Predicament for human settlements†

Substance of a paper delivered at the National Conference on “The Urban Predicament”; held at the Royal Institution, London, U.K., on March 20, 1975, under the aegis of the (U.K.) Institution of Environmental Sciences (Editor).

Abstract

The urban predicament is not easy to solve. If we want to succeed we must start with facts and not with ideas, especially unrealistic ones. If we start with facts, we will find that we live in the era of explosions, four of which (population, economy, energy, mobility) influence our human settlements to a very high degree. By following the most probable evolution of these explosions we can predict the dimensions of our future cities, then we will understand that such predictions, although very realistic, do not show anything about the quality of life in the future. By analyzing the situation properly we can understand that while we cannot change the basic forces, like population and energy evolution, which in a way are really macro‐biological, we can create the quality we need. Our predicament is that the basic dimensions of the urban evolution cannot change. But the quality of our city can be changed and depends on us, our maturity, our scientific approach and our courage.

Notes

Substance of a paper delivered at the National Conference on “The Urban Predicament”; held at the Royal Institution, London, U.K., on March 20, 1975, under the aegis of the (U.K.) Institution of Environmental Sciences (Editor).