Why the Work Matters
Next: Our Approach
Cities and urban areas collectively represent our greatest risk and our biggest opportunity.
Cities embody the good and the bad of the most important trends of the 21st Century.
While they are drivers of wealth and innovation (urban-based economic activities account for up to 80% of GNP globally), cities also account for up to 70% of the total greenhouse gas emissions.
By 2050, more than 70% of the world’s population will live in urban areas. Cities house an increasing proportion of the world’s most vulnerable populations either because of informality (the world’s slum population has reached nearly 900 million) or because of climate change. Almost 500 million urban residents live in high-risk coastal areas. In the 136 biggest coastal cities, there are 100 million people and $4.7 trillion in assets exposed to coastal floods.
Our work with cities across the globe has revealed common obstacles to innovation and impactful change in most every urban context.
The complexity of just maintaining existing city operations, services, and business models—or in simply keeping pace with urban growth and sprawl—distracts government and private sector operators from solving for problems beyond today. Limited resources and limited city powers, siloed operations, and short political tenures further contribute to an all-too-common experience of change agendas falling by the wayside. Recent history is full of examples of cities being forced to put aside their ambitious plans to deal with crises arising from their failure to effectively address acute risks and chronic stresses.
Despite their challenges, cities are the most inspiring places to work. We’ve been privileged to partner with innovative mayors and city officials and an extensive range of civil society and private sector innovators to address resilience challenges and drive positive change at the local, national, and global scales.
If we — as a collective community of urbanists — can better shape the development of cities in the next three decades, we can fundamentally shift the experience of the people of regions and countries — and the world.
Next: Our Approach