Social Cities

Cities that place a premium on connectedness, stability and democracy thrive.

Explore how this evolves in the 2020 Forecast in Eco-Schools.

Real World Application

Humans become an urban species
During the next decade, more than half of the world’s population will live in cities. The shift to cities will be greatest in developing countries, yet small cities with populations less that 50,000 will be among the fastest growing in both the developed and developing worlds. The emerging megacities will constitute an urban wilderness presenting extreme conditions that will require existing institutions to provide new infrastructures (physical and social) and develop new adaptive strategies.


Public places become personal spaces
This decade will become the decade of information in place— geocoded data will be linked through the Internet and accessible through a variety of mobile tools from cell phones and PDAs to augmented-reality devices (like eyeglasses). The result will be an increasingly first-person view of places, where rich streams of personalized media “redraw” streets, storefronts, schools, and community locations. Educational content and curriculum will become context-specific, aligning personal learning needs with places.