With office districts and tower blocks losing their lustre, we need to rethink what cities are for. It’s time to create better neighbourhoods where people will want to spend their time.
The notion that cities are the ultimate centres of commerce, innovation and finance – and the receptacle of all that is new and exciting – is unravelling. Read more
The rise of artificial intelligence may be rescuing the tech oligarchy, but its current trajectory could hasten our steps towards what virtual reality guru Rony Abovitz calls ‘computational autocracy’. The new possibilities posed by AI represent a force multiplier for the large tech firms. Musk, Apple, Meta, Google and Microsoft already seem poised to dominate the field.
Not so long ago, the West was captivated by visions of the ‘end of history’. Francis Fukuyama, Thomas Friedman, Kenichi Ohmae and others envisaged the permanent triumph of a global neoliberal order. They foresaw the emergence of a system controlled by an ever-expanding army of technocrats and professionals, concentrated in a handful of great cosmopolitan cities, riding on ‘advanced’ industries and services. Read more
From the dawn of the colonial era, Canada, the U.S., and Australia thrived by providing what the landless have always sought. In the vast expanses of these countries, the luckless masses from Britain, Europe, and then the rest of the world, have pursued opportunity to enter the ranks of the property-owning class. Roughly 70 per cent of Americans see homeownership as an essential part of achieving middle class status, but like their counterparts in other English speaking countries, their chances of achieving it are becoming vanishingly small. Read more
After decades of self-celebration and relentless media hype, the great “urban renaissance” predicted by the New Urbanists—a vision of cities built by and for the creative class—has come crashing down. Where the smart set once proclaimed that mayors should rule the world or that economic growth would increasingly cluster in a handful of super cities, now even The New York Times bleakly warns of an “urban doom loop.”
Over five millennia, cities have demonstrated their essential resiliency. They now are transforming to a pattern based on digital commuting.
Next generation suburbs can be designed to preserve the environment, and advantage that urban core cities could never achieve.
Fred Siegel’s passing this weekend represented a huge loss not just for me personally but, more importantly, for all those concerned with the future of the United States, and particularly its cities. Fred was fearless, willing to take on conventional wisdom but always tethered to history in a way that is increasingly rare.
The size of government matters, but so does the nature of what government does — and what people do about homelessness, poverty, and health.
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