Cities and urban planning are highly important as over the next three decades we are expected to see the highest growth in the world’s urban population in history. By the middle of the 21st century, about 6.5 billion people will live in cities, up from 4 billion today. From an economic perspective, urbanization (and industrialization) are necessary to trigger economic growth. However, the process of urbanization needs to be planned carefully in order to avert various sorts of problems (such as diseases, inadequate infrastructure, segregation, water management, and crime).

New Cities Summit

The New Cities Summit 2015 showcases ten business and community leaders to give presentations on topics such as waste management, flood mitigation, traffic congestion and cycle safety. These speakers include Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Jakarta Governor), Muhammad Yunus (Nobel prize recipient), Etienne Turpin (investigator for community-led flood alerts campaign PetaJakarta), Nadiem Makarim (chief executive of motorcycle jockey booking app Go-Jek), Tomi Alakoski (founder and executive director of Finland’s Me & My City), Emily Brook (CEO and founder of London-based Blaze), Rose Broom (co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based HandUp), and Prashant Mehra (founder of India’s I Got Garbage).

Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody

- Jane Jacobs -

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