The Future of Cities
The 21st century will come to be known as the urban century. For the first time in human history more than half of the 6.8 billion people on Earth live in cities. Over the next 17 years, another 1.7 billion people will join our species – what I call homo urbanis. Canada is no different. In 1867, 20 per cent of Canadians lived in cities; now over 80 per cent do.
As such, getting cities right, and making them as sustainable as possible, is fundamentally important to our survival. Overconsumption of scarce natural capital (water, soil, forests, the ocean’s bounty, oil and gas, coal, minerals) causes major environmental problems – foul air, contaminated water and soil, deforestation and desertification, loss of biodiversity, climate change from human-produced greenhouse gases.
This is largely an urban problem. The vast majority of the planet’s natural resources are consumed by city-dwellers – by their homes, transportation, energy, food, clothes, businesses, industries, and governments. A smaller but still significant portion of our natural capital is eaten up by mines, mills, farms, and other rural industrial activities that produce products used primarily by city-dwellers.
North American cities are by far the worst offenders. If China and India’s rapidly urbanizing population of 2.5 billion consumed natural capital the way we do in Canadian and U.S. cities, we would need the equivalent of four Earths’ worth of natural resources. As we only have one Earth, it’s imperative that we imminently abandon our North American urban model of sprawl, freeways, SUVs, and general overconsumption.
Besides their considerable impact on the environment, 21st-century cities constitute a crucial front in the war against poverty. One billion poor people currently live in urban areas of developing countries, many of whom are forced to inhabit informal and mostly illegal slums. Many more will have to adopt such living conditions if we don’t develop creative, sustainable strategies for building modern cities.
The impact of cities on the world today and over the next century cannot be overstated. Thus, in an effort to build strategies for creating sustainable cities and to conceive of the tools necessary to implement them, I have invited a group of experts to discuss various aspects of the broad subject of cities: ecological footprints, climate change, demographic challenges, social welfare, and more. I hope you will join in the dialogue.
Cities of Inclusion
by Ratna Omidvar
President, Maytree Foundation.
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Cities of Inclusion
- First Posted: Oct 13 2009 13:27 PM
- Updated: 8 months ago
For Canada's urban centres to be successful and sustainable, they cannot exclude immigrant and Aboriginal populations.
Cities have always been a magnet for people and ideas. Today, Canadian cities are seeing a boom in population growth as a result of both immigration and migration from inside Canada.
Winnipeg has more young aboriginals than any other city in Canada. Vancouver attracts huge numbers of mainland and Hong Kong Chinese. The gay pride parade in Toronto is the second largest in the world after San Francisco’s. In the outer suburbs of Toronto like Markham and Brampton, minorities are the majority.
If we are to believe urban studies guru Richard Florida, this richness of diversity will create a boom in innovation, ideas, and creativity, leading to opportunity and prosperity. But will it create opportunity for everyone? Or will it lead to a new class system, with the creative at the top? Or will the rising tide lift all boats – and all cities?
Two groups in Canadian cities that are particularly vulnerable are aboriginal peoples and new immigrants. Both tend to live in high poverty neighbourhoods. Both face major problems finding affordable housing and employment. Notwithstanding higher levels of education that new immigrants are bringing to Canada, their attachment to the labour market is discouraging. Aboriginal high school completion rates lag behind those of the general population. Adverse crime and health outcomes follow.
Also troubling is the imperviousness and rigidity of our institutions. There are classrooms in the Toronto suburb of Brampton where sometimes the only white face is that of the teacher. Despite the high degree of ethnic diversity in Toronto, where 47 per cent of the population is visible minority, the leadership landscape is populated by a demographic that is best described as male, white, and middle-aged.
Inclusion starts with community institutions like schools, libraries, and parks. Its indicators are trust in institutions, solidarity and community among residents, and participation at the level of influence and power.
In order to achieve this goal, we must create new governance vehicles to address social exclusion. An example of this is the work being done in the Greater Toronto Area by DiverseCity – an initiative that focuses on diversity in leadership positions. It argues that leaders with diverse backgrounds bring not just the usual and expected qualities of leadership, but also the value-added ones of new perspectives, new connections, and ability to arrive at new solutions.
In addition to this, we must invest and reinvest in success. A number of excellent local initiatives have made gains in reducing poverty in cities – sometimes based on place (such as the Action for Neighbourhood Change projects across Canada), and sometimes on specific demographics, such as the work of The Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council with skilled immigrants.
An appropriate role for government in these efforts is essential. It must invest in local leadership and capacity, and make every effort to coordinate and integrate investments and services across jurisdictions.
Successful cities are cities of inclusion. It’s possible to have prosperous cities where not everyone has a share of the prosperity. Such cities may even be socially cohesive, where law and order is maintained and communities live side by side in relative harmony. But one cannot imagine sustainable cities that are not also inclusive.
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