Posted by Leonard Steinberg on June 17th, 2013
The UN projected that half of the world’s population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008. By 2050 it is predicted that 64.1% and 85.9% of the developing and developed world respectively will be urbanized. What does that say about cities like New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Beijing, Moscow, Tokyo, Mexico City, Sao Paolo? Urbanization is not merely a modern phenomenon, but a rapid and historic transformation of human social roots on a global scale, whereby predominantly rural culture is being rapidly replaced by predominantly urban culture. How livable is New York as it expands? This unprecedented movement of people is forecast to continue and intensify in the next few decades, mushrooming cities to sizes incomprehensible only a century ago. And New York will be one of those cities, requiring a huge infusion of good housing. Are New York developers catering to this need sufficiently? Surely not all these new urban dwellers will be in a position to afford paying $ 2,500/sf to buy a home? Then again, a lot will as the tech culture of New York expands.
Urbanization occurs as individual, commercial, and governmental efforts reduce time and expense in commuting and transportation and improve opportunities for jobs, education, housing, and transportation. Living in cities permits the advantages of the opportunities of proximity, diversity, and marketplace competition. However, the advantages of urbanization are weighed against alienation issues, stress, increased daily life costs, and negative social aspects that result from mass marginalization. In urban planning lies a huge opportunity to create mega-cities that are not only large, but also very livable. This month MONOCLE rated the top most livable cities in the world: many frown at the snob-appeal of these elitist cities, yet we should all look closely and learn by example. Look around Manhattan to see the value on quality of life delivered by tree-planting programs, improved parks, transportation, cleaning programs, pedestrian plazas with food, seating, etc. We may belittle these efforts, yet they may indeed be the critical element to life in really big cities…..and the more developers truly evaluate quality of life in their projects, the better, more livable the city will become….and the real estate will be worth more too, so yes, there is DEFINITELY a commercial incentive. Anyone who doubts that should look at the effects of a cleaned up city on those moving back to the City form the suburbs. Here is the 2013 Monocle list of the most livable cities (no, I am afraid New York did not make it…..so lets try for 2014!):
1. Copenhagen
2. Melbourne
3. Helsinki
4. Tokyo
5. Vienna
6. Zürich
7. Stockholm
8. Munich
9. Sydney
10. Auckland
11. Hong Kong
12. Fukuoka
13. Kyoto
14. Paris
15. Singapore
16. Hamburg
17. Honolulu
18. Madrid
19. Vancouver
20. Berlin
21. Barcelona
22. Amsterdam
23. Portland
24. San Francisco
25. Düsseldorf