This morning, at the Washington DC offices of the National Association of Realtors, the International Housing Coalition will host a book launch for the Rockefeller Foundation’s new book Century of the City: No Time To Lose.  Written by Neal R. Peirce and Curtis W. Johnson with Farley M. Peters, it documents our four weeks of deliberations: 
 

One in every ten people lived in urban areas a century ago. Now, for the first time ever, most people live in cities. By 2050, the United Nations projects, almost three-quarters of the world’s population will call urban areas home. The majority of this growth is centered in struggling, developing countries of the Global South, but cities in developed (or Global North) countries face increasingly complex challenges as well.

Around the world, unplanned urban expansion is multiplying slums, overburdening housing, transportation and infrastructure systems, stifling economic growth, and leaving millions vulnerable to new environmental and health threats.

To help manage and plan for this accelerating urbanization, the Rockefeller Foundation convened an exceptional group of urbanists–leading policy makers and government officials, finance experts, urban researchers, members of civil society organizations, and other innovators–for a Global Urban Summit at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center. This book shares their diverse perspectives, creative approaches, and urgent agenda for harnessing the vast opportunities of urbanization for a better world.

You can get a copy free, by emailing Rockefeller@forbesamg.com and including ‘Century of the City’ in the Subject line of the email form.

The book – all 447 pages of it – flows out of the month-long Global Urban Summit, held in July 2007 at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio conference center, a superb setting for what was one of the most intellectually intense weeks of my life.

Trying to map the challenges: Sumila Gulyani

I’ve previously posted that we are living in the century of cities, an event without precedent in human history, with a tidal wave of humanity migrating to cities because that’s where knowledge and knowledge and opportunity reside.  As a consequence of this tidal wave, the globe now has slums on a scale unthinkable even a quarter-century ago, as dramatically illustrated by the two-page photograph that opens the book’s second chapter, which covers the work our group did in its week at the Summit:

The chapter opens:

In our week, we spent a great deal of time trying to create a vision of how cities actually work – in an economic and political sense – leading to a linked and distinctive model that I sketched illegibly one day on a flip chart, and later converted into a graphic:

A slightly more schematic version of this graphic appears in Chapter 2, together with exposition.

The book is crammed not just with narrative but also with speech extracts from global luminaries who attended the month-long gathering, and scores of photographs of urban conditions and their challenges.  The narrative also tracks the enormously complex challenge of innovating simultaneously and effectively across multiple dimensions of the urban environment – housing, water and sanitation infrastructure, transportation, education, health, and municipal governance.

Trying to make sense of it all: the organizing team sifting topics

I just got my copy, so I’ve only dipped into it.  I plan to read the whole thing as soon as I can.  Meanwhile, Planetizen has already given Century of the City a glowing review:

This book is an impassioned call for action. Vibrant with images and littered with sidebars, Century of the City is magazine-readable but book-intelligent. It’s the result of a month-long colloquy hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation to identify and strategize on the challenges faced by rapidly urbanizing 21st century cities. The focus is on taking multidisciplinary approaches to the issues faced by cities, from the underserved slums of India to the most bustling economic powerhouses of the new China. Readers will come away convinced that even the most inefficient cities are incredibly important to the livelihood of both local citizens and global citizens, and that making them better is truly an international imperative.

Cities matter, and they’re going to matter even more in the coming decades.  As Rakesh Mohan put it when we were at Bellagio:

If the world is urbanizing, it’s because people think it’s a good idea.  Yet our urban planning as a ‘third-class carriage’ mentality: I’m inside, don’t you dare come in, you’re much better off where you are.  Most urban planners live in largest cities in the world, yet they complain that cities are too large.  This report takes the opposite view.

Rakesh Mohan, Reserve Bank of India, and Eliot Sclar, Columbia Center for Sustainable Urban Development

Century of the City is a really absorbing, impressive, and important book.  I’m glad I was able to play a small part in its creation.

Being tall gets you in the middle of the picture: the Housing, Water and Sanitation team

You should have one in your library, so go order it now.  To order a copy:

Email Rockefeller {at} forbesamg {dot} com and include ‘Century of the City’ in the Subject line of the email form. There is no charge for the books; however, you can order only up to two copies this way.

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