Unthinking Urbanization Cities Without Thought

Back in January, this weblog had a post on How Should We Be Thinking About Urbanization? Are We? based on and inspired by a Freakonomics quorum and supported by other links. There seems to still be a good argument that we are not despite the efforts of some.

Here are perspectives from two major newspapers of two urban centers on two sides of the continental United states regarding the urbanization of cities. This first deals with policy of city urbanization and the lack of attention.

"The New York Times" OPINION Editorial: In Search of a Real Urban Policy

For more than a generation, presidential aspirants have mostly resisted acknowledging the importance of the cities' well being.

The second deals with the result of that neglect.

Urban renewal project in L.A. begets blight instead By Ted Rohrlich Los Angeles Times Staff Writer April 27 2008, 10:38 PM PDT Visit latimes.com

The city has little to show for the millions of dollars paid to a developer for the Santa Barbara Plaza project in the Crenshaw district.

It was supposed to have been a model of urban renewal -- a mix of housing and classy stores to replace a decaying 20-acre shopping center at the foot of the affluent Baldwin Hills.

How Should We Be Thinking About Urbanization? Are We?

A question for a Freakonomics Quorum "How Should We Be Thinking About Urbanization?" - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

Urbanization has been climbing steadily of late, with more than half of the world's population now living in cities. Given the economic, sociological, political, and environmental ramifications, how should we be thinking about this?

We gathered a quorum of smart thinkers on this subject — James Howard Kunstler, Edward Glaeser, Robert Bruegmann, Dolores Hayden, and Alan Berube — and posed to them the following questions:

• This year marked the first time in human history that more people lived in cities than in rural areas. What problems and opportunities does this present? What effects has it had on our local and global culture? Economy? Health?

For some additional insights TED Theme The Power of Cities filed under Pearls of Paradigm Processing Social and Economic Paradigms.

This should also be a Davos Question, though it does not appear to be high on the agenda for this year. For some questions on urbanization from past World Economic Forums we have Urban and Lower Income: Asia’s Future Consumer Class from 2007 and Urban Renewal: Holding the Keys to the Future? from 2006.

The Davos Question

Official Google Blog: The Davos Question

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