Big Ideas Change the World - Cities

Mike Childs

25 March 2013

We're now full steam ahead in Friends of the Earth's mind-blowingly ambitious three year research project that aims to map a route from a planet in peril to a world of well-being. As the leader of the project - alongside communications guru Joanna Watson - I'm fascinated, thrilled and petrified in equal measure.  

Just what are the 30 or so key changes needed to dig us out of the mighty hole we've dug ourselves into? By looking at the world afresh, and celebrating humans' capacity to be ingenious, collaborative and empathetic, we hope to come up with smart ideas that could lead to a bright future. That's why we've called the project Big Ideas Change the World.  

First out of the blocks is a new look at cities.

The focus of the cities research is how we can get cities not only to green themselves but to drive positive social, environmental and economic change globally? There's rightly a lot of excitement about the future of cities, although rightfully tempered by concerns as well.

Here's a flavour of some of the themes that have emerged from our investigations to date.

·         Shareable cities: promoted by Alex Stefan - including in a great TED lecture - the concept is that urbanisation, the digital revolution, and new technology such as 3D printers enable us to share more resources as more people live in densely populated areas.  Car-sharing, bike-sharing, community-owned energy, urban food production, power tools, dog sharing, green space, libraries, office space sharing, local currencies and more are all positive sharing initiatives. A great on-line magazine to glimpse the future of sharing is here.

 ·         Economic self-determination: an  EU report, which looked at the challenges facing some EU cities - from aging populations to over-reliance on a small number of multinationals - revealed that Nordic cities get a much greater share of their income from local taxation; hence they are more in control of their own destiny rather than having to beg for money from national governments as UK cities have to.

 ·         Participation and popular education: the idea of better involving people in decision-making is not new but the effectiveness is much debated. For example, in Latin America is it said to have been transformative and resulted in much greater progress for the poorest in particular, whilst in Europe is said to have been tokenistic. It seems pretty likely that education is critical to enable good participation, which gives me the excuse to quote my favourite education philosopher Paolo Freire  who said " Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world."  Richard Khan, following in Freire's footsteps has written a thought-provoking book on eco-pedagogy.

 ·         Digital city: if you fancy a quick scamper through just how much our cities will change because of the digital revolution, then this short paper by my friend and former boss Charles Secrett is worth a read.

 ·         History and politics: an understanding of the history of cities and the power battles that have and continue to shape them is critical to understanding how to shape them for a sustainable future. Looking to history to learn lessons for the future will be a strong theme through the project, and we're being helped in this by the History and Policy Network. Simon Parker's book - Cities, Power and Politics - is well worth a read to understand that change will be complex and the political and historical conditions will be different from city to city.

We've identified three key areas that need further research. These are: city autonomy, sharing cities, and participation/popular education and they are likely to be the first key Big Ideas we identify in our map to a world of well-being. We'll publish research on these in coming months.

In the meantime, if I've whetted your appetite enjoy the reading.

This is the first of a monthly blog to share some of the fascinating reading, interesting findings, and reasons for optimism that we are digging up as the research progresses. And next month I'll share some of the work I've come across on bioproductivity, our second topic.

In the meantime, if you have any thoughts or comments please do leave them here, and I'll endeavour to reply to as many as I can. Thanks. 

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