The future is in the city. In 2022, 56 % of the world's population, or around 4.4 billion people, lived in urban areas. If this trend continues, by 2050, 7 out of 10 people will be city dwellers.
This human concentration is a source of economic and cultural wealth, but it also entails risks, vulnerabilities and sometimes extreme inequalities. It also generates undesirable environmental effects. The World Bank estimates that cities currently account for almost 2/3 of global energy consumption and 70 % of global greenhouse gas emissions. Responsible, of course, but also a victim of accelerating environmental change, particularly climatic change, characteristic of the Anthropocene.
This is why we need to adapt our major urban areas to these environmental challenges. Some metropolises are threatened by rising sea levels. Others - sometimes the same - are threatened by extreme climatic events, such as massive rainfall leading to flash floods, heatwaves and even sustained increases in average temperatures, which have a severe impact on populations and urban infrastructures. Added to these challenges is the management of health risks : water quality and availability, epidemic risk, pollution-related diseases. The " urban exposome " remains to be understood in its entirety, not to mention the alterations to microbial, animal and plant biodiversity.
These environmental pressures, which have become global - to varying degrees - on a planetary scale, are also powerful indicators and drivers of inequality, whether within a single city, where they widen the gap between affluent and marginalized populations, or between cities located on different continents and in different socio-economic contexts. Rapid urbanization is mainly driven by continuing development in Africa and Asia.
Urban policies will have to take account of these adaptation requirements, at the intersection of socio-economic, environmental, climatic and health imperatives, in order to build a resilient and welcoming urban space for all. They can draw on examples of adaptability from metropolises that have long been subject to climatic excesses. The social and economic acceptability of the adaptations required to design the city of the future is another challenge for future urban policies.
Through its Avenir Commun Durable initiative, the Collège de France hopes to contribute to the debate on these complex issues. To do so, it draws on a broad panel of contributors covering a wide range of disciplines.
What will the city of the future look like ?
