Cities: the next chapter
With more people than ever living in cities, and with technology offering us the potential to effect innovative, transformational and positive change, there has never been a more exciting time to be involved with the urban environment writes Stephen Engblom, Global Director of AECOM Cities
What makes a city great? Many consider attractiveness, accessibility, affordability and acceptance as important criteria. A great city is a place where people live, business invests, visitors enjoy, nature thrives, and culture shines. It needs to feel safe, well served and well connected. How well a city meets these criteria is a careful balancing act; one that requires daring innovation, responsible stewardship and passionate citizens.
The reality is that with the growing numbers of people choosing to live in cities, demand for services is up and investment spending is down. The result is a growing gap between the services and infrastructure needed to keep pace with population growth and economic development. The list for consideration is lengthy, from clean water and energy, good public transportation and well-managed roads to affordable homes, education and healthcare provision, waste disposal and resilience to attack and natural disaster. All of this infra-structure must be designed, approved, constructed, funded and maintained faster and cheaper than ever before. This edition of IQ examines how innovation, integrated leadership and inclusive approaches are aligning around the world to offer a new generation of connected urban solutions that can address our greatest urban challenges today.
Innovating and delivering together
While innovative technology is key to solving many of our greatest modern challenges and facilitiates smarter city making, it does not have all of the answers. The ‘smart’ urban environment, studded with sensors and threaded with digital networks, provides the opportunity to collect rich streams of data. This can be harnessed to help run services more efficiently and effectively, saving time, money and resources. However, the real brilliance happens when you can do all of this and raise the quality of life for everyone as well.
How can we fund and deliver the entire infrastructure that the new global urban population will need in the coming few years while reducing social inequity? What about a different question: how can we change our infrastructure delivery approach to align with the needs, and what opportunities could this unlock? Who are the new partners that need to be at the table?
Brilliant cities are those that challenge themselves and private sector partners to look at how we advance the dialogue beyond restrictive policy discussions. The next step is to strategize how new mobility and housing platforms can accelerate innovative products and services while addressing social inequalities and improving environmental performance.
As a company that designs, builds, finances, and operates infrastructure worldwide, AECOM is already delivering projects that are setting new standards for the future. We are also working with cities and technology companies to identify synergies where multiple benefits can be realized. As you’ll read in this edition of IQ, we are designing smart cities from scratch, we are helping speed up the delivery of new and afford- able homes, developing new funding mechanisms and making existing infrastructure assets work harder.
Cities and citizens
An integral part of our work is the focus on people. It’s too often assumed that growing populations are a problem, migration is a negative and that citizens are passive recipients of what is handed down by corporations and governments. But the urban guru Jane Jacobs summarized it neatly when she wrote, “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
While AECOM’s work is based around cities and infrastructure, we are at the core a business about people. Our teams design, build, finance, and operate projects that serve the people of the world. Therefore, to get our future cities right, we must understand people’s changing needs and concerns, know our clients’ challenges, and work towards collaborative solutions. We need to understand the flow of capital and the newest means of construction. And we do not do it alone. Together with our clients and their communities, we seek to engage in an inclusive debate that will produce the most fitting innovative answers and, along with helping to solve the infrastructure gap, will also ensure that we address the social equity gap too. And then we will have cities where we are all stakeholders and participants in shaping the future.