Triumph of the city – a tribute to the best invention of humanity!

So the doomsayers are forever at it complaining that the world is overpopulated. These are the folks who see the cup as half-full. To them a small population is a godsend and they argue that we ought to keep the human population small to overcome social problems. As I have argued in a previous blogposting, smaller populations do not provide much of an advantage and may in fact be a hindrance to economic development. Of course this is a generalisation and I know full well that there are exceptions to this rule (think of poor countries in Asia such as Pakistan and Bangladesh - which all have fairly big populations). But the undeniable fact is that fairly sizable populations (and a hundred million seems a fair bet according to The Economist) seem to augur well for economic development opportunities. 

Some of the leading economies in the world today have relatively big populations. As already acknowledged, there are exceptions to this rule, but the argument of a positive correlation between a big population and a much higher GDP makes sense. One need only look at the economies of mighty China (1.3 billion; 2^nd biggest economy by GDP), Brazil (200 billion – 7^th biggest), India (over a billion; 10t^h biggest), Japan (3^rd biggest economy; over a hundred million people), Germany (80 million; 4^th biggest GDP), and the US (300 million; number 1 GDP).

The inexorable march to the city

Sometime in 2013, Planet Earth reached a milestone when many more people supposedly lived in cities compared to those in rural areas. Personally I celebrated that achievement. Now let me state outrightly that I do hold an idyllic and romanticised view of rural areas. After all, I've spent the better part of my life in a village and still spend my holidays there. But rural areas are a nightmare from a number of areas: it is virtually impossible and very costly to deliver bulk services to rural areas. The government - with good intentions of course – does intend to provide energy and a whole suite of bulk services to rural areas (they call it service delivery). But because rural areas are spread out, it’s a heck of a challenge to cost-effectively deliver suitable services. And people in rural areas in South Africa are not used to paying for services. So even a well-meaning municipality quickly finds that rural areas are a drain on its revenue collection system. Not that there are no options to change this, but it requires a heck of an effort and would probably take a much longer time for the culture of non-payment for services to be eradicated. After all, we readily pay for and accept use of prepaid phones. Why can’t the same logic apply to paying for services?

It is a well-known fact that the national electricity provider in South Africa (Eskom) is struggling with collections of payments for electricity in places such as Soweto. But that’s a story for another day. I see this whole debacle as an opportunity for innovative leadership where incentives could be created to encourage payment for services used. It has not escaped my attention that the good people of Gauteng are quietly buying e-tags and registering their e-toll accounts even though there has been fierce opposition to tolling Gauteng roads. Things definitely do improve with time. It’s the way the world works I guess.

The inevitable triumph of the city

In a book called Triumph of the City, the urban economist Edward Glaeser puts forward telling arguments about the advantages of city living. It turns out that we owe pretty much everything we’ve come to enjoy today thanks to the generation of smart ideas made possible by the city. The story goes like this: cities bring skilled people together. This is as a result of the availability of suitable services, reduced commute times, the concentration of skilled people, and the general availability of free and open markets that facilitate the spread of innovative ideas and wealth. The types of amenities that make city living desirable are the very things that promote wealth creation. Cities make it possible for people to get together, have fun and be creative, while building the economy. So you get the picture I guess.

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell sets out to decipher genius and argues that geniuses are able to succeed and thrive largely because of the supportive environments and circumstances under which they were born or lived. No one ever makes it alone. Call it the luck of the draw - being born in the right place at the right time. These are essentially attributes that cities provide – one has a better shot at success in a city than in a village. For geniuses like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, it made sense that they were exposed to computers from a young age and grew up using them. There are numerous examples of geniuses who succeeded in other fields, but the common thread in all of them is the supportive environment and the benefit of being in the right area at the right time. Living in a city provides that immense advantage.

There are numerous examples of ways in which cities have contributed a great deal to the lifestyles and habits that define modern life today. The concentration of skilled people and suitable amenities allows for a favourable environment for the generation of innovative ideas. Silicon Valley is a case in point as far as the computer technology boom is concerned. Johannesburg owes its existence to the mining of gold and the attraction of industries linked to mining. London is the financial hub of the world due to the concentration of skilled financiers and bankers. Paris has forever been the fashion capital of the world and will hold that distinction for years to come. The point is not so much that these things could not have been done elsewhere, but simply that the city environment made it a lot easier for the clever ideas to be replicated. Cities, by their nature, tend to foster the spread of innovative ideas.

The demise of poor villages

Even in the relatively less-developed South African setup, villages are definitely on their way out. Soon most of them will become the equivalent of ghost towns. Even mighty China has come to accept the inevitability of urbanisation. The thing is, villages are expensive to maintain and they generate very little wealth. As opposed to having departments that encourage rural development and economic stimulation of rural areas, it would make sense to accept the reality of urbanisation and do everything we can to promote such a trend. This would make it easy for society to tackle many of the social problems that confront us.

The cities I’m talking about here are not the typical townships and suburbs in South Africa. The townships are an apartheid relic and are a nightmare for development planners. We should be advocating a rethink of our settlement patterns to encourage densification and concentration. Sadly, the proliferation of so-called ‘RDP houses' in South Africa is definitely a step in the wrong direction and a missed opportunity to build sustainable settlements. The best type of urbanisation would best be achieved through insisting on high-rise buildings (skyscrapers) and flats. Suburbs are also a no-no. From a resource efficiency point of view, suburbs present their own unique challenges such as increased traffic congestions and inefficient use of energy. I know most of us hold the cherished aspiration of building houses in less-scattered settlements and leafy suburbs. But we must be open to the reality that our fancy suburbs are not the best deal for the environment.

The most efficient (and most productive) cities in the world are those characterised by high-rise buildings and densification. Cities, by their nature, do promote the densification of skilled people who tend to become the bedrock of a country’s economy. Even in its seemingly run-down state, Johannesburg is still the heartbeat of the South African economy. Cities like London, Paris, Tokyo, San Francisco, and New York stand as prime examples of the benefits of densification and the generation of smart ideas. And because of the concentration of skilled people - who in turn generate smart ideas - cities hold the last hope of guiding Planet Earth to a more sustainable future.

So the undeniable fact is that villages are not sustainable. One can build shopping centres and all types of crafty developments in them, but these things would probably be ideally located in cities. In any case, villages compete with cities for skilled people and in the long run are going to lose out.

So there you have it folks. Cities are our greatest invention and they make us smarter, richer, greener, healthier and happier. And these are pretty much the very qualities we need to guarantee a sustainable future for our civilisation, wouldn't you say?