October, 1967: Arnold Toynbee published “Cities of Destiny” exploring elements that, when blended in an urban environment, may foster innovation and greatness. Cyrene set a trend: the ancient Greek city-state created a new culture where sciences, arts, education flourished. Singapore illustrates the power of a city to make its own laws, taxes, policies. Cities use – and therefore can save – significant energy; C40, an organization of the world’s mega-cities, may show the way forward to a better environment. Will the proposed Global Parliament of Mayors, convening 600 city leaders around the globe, forge a new direction for progress? Over half of our world lives in cities. Cooperative leagues of cities may shape the world’s destiny.
Hargreaves, Steve. “Greatest urban projects of all time,” CNNMoney, October 7, 2014. http://money.cnn.com/gallery/news/economy/2014/10/07/greatest-urban-projects/3.html
C40 Cities, Climate Leadership Group: www.c40.org
Global Parliament of Mayors:
Barber, Benjamin R. “If Mayors Ruled the World.” (Yale University Press, 2014). www.ifmayorsruledtheworld.com
Toynbee, Arnold. “Cities of Destiny.” (Thames & Hudson, 1967)
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.