A guest article for The Economist by Jeffrey Sacha of Columbia University. This short article is a good way to end the assigned readings for this course. My personal concern is the lack of a road map regarding how to get there from here. I do not think that the global problem is one of describing or even visualizing a sustainable society, what we need is a real commitment to get there from here. That is what is lacking.
#####################################################################
The next frontier
CLIMATE science tells us unequivocally that we need to “decarbonise”
much of the energy system by the middle of this century. Yet advanced
techniques for extracting fossil fuels—fracking, new deep-ocean drilling
and the like—dominate today’s economic and political discussion. These
measures may temporarily boost the economy but they would end up
crowding out investments in low-carbon technologies. A boomlet in fossil
fuels is bound to be a dead end. Short-term priorities and long-term
needs are at odds.
This disconnect also exists in the realm of jobs policy. Youth
unemployment is stuck in the stratosphere in part because conventional
jobs have succumbed to advances in information technology, robotics and
outsourcing, leading to lower employment and a decline in earnings among
unskilled youth in particular. In response economists obsess about
policies to manage demand. But that will not address these structural
changes. New strategies in education and training, and in smoothing the
tricky school-to-work transition, are also needed.
These examples illustrate the difference between mainstream economics
and the policies that are needed to deliver sustainable development.
Standard economic policies aim for growth, full stop. Sustainable
development aims for growth that is broadly shared across the income
scale and that is also environmentally sound. Mainstream economics
divorces the short term from the long term. There may be big problems
ahead—climate change, food scarcity, demographic shifts and poorly
trained young people—but macroeconomists prefer to improvise today and
worry about the future later. That approach also suits politicians,
aligning the policy cycle with the electoral cycle. But it is not a
recipe for producing robust, inclusive growth.
Global goalkeeper
Resolving this problem requires a new approach. On September 25th
governments will meet at a special event at the United Nations. Part of
their task will be to establish a road map that will lead, by 2015, to a
set of “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs). Sceptics will scoff that
a UN framework will make no difference to the problems of the world
economy. They are wrong.
The UN’s Montreal Protocol successfully brought together scientists,
industry and government to head off world-threatening ozone depletion.
New technologies were spurred and rapidly diffused as a result. The SDGs
will themselves succeed the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a
blueprint for helping the world’s poorest people that has already
achieved historic results in sub-Saharan Africa—including a drop in
malaria deaths by at least a third from the peak and the saving of
millions of lives by the introduction of new vaccines.
When the new SDGs are set, they should start by confirming the
success of the MDGs and making a commitment to the end of extreme
poverty by 2030, a goal recently adopted by the World Bank. They must
also tackle more novel problems, including the transition to low-carbon
energy by 2050; the protection of critically endangered biodiversity;
the improvement of farm yields with reduced environmental costs; and the
reshaping of cities to be much more energy-efficient and resilient to
rising temperatures and sea levels.
Setting goals is one thing; achieving them quite another. All of
these SDGs would require an overhaul of technology systems, whether for
health, energy, transport, food supplies or safer cities. Target-driven
technological change of this sort is very different from the normal
evolutionary path of established industries competing through
incremental changes in products and processes. We are perhaps more
familiar with targeted technological change in the military context (the
Manhattan Project, to take an obvious example) but there are enough
civilian cases (the Moon landing, the Human Genome Project, the
eradication of smallpox) to identify three elements of success.
The first is “backcasting”. Rather than saying with a shrug that the
world will get to where it gets in terms of low-carbon energy in 2050,
the SDGs should start with what is needed to achieve climate safety (for
example, to stop a global increase in temperature beyond 1.5°C or 2°C).
That goal defines a set of possible energy pathways to 2050 and a
cumulative amount of greenhouse-gas emissions that are consistent with
it.
The second element is “road-mapping”. The technologies needed for a
low-carbon world, for example, are already in sight. They include
renewable energy, energy storage, carbon capture and sequestration,
electric vehicles and (safe) nuclear energy. But they are at very
different stages of development. Some are already commercially viable.
Others are still on the drawing board. Technology road-mapping
identifies the obstacles to commercialisation and plans a 10-20-year
research, development and demonstration strategy. Moore’s law, the
sustained doubling of the number of transistors per integrated circuit
every two years during the past 55 years, has been supported by a
systematic, ongoing, industry-wide road-mapping process to identify, and
then clear away, looming obstacles.
The third step is global co-operation, of the kind that in the past
has helped reverse ozone depletion, develop new drugs for tropical
diseases, improve seed varieties and create international standards and
processes for aviation safety. The MDGs were successful in part because
they gathered together public-health experts, industry leaders and
government officials to create a new public-health ecosystem.
Collaboration of this sort would accelerate progress in all sorts of
areas, from the prevention of flooding in coastal cities to the
development of high-yield seed varieties with preferred traits such as
saline resistance, flood tolerance and drought resistance.
Getting from A to SDG
Nobody can be exempt from the next round of global goal-setting. The
current economic crisis is global. China and America, the world’s two
largest economies, are both beset by deepening social and environmental
problems. In the next phase of global development there will be no clear
division between leaders and followers. All countries will be pioneers.
Just as the MDGs opened new pathways to disease control and poverty
reduction, the SDGs have the potential to open up a new era of
technological and organisational breakthroughs. They can lead to a
better life in the coming decades and unleash a wave of growth-creating
investments along the way.
********************************************************************************************
NEW
YORK – Tacloban in the Philippines has now joined the growing list of
cities – including New Orleans, Bangkok, Moscow, New York, Beijing, Rio
de Janeiro, and Port-au-Prince, to name just a few – pummeled in recent
years by climate catastrophes. Many of the world’s largest cities, built
on seacoasts and rivers, face the threat of rising sea levels and
intensifying storms. So the new global development agenda now taking
shape should empower cities to help lead the way to sustainable
development in the twenty-first century.
The
importance of cities in today’s world economy is unprecedented. Until
the Industrial Revolution, human history was overwhelmingly rural. Only
around 10% of people lived in cities. Today, the
share of urbanites is around 53% and is likely to rise to around 67% by 2050.
Because per capita
incomes are higher in cities than in rural areas, the world’s cities
today are estimated to account for more than 80% of global income, with
the largest 600 accounting for around half. Most of the new jobs over
the next few decades will be created in cities, offering livelihoods to
hundreds of millions of young people and, as China and Brazil have
demonstrated, helping to slash extreme poverty.
Cities
are also the innovation hubs for public policy. Every day, mayors are
called on to get the job done for residents. They are the ones
responsible for providing safe water, garbage collection, safe housing,
infrastructure, upgraded slums, protection from disasters, and emergency
services when catastrophes hit. So it is not surprising that while
national governments often are paralyzed by partisan politics, city
governments foster action and innovation.
In
the United States, for example, Martin O’Malley, Baltimore’s former
mayor and now Maryland’s popular governor, pioneered the use of advanced
information systems for urban management. New York City’s outgoing
mayor, Michael Bloomberg, worked relentlessly to implement a new
sustainability plan (called
PlaNYC).
And the city’s incoming mayor, Bill de Blasio, is championing a bold
program of educational innovations to narrow the vast gaps in income,
wealth, and opportunity that divide the city.
Sustainable
development offers a new concept for the world economy in the
twenty-first century. Rather than focusing solely on income, sustainable
development encourages cities, countries, and the world to focus
simultaneously on three goals: economic prosperity, social inclusion,
and environmental sustainability.
Economic
prosperity speaks for itself. Social inclusion means that all members
of society – rich and poor, men and women, majority and minority groups –
should have equal rights and equal opportunities to benefit from rising
prosperity. And environmental sustainability means that we must
reorient our economies and technologies to provide basic services like
safe water and sanitation, combat human-induced climate change, and
protect biodiversity. Achieving these three goals will require good
governance, public finance, and effective institutions.
Cities
will be in the front lines of the battle for sustainable development.
Not only do they face direct threats; they also have the best
opportunities to identify and deliver solutions. As high-density,
high-productivity settlements, cities can provide greater access to
services of all kinds – including energy, water, health, education,
finance, media, transport, recycling, and research – than can most rural
areas. The great challenge for cities is to provide this access
inclusively and sustainably.
A
significant part of the solution will come through advanced
technologies, including information systems and materials science. The
information and communications revolution has spawned the idea of the
“smart city,” which places the relevant technologies at the heart of
systems that collect and respond to information: smart power grids,
smart transport networks (potentially including self-driving vehicles),
and smart buildings and zoning.
The
advances in materials science open the possibility of much more
energy-efficient residences and commercial buildings. Cities also give
rise to the opportunity to combine public utilities, as when urban power
plants use the steam released in electricity generation to provide hot
water and heating to residents.
Yet
technology will be only part of the story. Cities need to upgrade their
governance, to allow for a greater role for poorer and more
marginalized communities, and to enable much more effective coordination
across city lines when a metropolitan area is home to many individual
cities. Metropolitan governance is therefore crucial, as smart cities
require networks that operate at the metropolitan scale.
When
the metropolitan scale is recognized, the importance of leading urban
areas is even more remarkable. New York City has around 8.4 million
people, but the NYC metropolitan area has roughly 25 million people,
with an economy estimated at about $1.4 trillion per year. If this
metropolitan area were a country, it would rank about 14th in the world
in GDP terms.
A wise political doctrine known as subsidiarity
holds that public-policy challenges should be assigned to the lowest
level of government able to address them, thereby ensuring maximum
democratic participation in problem solving and the greatest opportunity
to tailor solutions to genuine local needs. While some issues – for
example, a national highway or rail system – require national-level
problem solving, many key challenges of sustainable development are best
confronted at the urban level.
The world’s governments are now negotiating the
Sustainable Development Goals,
which will guide the world’s development agenda from 2015 to 2030. In
an important meeting on September 25, the United Nations General
Assembly agreed that the SDGs would be adopted at a global summit in
September 2015, with the next two years used to select the priorities.
An
urban SDG, promoting inclusive, productive, and resilient cities, would
greatly empower tens of thousands of cities worldwide to take up the
cause of sustainable development for their own citizens, their
countries, and the world.
Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jeffrey-d--sachs-argues-that-urban-areas-must-lead-the-way-toward-environmentally-healthy-and-socially-inclusive-economies#hqXVywrxPDRFfLa5.99
NEW
YORK – Tacloban in the Philippines has now joined the growing list of
cities – including New Orleans, Bangkok, Moscow, New York, Beijing, Rio
de Janeiro, and Port-au-Prince, to name just a few – pummeled in recent
years by climate catastrophes. Many of the world’s largest cities, built
on seacoasts and rivers, face the threat of rising sea levels and
intensifying storms. So the new global development agenda now taking
shape should empower cities to help lead the way to sustainable
development in the twenty-first century.
The
importance of cities in today’s world economy is unprecedented. Until
the Industrial Revolution, human history was overwhelmingly rural. Only
around 10% of people lived in cities. Today, the
share of urbanites is around 53% and is likely to rise to around 67% by 2050.
Because per capita
incomes are higher in cities than in rural areas, the world’s cities
today are estimated to account for more than 80% of global income, with
the largest 600 accounting for around half. Most of the new jobs over
the next few decades will be created in cities, offering livelihoods to
hundreds of millions of young people and, as China and Brazil have
demonstrated, helping to slash extreme poverty.
Cities
are also the innovation hubs for public policy. Every day, mayors are
called on to get the job done for residents. They are the ones
responsible for providing safe water, garbage collection, safe housing,
infrastructure, upgraded slums, protection from disasters, and emergency
services when catastrophes hit. So it is not surprising that while
national governments often are paralyzed by partisan politics, city
governments foster action and innovation.
In
the United States, for example, Martin O’Malley, Baltimore’s former
mayor and now Maryland’s popular governor, pioneered the use of advanced
information systems for urban management. New York City’s outgoing
mayor, Michael Bloomberg, worked relentlessly to implement a new
sustainability plan (called
PlaNYC).
And the city’s incoming mayor, Bill de Blasio, is championing a bold
program of educational innovations to narrow the vast gaps in income,
wealth, and opportunity that divide the city.
Sustainable
development offers a new concept for the world economy in the
twenty-first century. Rather than focusing solely on income, sustainable
development encourages cities, countries, and the world to focus
simultaneously on three goals: economic prosperity, social inclusion,
and environmental sustainability.
Economic
prosperity speaks for itself. Social inclusion means that all members
of society – rich and poor, men and women, majority and minority groups –
should have equal rights and equal opportunities to benefit from rising
prosperity. And environmental sustainability means that we must
reorient our economies and technologies to provide basic services like
safe water and sanitation, combat human-induced climate change, and
protect biodiversity. Achieving these three goals will require good
governance, public finance, and effective institutions.
Cities
will be in the front lines of the battle for sustainable development.
Not only do they face direct threats; they also have the best
opportunities to identify and deliver solutions. As high-density,
high-productivity settlements, cities can provide greater access to
services of all kinds – including energy, water, health, education,
finance, media, transport, recycling, and research – than can most rural
areas. The great challenge for cities is to provide this access
inclusively and sustainably.
A
significant part of the solution will come through advanced
technologies, including information systems and materials science. The
information and communications revolution has spawned the idea of the
“smart city,” which places the relevant technologies at the heart of
systems that collect and respond to information: smart power grids,
smart transport networks (potentially including self-driving vehicles),
and smart buildings and zoning.
The
advances in materials science open the possibility of much more
energy-efficient residences and commercial buildings. Cities also give
rise to the opportunity to combine public utilities, as when urban power
plants use the steam released in electricity generation to provide hot
water and heating to residents.
Yet
technology will be only part of the story. Cities need to upgrade their
governance, to allow for a greater role for poorer and more
marginalized communities, and to enable much more effective coordination
across city lines when a metropolitan area is home to many individual
cities. Metropolitan governance is therefore crucial, as smart cities
require networks that operate at the metropolitan scale.
When
the metropolitan scale is recognized, the importance of leading urban
areas is even more remarkable. New York City has around 8.4 million
people, but the NYC metropolitan area has roughly 25 million people,
with an economy estimated at about $1.4 trillion per year. If this
metropolitan area were a country, it would rank about 14th in the world
in GDP terms.
A wise political doctrine known as subsidiarity
holds that public-policy challenges should be assigned to the lowest
level of government able to address them, thereby ensuring maximum
democratic participation in problem solving and the greatest opportunity
to tailor solutions to genuine local needs. While some issues – for
example, a national highway or rail system – require national-level
problem solving, many key challenges of sustainable development are best
confronted at the urban level.
The world’s governments are now negotiating the
Sustainable Development Goals,
which will guide the world’s development agenda from 2015 to 2030. In
an important meeting on September 25, the United Nations General
Assembly agreed that the SDGs would be adopted at a global summit in
September 2015, with the next two years used to select the priorities.
An
urban SDG, promoting inclusive, productive, and resilient cities, would
greatly empower tens of thousands of cities worldwide to take up the
cause of sustainable development for their own citizens, their
countries, and the world.
Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jeffrey-d--sachs-argues-that-urban-areas-must-lead-the-way-toward-environmentally-healthy-and-socially-inclusive-economies#hqXVywrxPDRFfLa5.99
NEW
YORK – Tacloban in the Philippines has now joined the growing list of
cities – including New Orleans, Bangkok, Moscow, New York, Beijing, Rio
de Janeiro, and Port-au-Prince, to name just a few – pummeled in recent
years by climate catastrophes. Many of the world’s largest cities, built
on seacoasts and rivers, face the threat of rising sea levels and
intensifying storms. So the new global development agenda now taking
shape should empower cities to help lead the way to sustainable
development in the twenty-first century.
The
importance of cities in today’s world economy is unprecedented. Until
the Industrial Revolution, human history was overwhelmingly rural. Only
around 10% of people lived in cities. Today, the
share of urbanites is around 53% and is likely to rise to around 67% by 2050.
Because per capita
incomes are higher in cities than in rural areas, the world’s cities
today are estimated to account for more than 80% of global income, with
the largest 600 accounting for around half. Most of the new jobs over
the next few decades will be created in cities, offering livelihoods to
hundreds of millions of young people and, as China and Brazil have
demonstrated, helping to slash extreme poverty.
Cities
are also the innovation hubs for public policy. Every day, mayors are
called on to get the job done for residents. They are the ones
responsible for providing safe water, garbage collection, safe housing,
infrastructure, upgraded slums, protection from disasters, and emergency
services when catastrophes hit. So it is not surprising that while
national governments often are paralyzed by partisan politics, city
governments foster action and innovation.
In
the United States, for example, Martin O’Malley, Baltimore’s former
mayor and now Maryland’s popular governor, pioneered the use of advanced
information systems for urban management. New York City’s outgoing
mayor, Michael Bloomberg, worked relentlessly to implement a new
sustainability plan (called
PlaNYC).
And the city’s incoming mayor, Bill de Blasio, is championing a bold
program of educational innovations to narrow the vast gaps in income,
wealth, and opportunity that divide the city.
Sustainable
development offers a new concept for the world economy in the
twenty-first century. Rather than focusing solely on income, sustainable
development encourages cities, countries, and the world to focus
simultaneously on three goals: economic prosperity, social inclusion,
and environmental sustainability.
Economic
prosperity speaks for itself. Social inclusion means that all members
of society – rich and poor, men and women, majority and minority groups –
should have equal rights and equal opportunities to benefit from rising
prosperity. And environmental sustainability means that we must
reorient our economies and technologies to provide basic services like
safe water and sanitation, combat human-induced climate change, and
protect biodiversity. Achieving these three goals will require good
governance, public finance, and effective institutions.
Cities
will be in the front lines of the battle for sustainable development.
Not only do they face direct threats; they also have the best
opportunities to identify and deliver solutions. As high-density,
high-productivity settlements, cities can provide greater access to
services of all kinds – including energy, water, health, education,
finance, media, transport, recycling, and research – than can most rural
areas. The great challenge for cities is to provide this access
inclusively and sustainably.
A
significant part of the solution will come through advanced
technologies, including information systems and materials science. The
information and communications revolution has spawned the idea of the
“smart city,” which places the relevant technologies at the heart of
systems that collect and respond to information: smart power grids,
smart transport networks (potentially including self-driving vehicles),
and smart buildings and zoning.
The
advances in materials science open the possibility of much more
energy-efficient residences and commercial buildings. Cities also give
rise to the opportunity to combine public utilities, as when urban power
plants use the steam released in electricity generation to provide hot
water and heating to residents.
Yet
technology will be only part of the story. Cities need to upgrade their
governance, to allow for a greater role for poorer and more
marginalized communities, and to enable much more effective coordination
across city lines when a metropolitan area is home to many individual
cities. Metropolitan governance is therefore crucial, as smart cities
require networks that operate at the metropolitan scale.
When
the metropolitan scale is recognized, the importance of leading urban
areas is even more remarkable. New York City has around 8.4 million
people, but the NYC metropolitan area has roughly 25 million people,
with an economy estimated at about $1.4 trillion per year. If this
metropolitan area were a country, it would rank about 14th in the world
in GDP terms.
A wise political doctrine known as subsidiarity
holds that public-policy challenges should be assigned to the lowest
level of government able to address them, thereby ensuring maximum
democratic participation in problem solving and the greatest opportunity
to tailor solutions to genuine local needs. While some issues – for
example, a national highway or rail system – require national-level
problem solving, many key challenges of sustainable development are best
confronted at the urban level.
The world’s governments are now negotiating the
Sustainable Development Goals,
which will guide the world’s development agenda from 2015 to 2030. In
an important meeting on September 25, the United Nations General
Assembly agreed that the SDGs would be adopted at a global summit in
September 2015, with the next two years used to select the priorities.
An
urban SDG, promoting inclusive, productive, and resilient cities, would
greatly empower tens of thousands of cities worldwide to take up the
cause of sustainable development for their own citizens, their
countries, and the world.
Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jeffrey-d--sachs-argues-that-urban-areas-must-lead-the-way-toward-environmentally-healthy-and-socially-inclusive-economies#hqXVywrxPDRFfLa5.99
NEW
YORK – Tacloban in the Philippines has now joined the growing list of
cities – including New Orleans, Bangkok, Moscow, New York, Beijing, Rio
de Janeiro, and Port-au-Prince, to name just a few – pummeled in recent
years by climate catastrophes. Many of the world’s largest cities, built
on seacoasts and rivers, face the threat of rising sea levels and
intensifying storms. So the new global development agenda now taking
shape should empower cities to help lead the way to sustainable
development in the twenty-first century.
The
importance of cities in today’s world economy is unprecedented. Until
the Industrial Revolution, human history was overwhelmingly rural. Only
around 10% of people lived in cities. Today, the
share of urbanites is around 53% and is likely to rise to around 67% by 2050.
Because per capita
incomes are higher in cities than in rural areas, the world’s cities
today are estimated to account for more than 80% of global income, with
the largest 600 accounting for around half. Most of the new jobs over
the next few decades will be created in cities, offering livelihoods to
hundreds of millions of young people and, as China and Brazil have
demonstrated, helping to slash extreme poverty.
Cities
are also the innovation hubs for public policy. Every day, mayors are
called on to get the job done for residents. They are the ones
responsible for providing safe water, garbage collection, safe housing,
infrastructure, upgraded slums, protection from disasters, and emergency
services when catastrophes hit. So it is not surprising that while
national governments often are paralyzed by partisan politics, city
governments foster action and innovation.
In
the United States, for example, Martin O’Malley, Baltimore’s former
mayor and now Maryland’s popular governor, pioneered the use of advanced
information systems for urban management. New York City’s outgoing
mayor, Michael Bloomberg, worked relentlessly to implement a new
sustainability plan (called
PlaNYC).
And the city’s incoming mayor, Bill de Blasio, is championing a bold
program of educational innovations to narrow the vast gaps in income,
wealth, and opportunity that divide the city.
Sustainable
development offers a new concept for the world economy in the
twenty-first century. Rather than focusing solely on income, sustainable
development encourages cities, countries, and the world to focus
simultaneously on three goals: economic prosperity, social inclusion,
and environmental sustainability.
Economic
prosperity speaks for itself. Social inclusion means that all members
of society – rich and poor, men and women, majority and minority groups –
should have equal rights and equal opportunities to benefit from rising
prosperity. And environmental sustainability means that we must
reorient our economies and technologies to provide basic services like
safe water and sanitation, combat human-induced climate change, and
protect biodiversity. Achieving these three goals will require good
governance, public finance, and effective institutions.
Cities
will be in the front lines of the battle for sustainable development.
Not only do they face direct threats; they also have the best
opportunities to identify and deliver solutions. As high-density,
high-productivity settlements, cities can provide greater access to
services of all kinds – including energy, water, health, education,
finance, media, transport, recycling, and research – than can most rural
areas. The great challenge for cities is to provide this access
inclusively and sustainably.
A
significant part of the solution will come through advanced
technologies, including information systems and materials science. The
information and communications revolution has spawned the idea of the
“smart city,” which places the relevant technologies at the heart of
systems that collect and respond to information: smart power grids,
smart transport networks (potentially including self-driving vehicles),
and smart buildings and zoning.
The
advances in materials science open the possibility of much more
energy-efficient residences and commercial buildings. Cities also give
rise to the opportunity to combine public utilities, as when urban power
plants use the steam released in electricity generation to provide hot
water and heating to residents.
Yet
technology will be only part of the story. Cities need to upgrade their
governance, to allow for a greater role for poorer and more
marginalized communities, and to enable much more effective coordination
across city lines when a metropolitan area is home to many individual
cities. Metropolitan governance is therefore crucial, as smart cities
require networks that operate at the metropolitan scale.
When
the metropolitan scale is recognized, the importance of leading urban
areas is even more remarkable. New York City has around 8.4 million
people, but the NYC metropolitan area has roughly 25 million people,
with an economy estimated at about $1.4 trillion per year. If this
metropolitan area were a country, it would rank about 14th in the world
in GDP terms.
A wise political doctrine known as subsidiarity
holds that public-policy challenges should be assigned to the lowest
level of government able to address them, thereby ensuring maximum
democratic participation in problem solving and the greatest opportunity
to tailor solutions to genuine local needs. While some issues – for
example, a national highway or rail system – require national-level
problem solving, many key challenges of sustainable development are best
confronted at the urban level.
The world’s governments are now negotiating the
Sustainable Development Goals,
which will guide the world’s development agenda from 2015 to 2030. In
an important meeting on September 25, the United Nations General
Assembly agreed that the SDGs would be adopted at a global summit in
September 2015, with the next two years used to select the priorities.
An
urban SDG, promoting inclusive, productive, and resilient cities, would
greatly empower tens of thousands of cities worldwide to take up the
cause of sustainable development for their own citizens, their
countries, and the world.
Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jeffrey-d--sachs-argues-that-urban-areas-must-lead-the-way-toward-environmentally-healthy-and-socially-inclusive-economies#hqXVywrxPDRFfLa5.99
NEW
YORK – Tacloban in the Philippines has now joined the growing list of
cities – including New Orleans, Bangkok, Moscow, New York, Beijing, Rio
de Janeiro, and Port-au-Prince, to name just a few – pummeled in recent
years by climate catastrophes. Many of the world’s largest cities, built
on seacoasts and rivers, face the threat of rising sea levels and
intensifying storms. So the new global development agenda now taking
shape should empower cities to help lead the way to sustainable
development in the twenty-first century.
The
importance of cities in today’s world economy is unprecedented. Until
the Industrial Revolution, human history was overwhelmingly rural. Only
around 10% of people lived in cities. Today, the
share of urbanites is around 53% and is likely to rise to around 67% by 2050.
Because per capita
incomes are higher in cities than in rural areas, the world’s cities
today are estimated to account for more than 80% of global income, with
the largest 600 accounting for around half. Most of the new jobs over
the next few decades will be created in cities, offering livelihoods to
hundreds of millions of young people and, as China and Brazil have
demonstrated, helping to slash extreme poverty.
Cities
are also the innovation hubs for public policy. Every day, mayors are
called on to get the job done for residents. They are the ones
responsible for providing safe water, garbage collection, safe housing,
infrastructure, upgraded slums, protection from disasters, and emergency
services when catastrophes hit. So it is not surprising that while
national governments often are paralyzed by partisan politics, city
governments foster action and innovation.
In
the United States, for example, Martin O’Malley, Baltimore’s former
mayor and now Maryland’s popular governor, pioneered the use of advanced
information systems for urban management. New York City’s outgoing
mayor, Michael Bloomberg, worked relentlessly to implement a new
sustainability plan (called
PlaNYC).
And the city’s incoming mayor, Bill de Blasio, is championing a bold
program of educational innovations to narrow the vast gaps in income,
wealth, and opportunity that divide the city.
Sustainable
development offers a new concept for the world economy in the
twenty-first century. Rather than focusing solely on income, sustainable
development encourages cities, countries, and the world to focus
simultaneously on three goals: economic prosperity, social inclusion,
and environmental sustainability.
Economic
prosperity speaks for itself. Social inclusion means that all members
of society – rich and poor, men and women, majority and minority groups –
should have equal rights and equal opportunities to benefit from rising
prosperity. And environmental sustainability means that we must
reorient our economies and technologies to provide basic services like
safe water and sanitation, combat human-induced climate change, and
protect biodiversity. Achieving these three goals will require good
governance, public finance, and effective institutions.
Cities
will be in the front lines of the battle for sustainable development.
Not only do they face direct threats; they also have the best
opportunities to identify and deliver solutions. As high-density,
high-productivity settlements, cities can provide greater access to
services of all kinds – including energy, water, health, education,
finance, media, transport, recycling, and research – than can most rural
areas. The great challenge for cities is to provide this access
inclusively and sustainably.
A
significant part of the solution will come through advanced
technologies, including information systems and materials science. The
information and communications revolution has spawned the idea of the
“smart city,” which places the relevant technologies at the heart of
systems that collect and respond to information: smart power grids,
smart transport networks (potentially including self-driving vehicles),
and smart buildings and zoning.
The
advances in materials science open the possibility of much more
energy-efficient residences and commercial buildings. Cities also give
rise to the opportunity to combine public utilities, as when urban power
plants use the steam released in electricity generation to provide hot
water and heating to residents.
Yet
technology will be only part of the story. Cities need to upgrade their
governance, to allow for a greater role for poorer and more
marginalized communities, and to enable much more effective coordination
across city lines when a metropolitan area is home to many individual
cities. Metropolitan governance is therefore crucial, as smart cities
require networks that operate at the metropolitan scale.
When
the metropolitan scale is recognized, the importance of leading urban
areas is even more remarkable. New York City has around 8.4 million
people, but the NYC metropolitan area has roughly 25 million people,
with an economy estimated at about $1.4 trillion per year. If this
metropolitan area were a country, it would rank about 14th in the world
in GDP terms.
A wise political doctrine known as subsidiarity
holds that public-policy challenges should be assigned to the lowest
level of government able to address them, thereby ensuring maximum
democratic participation in problem solving and the greatest opportunity
to tailor solutions to genuine local needs. While some issues – for
example, a national highway or rail system – require national-level
problem solving, many key challenges of sustainable development are best
confronted at the urban level.
The world’s governments are now negotiating the
Sustainable Development Goals,
which will guide the world’s development agenda from 2015 to 2030. In
an important meeting on September 25, the United Nations General
Assembly agreed that the SDGs would be adopted at a global summit in
September 2015, with the next two years used to select the priorities.
An
urban SDG, promoting inclusive, productive, and resilient cities, would
greatly empower tens of thousands of cities worldwide to take up the
cause of sustainable development for their own citizens, their
countries, and the world.
Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jeffrey-d--sachs-argues-that-urban-areas-must-lead-the-way-toward-environmentally-healthy-and-socially-inclusive-economies#hqXVywrxPDRFfLa5.99
NEW YORK –
Tacloban in the Philippines has now joined the growing list of cities –
including New Orleans, Bangkok, Moscow, New York, Beijing, Rio de
Janeiro, and Port-au-Prince, to name just a few – pummeled in recent
years by climate catastrophes. Many of the world’s largest cities, built
on seacoasts and rivers, face the threat of rising sea levels and
intensifying storms. So the new global development agenda now taking
shape should empower cities to help lead the way to sustainable
development in the twenty-first century.
The
importance of cities in today’s world economy is unprecedented. Until
the Industrial Revolution, human history was overwhelmingly rural. Only
around 10% of people lived in cities. Today, the
share of urbanites is around 53% and is likely to rise to around 67% by 2050.
Because per capita
incomes are higher in cities than in rural areas, the world’s cities
today are estimated to account for more than 80% of global income, with
the largest 600 accounting for around half. Most of the new jobs over
the next few decades will be created in cities, offering livelihoods to
hundreds of millions of young people and, as China and Brazil have
demonstrated, helping to slash extreme poverty.
Cities
are also the innovation hubs for public policy. Every day, mayors are
called on to get the job done for residents. They are the ones
responsible for providing safe water, garbage collection, safe housing,
infrastructure, upgraded slums, protection from disasters, and emergency
services when catastrophes hit. So it is not surprising that while
national governments often are paralyzed by partisan politics, city
governments foster action and innovation.
In
the United States, for example, Martin O’Malley, Baltimore’s former
mayor and now Maryland’s popular governor, pioneered the use of advanced
information systems for urban management. New York City’s outgoing
mayor, Michael Bloomberg, worked relentlessly to implement a new
sustainability plan (called
PlaNYC).
And the city’s incoming mayor, Bill de Blasio, is championing a bold
program of educational innovations to narrow the vast gaps in income,
wealth, and opportunity that divide the city.
Sustainable
development offers a new concept for the world economy in the
twenty-first century. Rather than focusing solely on income, sustainable
development encourages cities, countries, and the world to focus
simultaneously on three goals: economic prosperity, social inclusion,
and environmental sustainability.
Economic
prosperity speaks for itself. Social inclusion means that all members
of society – rich and poor, men and women, majority and minority groups –
should have equal rights and equal opportunities to benefit from rising
prosperity. And environmental sustainability means that we must
reorient our economies and technologies to provide basic services like
safe water and sanitation, combat human-induced climate change, and
protect biodiversity. Achieving these three goals will require good
governance, public finance, and effective institutions.
Cities
will be in the front lines of the battle for sustainable development.
Not only do they face direct threats; they also have the best
opportunities to identify and deliver solutions. As high-density,
high-productivity settlements, cities can provide greater access to
services of all kinds – including energy, water, health, education,
finance, media, transport, recycling, and research – than can most rural
areas. The great challenge for cities is to provide this access
inclusively and sustainably.
A
significant part of the solution will come through advanced
technologies, including information systems and materials science. The
information and communications revolution has spawned the idea of the
“smart city,” which places the relevant technologies at the heart of
systems that collect and respond to information: smart power grids,
smart transport networks (potentially including self-driving vehicles),
and smart buildings and zoning.
The
advances in materials science open the possibility of much more
energy-efficient residences and commercial buildings. Cities also give
rise to the opportunity to combine public utilities, as when urban power
plants use the steam released in electricity generation to provide hot
water and heating to residents.
Yet
technology will be only part of the story. Cities need to upgrade their
governance, to allow for a greater role for poorer and more
marginalized communities, and to enable much more effective coordination
across city lines when a metropolitan area is home to many individual
cities. Metropolitan governance is therefore crucial, as smart cities
require networks that operate at the metropolitan scale.
When
the metropolitan scale is recognized, the importance of leading urban
areas is even more remarkable. New York City has around 8.4 million
people, but the NYC metropolitan area has roughly 25 million people,
with an economy estimated at about $1.4 trillion per year. If this
metropolitan area were a country, it would rank about 14th in the world
in GDP terms.
A wise political doctrine known as subsidiarity
holds that public-policy challenges should be assigned to the lowest
level of government able to address them, thereby ensuring maximum
democratic participation in problem solving and the greatest opportunity
to tailor solutions to genuine local needs. While some issues – for
example, a national highway or rail system – require national-level
problem solving, many key challenges of sustainable development are best
confronted at the urban level.
The world’s governments are now negotiating the
Sustainable Development Goals,
which will guide the world’s development agenda from 2015 to 2030. In
an important meeting on September 25, the United Nations General
Assembly agreed that the SDGs would be adopted at a global summit in
September 2015, with the next two years used to select the priorities.
An
urban SDG, promoting inclusive, productive, and resilient cities, would
greatly empower tens of thousands of cities worldwide to take up the
cause of sustainable development for their own citizens, their
countries, and the world.
Read more at
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jeffrey-d--sachs-argues-that-urban-areas-must-lead-the-way-toward-environmentally-healthy-and-socially-inclusive-economies#iGs7xTM6Pffp9O22.99
NEW YORK –
Tacloban in the Philippines has now joined the growing list of cities –
including New Orleans, Bangkok, Moscow, New York, Beijing, Rio de
Janeiro, and Port-au-Prince, to name just a few – pummeled in recent
years by climate catastrophes. Many of the world’s largest cities, built
on seacoasts and rivers, face the threat of rising sea levels and
intensifying storms. So the new global development agenda now taking
shape should empower cities to help lead the way to sustainable
development in the twenty-first century.
The
importance of cities in today’s world economy is unprecedented. Until
the Industrial Revolution, human history was overwhelmingly rural. Only
around 10% of people lived in cities. Today, the
share of urbanites is around 53% and is likely to rise to around 67% by 2050.
Because per capita
incomes are higher in cities than in rural areas, the world’s cities
today are estimated to account for more than 80% of global income, with
the largest 600 accounting for around half. Most of the new jobs over
the next few decades will be created in cities, offering livelihoods to
hundreds of millions of young people and, as China and Brazil have
demonstrated, helping to slash extreme poverty.
Cities
are also the innovation hubs for public policy. Every day, mayors are
called on to get the job done for residents. They are the ones
responsible for providing safe water, garbage collection, safe housing,
infrastructure, upgraded slums, protection from disasters, and emergency
services when catastrophes hit. So it is not surprising that while
national governments often are paralyzed by partisan politics, city
governments foster action and innovation.
In
the United States, for example, Martin O’Malley, Baltimore’s former
mayor and now Maryland’s popular governor, pioneered the use of advanced
information systems for urban management. New York City’s outgoing
mayor, Michael Bloomberg, worked relentlessly to implement a new
sustainability plan (called
PlaNYC).
And the city’s incoming mayor, Bill de Blasio, is championing a bold
program of educational innovations to narrow the vast gaps in income,
wealth, and opportunity that divide the city.
Sustainable
development offers a new concept for the world economy in the
twenty-first century. Rather than focusing solely on income, sustainable
development encourages cities, countries, and the world to focus
simultaneously on three goals: economic prosperity, social inclusion,
and environmental sustainability.
Economic
prosperity speaks for itself. Social inclusion means that all members
of society – rich and poor, men and women, majority and minority groups –
should have equal rights and equal opportunities to benefit from rising
prosperity. And environmental sustainability means that we must
reorient our economies and technologies to provide basic services like
safe water and sanitation, combat human-induced climate change, and
protect biodiversity. Achieving these three goals will require good
governance, public finance, and effective institutions.
Cities
will be in the front lines of the battle for sustainable development.
Not only do they face direct threats; they also have the best
opportunities to identify and deliver solutions. As high-density,
high-productivity settlements, cities can provide greater access to
services of all kinds – including energy, water, health, education,
finance, media, transport, recycling, and research – than can most rural
areas. The great challenge for cities is to provide this access
inclusively and sustainably.
A
significant part of the solution will come through advanced
technologies, including information systems and materials science. The
information and communications revolution has spawned the idea of the
“smart city,” which places the relevant technologies at the heart of
systems that collect and respond to information: smart power grids,
smart transport networks (potentially including self-driving vehicles),
and smart buildings and zoning.
The
advances in materials science open the possibility of much more
energy-efficient residences and commercial buildings. Cities also give
rise to the opportunity to combine public utilities, as when urban power
plants use the steam released in electricity generation to provide hot
water and heating to residents.
Yet
technology will be only part of the story. Cities need to upgrade their
governance, to allow for a greater role for poorer and more
marginalized communities, and to enable much more effective coordination
across city lines when a metropolitan area is home to many individual
cities. Metropolitan governance is therefore crucial, as smart cities
require networks that operate at the metropolitan scale.
When
the metropolitan scale is recognized, the importance of leading urban
areas is even more remarkable. New York City has around 8.4 million
people, but the NYC metropolitan area has roughly 25 million people,
with an economy estimated at about $1.4 trillion per year. If this
metropolitan area were a country, it would rank about 14th in the world
in GDP terms.
A wise political doctrine known as subsidiarity
holds that public-policy challenges should be assigned to the lowest
level of government able to address them, thereby ensuring maximum
democratic participation in problem solving and the greatest opportunity
to tailor solutions to genuine local needs. While some issues – for
example, a national highway or rail system – require national-level
problem solving, many key challenges of sustainable development are best
confronted at the urban level.
The world’s governments are now negotiating the
Sustainable Development Goals,
which will guide the world’s development agenda from 2015 to 2030. In
an important meeting on September 25, the United Nations General
Assembly agreed that the SDGs would be adopted at a global summit in
September 2015, with the next two years used to select the priorities.
An
urban SDG, promoting inclusive, productive, and resilient cities, would
greatly empower tens of thousands of cities worldwide to take up the
cause of sustainable development for their own citizens, their
countries, and the world.
Read more at
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jeffrey-d--sachs-argues-that-urban-areas-must-lead-the-way-toward-environmentally-healthy-and-socially-inclusive-economies#ExelQ5RDp5KLzimv.99
NEW YORK –
Tacloban in the Philippines has now joined the growing list of cities –
including New Orleans, Bangkok, Moscow, New York, Beijing, Rio de
Janeiro, and Port-au-Prince, to name just a few – pummeled in recent
years by climate catastrophes. Many of the world’s largest cities, built
on seacoasts and rivers, face the threat of rising sea levels and
intensifying storms. So the new global development agenda now taking
shape should empower cities to help lead the way to sustainable
development in the twenty-first century.
The
importance of cities in today’s world economy is unprecedented. Until
the Industrial Revolution, human history was overwhelmingly rural. Only
around 10% of people lived in cities. Today, the
share of urbanites is around 53% and is likely to rise to around 67% by 2050.
Because per capita
incomes are higher in cities than in rural areas, the world’s cities
today are estimated to account for more than 80% of global income, with
the largest 600 accounting for around half. Most of the new jobs over
the next few decades will be created in cities, offering livelihoods to
hundreds of millions of young people and, as China and Brazil have
demonstrated, helping to slash extreme poverty.
Cities
are also the innovation hubs for public policy. Every day, mayors are
called on to get the job done for residents. They are the ones
responsible for providing safe water, garbage collection, safe housing,
infrastructure, upgraded slums, protection from disasters, and emergency
services when catastrophes hit. So it is not surprising that while
national governments often are paralyzed by partisan politics, city
governments foster action and innovation.
In
the United States, for example, Martin O’Malley, Baltimore’s former
mayor and now Maryland’s popular governor, pioneered the use of advanced
information systems for urban management. New York City’s outgoing
mayor, Michael Bloomberg, worked relentlessly to implement a new
sustainability plan (called
PlaNYC).
And the city’s incoming mayor, Bill de Blasio, is championing a bold
program of educational innovations to narrow the vast gaps in income,
wealth, and opportunity that divide the city.
Sustainable
development offers a new concept for the world economy in the
twenty-first century. Rather than focusing solely on income, sustainable
development encourages cities, countries, and the world to focus
simultaneously on three goals: economic prosperity, social inclusion,
and environmental sustainability.
Economic
prosperity speaks for itself. Social inclusion means that all members
of society – rich and poor, men and women, majority and minority groups –
should have equal rights and equal opportunities to benefit from rising
prosperity. And environmental sustainability means that we must
reorient our economies and technologies to provide basic services like
safe water and sanitation, combat human-induced climate change, and
protect biodiversity. Achieving these three goals will require good
governance, public finance, and effective institutions.
Cities
will be in the front lines of the battle for sustainable development.
Not only do they face direct threats; they also have the best
opportunities to identify and deliver solutions. As high-density,
high-productivity settlements, cities can provide greater access to
services of all kinds – including energy, water, health, education,
finance, media, transport, recycling, and research – than can most rural
areas. The great challenge for cities is to provide this access
inclusively and sustainably.
A
significant part of the solution will come through advanced
technologies, including information systems and materials science. The
information and communications revolution has spawned the idea of the
“smart city,” which places the relevant technologies at the heart of
systems that collect and respond to information: smart power grids,
smart transport networks (potentially including self-driving vehicles),
and smart buildings and zoning.
The
advances in materials science open the possibility of much more
energy-efficient residences and commercial buildings. Cities also give
rise to the opportunity to combine public utilities, as when urban power
plants use the steam released in electricity generation to provide hot
water and heating to residents.
Yet
technology will be only part of the story. Cities need to upgrade their
governance, to allow for a greater role for poorer and more
marginalized communities, and to enable much more effective coordination
across city lines when a metropolitan area is home to many individual
cities. Metropolitan governance is therefore crucial, as smart cities
require networks that operate at the metropolitan scale.
When
the metropolitan scale is recognized, the importance of leading urban
areas is even more remarkable. New York City has around 8.4 million
people, but the NYC metropolitan area has roughly 25 million people,
with an economy estimated at about $1.4 trillion per year. If this
metropolitan area were a country, it would rank about 14th in the world
in GDP terms.
A wise political doctrine known as subsidiarity
holds that public-policy challenges should be assigned to the lowest
level of government able to address them, thereby ensuring maximum
democratic participation in problem solving and the greatest opportunity
to tailor solutions to genuine local needs. While some issues – for
example, a national highway or rail system – require national-level
problem solving, many key challenges of sustainable development are best
confronted at the urban level.
The world’s governments are now negotiating the
Sustainable Development Goals,
which will guide the world’s development agenda from 2015 to 2030. In
an important meeting on September 25, the United Nations General
Assembly agreed that the SDGs would be adopted at a global summit in
September 2015, with the next two years used to select the priorities.
An
urban SDG, promoting inclusive, productive, and resilient cities, would
greatly empower tens of thousands of cities worldwide to take up the
cause of sustainable development for their own citizens, their
countries, and the world.
Read more at
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jeffrey-d--sachs-argues-that-urban-areas-must-lead-the-way-toward-environmentally-healthy-and-socially-inclusive-economies#ExelQ5RDp5KLzimv.99
NEW YORK –
Tacloban in the Philippines has now joined the growing list of cities –
including New Orleans, Bangkok, Moscow, New York, Beijing, Rio de
Janeiro, and Port-au-Prince, to name just a few – pummeled in recent
years by climate catastrophes. Many of the world’s largest cities, built
on seacoasts and rivers, face the threat of rising sea levels and
intensifying storms. So the new global development agenda now taking
shape should empower cities to help lead the way to sustainable
development in the twenty-first century.
The
importance of cities in today’s world economy is unprecedented. Until
the Industrial Revolution, human history was overwhelmingly rural. Only
around 10% of people lived in cities. Today, the
share of urbanites is around 53% and is likely to rise to around 67% by 2050.
Because per capita
incomes are higher in cities than in rural areas, the world’s cities
today are estimated to account for more than 80% of global income, with
the largest 600 accounting for around half. Most of the new jobs over
the next few decades will be created in cities, offering livelihoods to
hundreds of millions of young people and, as China and Brazil have
demonstrated, helping to slash extreme poverty.
Cities
are also the innovation hubs for public policy. Every day, mayors are
called on to get the job done for residents. They are the ones
responsible for providing safe water, garbage collection, safe housing,
infrastructure, upgraded slums, protection from disasters, and emergency
services when catastrophes hit. So it is not surprising that while
national governments often are paralyzed by partisan politics, city
governments foster action and innovation.
In
the United States, for example, Martin O’Malley, Baltimore’s former
mayor and now Maryland’s popular governor, pioneered the use of advanced
information systems for urban management. New York City’s outgoing
mayor, Michael Bloomberg, worked relentlessly to implement a new
sustainability plan (called
PlaNYC).
And the city’s incoming mayor, Bill de Blasio, is championing a bold
program of educational innovations to narrow the vast gaps in income,
wealth, and opportunity that divide the city.
Sustainable
development offers a new concept for the world economy in the
twenty-first century. Rather than focusing solely on income, sustainable
development encourages cities, countries, and the world to focus
simultaneously on three goals: economic prosperity, social inclusion,
and environmental sustainability.
Economic
prosperity speaks for itself. Social inclusion means that all members
of society – rich and poor, men and women, majority and minority groups –
should have equal rights and equal opportunities to benefit from rising
prosperity. And environmental sustainability means that we must
reorient our economies and technologies to provide basic services like
safe water and sanitation, combat human-induced climate change, and
protect biodiversity. Achieving these three goals will require good
governance, public finance, and effective institutions.
Cities
will be in the front lines of the battle for sustainable development.
Not only do they face direct threats; they also have the best
opportunities to identify and deliver solutions. As high-density,
high-productivity settlements, cities can provide greater access to
services of all kinds – including energy, water, health, education,
finance, media, transport, recycling, and research – than can most rural
areas. The great challenge for cities is to provide this access
inclusively and sustainably.
A
significant part of the solution will come through advanced
technologies, including information systems and materials science. The
information and communications revolution has spawned the idea of the
“smart city,” which places the relevant technologies at the heart of
systems that collect and respond to information: smart power grids,
smart transport networks (potentially including self-driving vehicles),
and smart buildings and zoning.
The
advances in materials science open the possibility of much more
energy-efficient residences and commercial buildings. Cities also give
rise to the opportunity to combine public utilities, as when urban power
plants use the steam released in electricity generation to provide hot
water and heating to residents.
Yet
technology will be only part of the story. Cities need to upgrade their
governance, to allow for a greater role for poorer and more
marginalized communities, and to enable much more effective coordination
across city lines when a metropolitan area is home to many individual
cities. Metropolitan governance is therefore crucial, as smart cities
require networks that operate at the metropolitan scale.
When
the metropolitan scale is recognized, the importance of leading urban
areas is even more remarkable. New York City has around 8.4 million
people, but the NYC metropolitan area has roughly 25 million people,
with an economy estimated at about $1.4 trillion per year. If this
metropolitan area were a country, it would rank about 14th in the world
in GDP terms.
A wise political doctrine known as subsidiarity
holds that public-policy challenges should be assigned to the lowest
level of government able to address them, thereby ensuring maximum
democratic participation in problem solving and the greatest opportunity
to tailor solutions to genuine local needs. While some issues – for
example, a national highway or rail system – require national-level
problem solving, many key challenges of sustainable development are best
confronted at the urban level.
The world’s governments are now negotiating the
Sustainable Development Goals,
which will guide the world’s development agenda from 2015 to 2030. In
an important meeting on September 25, the United Nations General
Assembly agreed that the SDGs would be adopted at a global summit in
September 2015, with the next two years used to select the priorities.
An
urban SDG, promoting inclusive, productive, and resilient cities, would
greatly empower tens of thousands of cities worldwide to take up the
cause of sustainable development for their own citizens, their
countries, and the world.
Read more at
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jeffrey-d--sachs-argues-that-urban-areas-must-lead-the-way-toward-environmentally-healthy-and-socially-inclusive-economies#ExelQ5RDp5KLzimv.99
