The City of Tomorrow

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, when asking why human beings liked to live in the city, answered:

“People gather in the cities to live; they remain there to live better”

Is this still true today?

Air pollution, traffic, crime, noise, time pressure, all seem to challenge the quality of urban life today. Indeed, the increasing accessibility of locations far away from the city centre has caused an increased portion of households to escape from the congested urban environment, looking for a better quality of life outside the traditional city boundaries, in the suburbs or even in the rural countryside. By the same token, city centres increasingly loose their residents, and experience an overwhelming concentration of office, shopping or entertainment activities, which attract vast populations of commuters and/or tourists during the day, but leave the city almost “dead” at night. What is worst is that social interaction and neighbourhood life – the very aim of gathering into the city – is seemingly loosening day by day.

The unity and coherence of urban policies in the new daily life space is challenged: there are many institutions with different territorial and/or sectorial competences, and policies are often carried out independently with conflicting effects. The problem is therefore complex, and simple and immediate solutions do not exist. Citizens are – to say the least – perplex about the possibility to improve the quality of life in our cities.

However, there is at least the possibility to stop worsening the situation and reverse the trend in the medium to long term. We can improve again the quality of life in the European cities in the more or less distant future – this was in a nutshell the message of the European Union Research Programme “City of Tomorrow and Cultural Heritage”, launched in the year 2000, at the start of the third millenium. But we all need to achieve a common vision of what a more “sustainable city” may look alike, and to be made aware of what alternative options the current Research & Development activities – in particular those funded by the European Commission in the field of urban sustainable development – are going to offer in the near or more distant future. 

New solutions may be devised in this field as in others by scientists, but they shall be evaluated by citizens and – if they really seem to work well – applied by society. Citizens must therefore be aware of the different options that are available to them. Even more, they should develop the capacity to look and think ahead, at issues that concern their grandchildren, as entailed in the “sustainable development” concept. They should develop the capacity to understand what means this concept for the city ( “urban sustainability”) with the help of the scientific community, and  provide their advice on the most suitable and acceptable solutions.