

to find friends, get married,
whatever, go to the discotheque.

But on the other hand,

there's a lot of noise.

You pay a fortune for a little flat
that is just facing another flat

across a noisy road.

Where's your garden?

So obviously, some things are wrong there.

And so, is that the lifestyle
that we want for the future?

Everybody?

The only choice?

I would say no.

We need more choice,
and that's what I want to talk about

because there's one thing
that worries me as a city dweller.

If supplies would end -

so, big power cut,

natural catastrophe, no supplies -

I guess in around two-three hours,
all shops would be sold out

because everybody wants to get
as much as possible to be prepared.

And then the shops are empty,
and we don't know what to do.

We don't know how we can survive.

So, in a city environment,

we are mostly 100% dependent
on outside supplies.

Like a baby, eh?

And now, the flip side of the urban life

is that we have rural areas
that are deserted more and more.

People constantly move to the cities.

People in the rural, they are old.

No schools anymore.

And at the same time,

the rural areas,

they have a type of farming
that is using lots of chemicals,

pesticides, toxic stuff,

and this is something
what will not have a future.

We cannot pollute our groundwater
further and further and further.

We cannot destroy our soils
because then we won't have water anymore.

We need good soil to have water.

It's as simple as that.

But hardly anybody is looking at that.

Do you hear a lot about soil?

I guess not.

It's our main, crucial asset
for the future.

So now, what happens?

There are some good developments going on,
and you all know about that,

and that would be ...

green development.

So, we have cities where people
start to do urban gardening,

rooftop garden, balcony garden.

Who is lucky has a little piece
of land behind the house.

So, that is something I really like,

and what I see is that many people
who are doing that -

so, Transition Town
Movement, for example -

they want more.

But that's impossible
in the context of cities.

So, the urban can supply
maybe 20% of the food

with maximum urban gardening.

It's good, but is it good enough?

So, what happens in the rural area
on the positive side?

There are some developments going on

into ecological, sound agriculture,
organic agriculture.

It's rising strongly
on a worldwide scale, luckily.

But at the same time, it turns industrial,

and in order to have real organic farms

that are keeping soil intact,
building humus,

we will need many, many people
that live with farming.

So, is the type of farming
that is done - is this ecological?

It's not.

Even the big organic farms
are not really ecological,

if you look at it.

And so, what we need
is attractive lifestyles in the rural

that also do some farming,

but not from morning to night,

seven days a week.

I wouldn't like that.

Many people on farms don't like that.

The young guys leave the farm -
as we see it everywhere -

and another small farm,

going to the big one
where one person works 3,000 hectares

probably with a robot
machine in the future.

Nobody's working there anymore.

That has no future.

And now, what can we do?

We must turn around the situation.

So, we need to put
the urban into its place.

Of course, we will have
urban areas in the future,

but not for all of the world population.

So, we need more attractive
rural lifestyles,

and that is what I think
we should create now.

And there is something
where we could create something

that we could call maybe "New Towns."

The New Town should have
the positive sides of city life

combined with the positive
sides of rural life:

having space, quiet areas, forest nearby,

a lake where you can go swimming
in the morning, or a river.

But combining that with job opportunities,

having interesting people around,

with the possibility
to create your own things,

not being like in city life 100% dependent
on somebody giving you a job,

giving you a flat,

providing a car and so on.

So, how can that work?

What would you think?

How could, well,
the dream town in the rural,

not near the city where you go
to the discotheque every day

or commute to work -

how could that village look like?

How could that town look like?

I don't know, but I have some ideas,
and that's what I want to share with you.

So, one thing is that we have
the social level,

and that would be -

we should have sufficient
numbers of people to make it attractive.

Nobody wants to live alone
in some remote rural area.

Few people might like that,
but that's pretty much the exception.

So, we should have New Towns
that have maybe 100 to 500 people.

And one thing that is crucial now

is we should have productive towns

that are producing high-quality food

not only for themselves,

but also for sale,
for supplying the cities

in a way that is fun, leisure

and a good work-life balance
or work-work-work balance.

And I'll explain you
what I understand from that.

So, when we do a normal job,

we normally work from morning
to evening at the desk,

or we do something, sort of the same thing

five days a week.

And now we could balance,

and in the morning,
we could go and work with this thing.

It's really fun.

It's very efficient
when you learn how to do it.

And then we could go
to the computer or something else:

go to the workshop,

make, create something, build this,
for example, build a scythe.

And actually,

I worked 30 years with computers,

and I'm fed up!

(Loud bang)

And so, the life can be different,

so we can do different things: balancing.

And I don't mind working
a third of my time on a computer,

but not full-time.

Economy - so, how can economy look like?

We need something where we need
to reduce the costs of living.

It's really difficult
to survive in a rural area,

far away from a city,
far away from supplies,

from some government and so on.

So, reduce costs.

The idea is to have a starter house,

modular house that is small,
but very efficient -

solar, passive solar, very well insulated,
but small for the beginning -

so that young people moving out,
they don't have a big debt in the bank.

But with around, well, maybe 25,000 euros,

they could own their own house
and pay off the house

plus maybe 3,000 square meters of land

within a 10 years' time -

own it completely.

And that means that, well,
the retirement security is there

because the land will stay
and is productive.

You can produce not only your own food,
but you can supply 50 more people,

with one third of a working day.

That's the main thing -

we don't want to get into this type
of agriculture that we have today.

So,

people who move out
should be entrepreneurs,

should be producers.

They can produce, well,
agricultural products,

but with that, we should have more jobs.

And of course, there are jobs
for child care, teachers.

There would be demand for tools,

so somebody can build tools
and run a company for producing that.

Transportation: transporting
the vegetables into the city

with a bus, maybe,
that people can also join.

There's many, many, many options for that.

So, that is something
that is well possible.

Now, we have the social, economic,

and now the ecological level
for the New Town.

And it would be a prerequisite
that people do organic gardening

because only organic gardening
can assure building up soil.

The soil should become richer and richer
or more productive every year.

And that's a good, good asset
for the future,

for a good future for many,
many people on the planet.

We can have 100% of regenerative energy,

and in fact, I could cook my meal
on this wood gas stove.

With local resources,

this stove was produced in a town
in Burkina Faso for 15 euros,

all with waste materials
from old fridges and so on.

So, also that is possible.

And what is even better,

the fuel comes from the waste
from the agriculture.

This is made from reed
and stuff and woody waste.

And with that we can cook,
and we could also produce electricity

and so on.

I don't want to go into details here.

There's a lot available.

Then, we have one key issue
that is often overlooked,

and that is that we need
a social environment

where personal growth

is, well, sort of promoted or possible.

And there are wonderful tools for that.

Without that,

we have the same problems
that we have today.

So, our society reflects
lack of personal growth,

and that's why we go
into this dead-end road

in many aspects.

Now, this is something
where we could come to something

when we have, I said,
20% with green development,

production of food.

The New Town could make 500%.

So, that would be exporters
also having income from that.

And then, this whole context,

this whole idea is sort of
the post-industrialization development.

The idea for people to move into cities

came from, "There's a factory,
there's a job."

And only then people started to gather
in bigger and bigger numbers.

And now this is not the case anymore:

a lot of the production processes
can be decentralized.

Even in the New Town,

we can have somebody
doing high-tech production

with 3D printers and things like that.

If somebody wants
to do that, it's an option.

So we get freedom.

And with that,

we have something

where we have a definition of wealth

that is from Amartya Sen,

Nobel Prize winner of the Nobel Prize
in Economic Sciences.

And he has defined wealth

as the degree of freedom that we obtain.

So, having a job 12 hours a day,

being burned-out every weekend

is not very much wealth,
with this definition.

So, let's go for a future
with lots of wealth

where we have the freedom
to choose what we want to do,

where we have diversity of things
that can be done.

We should move into a region

that is attractive, has forests,
mountains or a lake, a river

so that it's really a place to be,

where people love to be

and at the same time, being productive.

And that is something what I think
is part of the model for our future.

And now my final question to you:

who can imagine to live
in a New Town like that?

Please hands up.

Okay, that convinces me,

and I hope you will join this development.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)