What makes you happy about where you live What would you like to change about it IMAGES BY TANG MI NG T UN G GET TY IMAGES 2 Researchers have found that there are qualities in a city that make people feel happy living there They include feeling safe being able to travel about easily for their daily activities having green space nearby so they can enjoy nature and being part of a community People also need to feel welcome And they need clean air to breathe safe water to drink and healthy food readily available For the last 9,000 years we humans have been putting our heads together to build our cities to suit our needs but there have been ups and downs along the way Today’s cities deal with many of the same issues as cities of the past as well as new ones Cities produce at least 60 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and they face big challenges from the effects of the climate crisis like hurricanes and heat waves The ancient city of Shibam Yemen was designed so that everyone could easily walk to their daily activities Can cities today create more compact neighborhoods that mean less travel and more time to play In the ancient Aztec city of Tenochtitlán in today’s Mexico residents grew crops using waste products from the city Is zero waste possible for today’s cities We’ll explore how cities have changed through time and how we can best design city life for the future using ideas from the past When better services or sustainable ideas are put into place in cities such as solar panels rooftop farms or more buses and bike lanes it can make life better for a huge number of people That’s good news because by 2050 an estimated 70 percent of the world’s population will live in cities Let’s go discover what might make a more sustainable and welcoming city for today and tomorrow
People relax by Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul Hidden under concrete for many years the stream was restored in 2005 These days on average it attracts 64,000 visitors daily RICHA R D S HARR OC KS GET TY I MAGE S
Ur Mesopotamia 2000 BCE Rome 200 Beijing 1300 Brasília Brazil 1956 1960
One Mapping It Out Baghdad 762 Only 9,000 years ago give or take cities didn’t exist Today about four billion people about half the world’s population live in cities This number could rise to seven billion by 2050 What is a city It turns out there’s not just one definition that everyone agrees on Some countries define cities based on the number of residents others by the type of work done by the people living there City populations range from 1,500 to 50,000 to millions of people But what makes a city a good place for people to live Is it its shape or size The number of services it has like libraries hospitals or shops Is it having parks where you can enjoy nature and see your friends Or is it having a low level of crime pollution and noise Cities have changed a lot over time Let’s take a look at how they got started and what they might look like in the future 5
