cities have been for thousands of years the centers of civilization as they have watched empires kingdoms

governments and corporations come and go but in the space of just a few decades our urban fabric is undergoing a
radical transformation.Today's wave of mass urbanization is historically unprecedented in speed and scale .Today
over 1 million people are added to the global urban population every week in the space of a few decades.
We are in the process of doubling our urban capacity adding an extra 2 to 3 billion more people to our urban
environment. As a consequence the world is currently going through its biggest build-out of technology
infrastructure in history. We will build more ports buildings roads, bridges, rail lines, airports, power cables and
telecommunication networks in the coming decades than we have since the beginning of civilization.
Much of this urbanization will unfold in the emerging economies of Africa and Asia bringing huge social and
environmental transformations but also the most significant shift in the Earth's economic center of gravity ever seen.
Our future is set to be urban as the world's population is increasingly concentrated in urban settlements. This creates
new opportunities and new challenges in a fast changing context. Rapid unplanned urban growth can lead to an
expansion of urban slums exacerbating poverty and inequality hampering efforts to provide basic infrastructure and
accelerate environmental degradation. But urbanization also presents unprecedented opportunities for rapid
economic development. As hubs of commerce transportation communication and flows of financed cities drive
economic and social development offering us the unprecedented opportunity to bring the majority of the world's
population into the global economy of exchange.
[Music] Not only are people flocking into cities at the same time. Our urban centers are becoming integrated into
ever larger and ever denser networks of exchange. The way cities are shaped their scale scope of influence form and
functionality is being transformed to support the rise of global networks. a myriad of overlapping and intersecting
flows of ideas, knowledge, people, money, goods and services link not only major cities and city regions but an
increasing number of diverse places and Ecology's into expanding global networks of exchange. These networks of
economic, social, political and cultural organization pivot around global cities creating a new geography of
connectivity ,new rules for economic success and new patterns of governance. The rise of urban networks is linked
to a much broader set of social economic and technological transformations taking place in the global economy
today. This documentary explores this changing landscape and the development of urban networks as the emerging
geography of connectivity in an age of globalization [Music]

Urban networks are complex systems of people and technology the constitute are engineered environment. Over
the course of thousands of years we have gone from the first engineered environments composed of a few discreet
hand tools and small shelters built around the individual and local community to the complex urban networks of
today that span around the planet enabling global economic processes to support billions of people

Just 12,000 years ago, as few as four million people inhabited the earth, nomads that roam the land following the
seasons.
The first humans being nomadic would have lived almost completely without fixed technology infrastructure simply
using hand tools and temporary shelters .From about 10,000 years ago in response to the warming climates at the
end of the last ice age some groups adapted to the changing environment in new ways. These changes in
organization would lead to the first major paradigm shift in our engineered environment what we call the Neolithic
Revolution

Neolithic Revolution
-was the first major technology revolution
The critical turning point would have been the development of fixed and permanent systems of agricultural
production and permanent settlements built around this. Permanent shelters like Hut's storage areas, wells for water,
agricultural systems for food, fixed pathways, distinct buildings for congregation and ceremony
-with all of these being integrated around the community creating the first urban infrastructure systems

The permanent settlement of humans within fixed communities led to prolonged and sustained technological and
economic innovation giving rise to advanced civilization
Advances in agriculture irrigation systems the harnessing of animal muscle as an energy source and population
density would lead to the formation of large settlements in the form of Hamlet's which evolved into towns and even
cities as the first empires formed. With ever more complex economic and social organizations forming, WE started
to engineer our environments like never before. Building the first human design landscapes in the form of urban
centers like the ancient cities of Babylon or Damascus.

Throughout history, the evolution of our engineered environment has been directly related to our knowledge of the
natural environment around us. For much of human history our scientific knowledge was very limited in scope and
depth. The great expansion of this knowledge that happened during the Scientific Revolution laid the foundations
for a massive explosion in technological change. One of the hallmarks of the modern era.
The much deeper understanding of our physical environment that modern science brought enabled a new level in our
capacities to engineer the natural environment and gave rise to what has come to be called the Industrial
Revolution

Industrial Age
-was the age of machines as we tapped into a new energy source technology became alive
evolving into large mechanical systems no longer dependent upon human and animal energy sources
We could develop larger and larger mechanical systems powered by artificial energy sources. Instead of technology
being built around people as with the hand tool increasingly people based their work around machines as they
became operators of large industrial machinery that enabled mass production processes. Our technology
infrastructure became increasingly defined by mechanized systems that automated physical activities by fueling
them with artificial energy sources. This enabled a new scale to our engineered environment as urban centers greatly
expanded.

Before 1800, there was less than 10% of people living in cities and there was no overall urbanization. However, this
started to change in a substantive way by the beginning of the 1900s at which time 20 percent of world population
was urban. The development of industrial economies went hand-in-hand with the development of the nation-state.
As the social and economic organizational unit of the modern era. During the 19th and 20th century centralized
national governments worked to leverage these new industrial technologies towards building
their own national infrastructure systems. The use of the combustion engine to bring artificial energy sources to
mass transport began to integrate the infrastructure of whole national
economies across broad geographical areas, across Europe and the u.s.. National infrastructure networks were
developed during the 19th and early 20th century, National railways in Europe
National Road systems like the interstate highways in the u.s. , national water systems telephone networks
centralized broadcast media.
By 1950 Urbanization had reached 30% around the world but it was not until the new millennium before we would
reach the symbolic tipping point of half of humanity living in urban centers.

GLOBAL CITIES PART 3

GLOBALIZATION
By the latter half of the twentieth century, major new technological and economic processes of change were
underway. As national economies and infrastructure were becoming increasingly connected into global networks of
exchange. The advent of low-cost computing and telecommunication networks would work to enable the
development of ever larger more complex systems of organization. In the 80s and 90s financial markets became
deregulated and expanded into a global network of exchange. We saw a huge rise in multinational corporations as
they expanded beyond their national economies entering into new markets. through outsourcing enterprises became
distributed out with advances in transport and trade liberalisation integrated global supply chains started to take form
and the global economy expanded hugely within the space of just a few decades. With the development of
globalization the emergence of the services economy and information technology . The global economy is going
through a deep structural transformation, moving from an industrial model of mass production organized around the
nation-state and its territory into a new form of services and information economy based around global networks of
exchange

Urban networks
-are the physical means of connectivity
- they are systems of technology that enable us to overcome physical borders and connect with
ever larger networks

these networks of roads of communications, of power lines, of logistics air transport shipping are the physical form
of this global connectivity. There are now vastly more resources moving around in these global networks than in any
national economy and around the world.
People are flocking to cities as points of access into these emerging global networks and the opportunities they
provide as our economies and societies develop into some form of global organization so to our technology
infrastructure is morphing into a new structure of urban networks that enables this physical connectivity. Just as the
industrial technologies provided the
physical means for enabling the national economy so too our technology infrastructure today is being reconfigured
to provide the connectivity for a global economy.

It is only in very recent years the global economy has switched from being dominated by agriculture and industry to
becoming predominantly based on services and information. As a consequence societies and economies around the
world are being transformed from being primarily organized around physical agricultural and industrial processes
within the national territory and instead moving to the delivery of services. The processing of information and
knowledge which is no longer defined by its physicality and the logic of territoriality but instead is one based on the
logic of access and connectivity. It is this connectivity that urban centers provide. As economies shift from being
industrial to post-industrial services economies a new strategic role is given to cities as they become the locus of
high value-added services of innovation and knowledge creation.

With globalization and urbanization, we are in the process of creating a new geography. a geography based around
functional connectivity instead of physical borders whereas the building of the nation-state and its borders was
cultural and ideological in nature. These global networks are functional in nature. Connections are made horizontally
to facilitate exchanges in a world where market logic and technology have combined to create a powerful engine
driving the world forward for better or worse.

The infrastructure networks that now stretch around the planet are held together by urban centers that form dense
concentrations of connectivity. Urban centers function as the hubs
within regional networks that reach into the territory of the locality linking it into larger networks of exchange. On
the macro level these urban centers become nodes within the global network of cities that provide the critical mass
of advanced services required to operate the world economy at its current level of functionality.

The leaders in providing this connectivity are what we call global cities. These are urban centers that provide the
services for integrating the whole network. A network of over 100 global cities is now understood as the landing
point for worldwide networks of Finance and the hubs for logistics networks. These cities constitute a myriad of
overlapping and intersecting flows of ideas knowledge people money goods and have a direct and tangible effect on
affairs around the planet. When the world is seen from this perspective of urban connectivity. a new image emerges
where each city is horizontally oriented to other cities of the same level of interconnectivity. As cities have become
interconnected over the past decades they have come to identify themselves increasingly in relation to their peer
cities around the world. Instead of so much with their national economy. As these major urban centers have risen
they have both come to take on more power and influence over their own operations and the operations of the global
economy but they have also come to differentiate themselves within these larger networks and increasingly compete
with other cities

Being a global city though is not about size or even economic scale. It is about performing a differentiated function
within a global network of exchange and thus making them a strategic location within a worldwide value chain.
Global cities play specific roles in specific networks, for example cities like

Taipei and Shenzhen our major nodes in the supply network for high-tech electronics
Geneva and Nairobi are important nodes in global civil society networks
Dubai and Hong Kong for air transport networks
Washington and Brussels for international political networks

But the absolute leaders in this global connectivity play a major role in almost all these networks:
A. London
B. New York
C. Tokyo and
D. Paris
these urban networks are the most complex multi-dimensional and their influence is the farthest reaching.
They regulate vast flows of financial capital effectively coordinate millions of people and production processes in a
multiplicity of overlapping complex networks. Tourist attractions, research centres, shopping destinations, tech
startups, the engines of the knowledge economy, corporate headquarters, melting pots of people, ideas, culture all
concentrated in small areas of dense interaction and connected into information networks that shape the operations
of the economy around the world.[Music]

TERRITORY AND GOVERNANCE

DAVID
The urban transformation that is occurring to enable these global information and services networks is not
just about cities getting bigger, it is a reconfiguration of territory and basic organizational principles. From
cultural and territorial borders to functional connectivity. Globalization creates a new form of space based
around networks of exchange and the physical form of that space is urban networks. This new geometry of urban
networks driven by a market logic responsive primarily to global networks of exchange and operated by powerful
private actors creates a huge disjunction with local territory and existing governance structures. Cities still exist and
operate within the national regulatory framework which is designed according to the logic of its fixed territorial
space when increasingly our economy and society operate based upon global networks anchored in cities. These
networks of information and services are increasingly bypassing the national territory altogether, creating a new
kind of global and local space that exists in urban centers. One that requires a new organizational paradigm to
structure and enable. Nowhere is this disjunction seen more clearly than in the major financial centers that are seen
as the most strategic nodes in these global networks. Global cities are the landing points for the world's flow of
capital and goods as these networks have grown the power of the corporations that operate them has likewise
expanded greatly. The global city is the space where that power becomes materialized a point where highly abstract
flows of capital and information become something material and visible to all [Music]

Throughout history urban centers have been the home of the dominant sources of power within society. With the
building's used to exhibit the power of those dominant actors. Whether this was the church government buildings or
the monuments of Empires but over the past decades the centers of our iconic world cities has become the locus of
corporate headquarters and financial centers. With the rise of economic globalizatio,n the multinational corporations
and financial institutions that manage and operate these networks become the dominant actors. This power is
exhibited in a global city which has come to be shaped to a great extent by these powerful actors according to their
logic and to accommodate their needs [Music]

Financialization has changed the form of investment in urban development with significant results for how urban
networks have evolved over the past decades. The lines between private and public have blurred while at the same
time the logic of finance becomes more pervasive in the development of the urban space. Cities have become
increasingly defined in terms of investment vehicles instead of shared living spaces. Huge amounts of capital are
now flowing into the development of the primary urban centers from the global financial system. This
financialization of real estate and urban centers has created a huge disjunction between the local needs of
communities and those of these private actors. Where once urban development was driven by local incentives in
response to the local needs of the place. With financialization cities are becoming increasingly private spaces of
investment that are primarily responsive to the logic of these flows of finance [Music]

The process of globalization engenders an evolving relationship between the local needs of people and the market
logic of global networks. World cities are at the epicenter of this conflict. They are the frontier zone of globalization
and the struggle for new systems of organization that would be relevant for an age of networks. In a time when
existing governance structures are paralyzed by the complexity of the issues at hand cities, take pragmatic action
because they have to. They are at the forefront of financialization and environmental changes. The effects of these
changes impact them directly and they are pushed to take action. In the absence of appropriate governance
mechanisms cities are becoming a new locus of action. But this is a very different form of governance than the one
we are used. To it will be a governance structure that expresses the new forces at play of Finance and corporate
supply chains of technology and increasingly internet platforms [Music]

CASTELL
The rise of urban networks and the movement of humanity into a predominantly engineered environment
corresponds to a broader process of change brought about in the Anthropocene the so called age of humans
after 1950 we can see for the first time that major Earth System changes became directly linked to changes
largely related to the global economic system with this coinciding with the huge rise of major urban centers .
Urban centers occupy only 3% of global land areas but their physical impact is directly connected to very complex
environmental transformations that take place far beyond the confines of the city large-scale planetary metabolic
flows are mobilized in order to supply thelargest urban centers whole region's territories and landscapes are
operationalized in new ways in order to provide food energy water materials and other basic resources that result in
massive transformations in ecosystems far away and often unseen by the population landscapes in Malaysia are
transformed into palm plantations for biofuels that keep urban transport systems running cement and iron are pulled
out of the ground in Russia to lay concrete for the 20 million Chinese moving into cities every year water systems in
the Himalayas are altered to provide for the urban centres of northern India rare earth metals extracted from Africa
for the millions of smartphones that keep Paris connected [Music] because you knew what is he gonna rape you the
largest of these land and resource consumers are what we call mega cities which are urban centers of more than 10
million people in 1915 New York was the first mega city on the planet by 1985 there were nine of such kind today
there are 31 mega cities and this is projected to rise to 41 within just over a decade the largest of these mega cities is
Tokyo with over 30 million people it is the 10th largest economy in the world larger than Russia Spain or turkey
[Music]

Jakarta islikewise one of the largest mega cities it's mass of concrete sprawling out to support a population greater
than that of Australia

[Music] environmentally many of the factors relating to the sustainability of an urban center are closely connected to
the density of the urban environment the current model of urbanization in many parts of the world engenders low
density sub urbanization with the dependence on car ownership it is energy intensive and contributes substantive Li
to climate change for example urban development in Mexico City has resulted in a sprawling urban environment
with air pollution and major traffic congestion a city with an average daily commute time of two and a half hours

ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS OF THE EMERGENCE AND EXPANSION OF CITIES

the physical space that these cities consume is projected to increase two to three times in the coming decades
and the material consumption of cities is likewise set to double over this time sprawling cities where residents
are dependent on cars to obtain basic provisions in far-off places of the city are a critical vulnerability many
populations around the world face today as the impacts of climate change are set to only increase in the
coming decades

ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS OF THE EMERGENCE AND EXPANSION OF CITIES

Large monolithic centralized urban systems are presenting increasing vulnerabilities. Sprawling cities, where
residents rely heavily on cars for transportation to distant areas, contribute significantly to energy consumption and
climate change. For instance, urban development in Mexico City has led to air pollution and severe traffic
congestion, with average daily commute times reaching two and a half hours. The extensive physical space
consumed by these cities is projected to double in the coming decades, exacerbating environmental challenges."

DAVID
The rise of urban networks corresponds to a transformation in the traditional divided between countryside
and city which is giving way to a much more subtle combination cities are becoming distributed out into
larger urban networks merging natural and engineered environments within a new geography of the city
region that may span hundreds of kilometres and cross national borders interlinked ground transportation corridors
such as high-speed rail and expressways have aided in the integration of urban centers into large distributed
networks like the Randstad area in northern europe connecting Amsterdam Rotterdam and The Hague or the Pearl
Delta region in southern China connecting Hong Kong Shenzhen and Guangzhou which is emerging as the largest
urban area in the world in both size and population in the age of the Anthropocene when human impacts on the
biosphere are all pervasive the challengeof sustainability is no longer one of confining urban centers but is now one
of developing engineered environments that managed to merge the natural and artificial in new ways to create
synergies in the challenge of city density is also the opportunity for creating multifunctional compact integrated and
ecologically connected urban environments ecologically efficient urban systems are strategically densified and
distributed to create a network of high-density nodes interconnected with efficient and affordable mass transit in
these compact well-designed urban environments people consume less energy less land and are more connected with
the rise of urban systems we are increasingly recognizing that the battle for a sustainable future will be won or it will
be lost in cities and there is a race to build a functional sustainable model of a city and to replicate that model around
the world [Music]

Cities have been the world's economic engines for centuries attracting skilled workers and benefiting from
economies of scale to create productive enterprises historically urbanization and per capital GDP tend to move in
close sync as countries develop no country has ever reached middle income status without urbanizing by harnessing
economies of scale attracting firms sharing knowledge and fostering pools of talent cities have a special ability to
achieve results that are more than the sum of their parts adding value for both society and enterprises with the rise of
massive urban centers in developing economies we are witnessing the most significant shift in the Earth's economic
center of gravity in history the world economy is now truly becoming globally distributed out less and less centered
around the developed economies the urban areas of Africa and Asia will absorb nearly all of the projected growth of
the world population in the coming decades of the 2.5 billion new urban dwellers anticipated by 2050 90% will live
in Africa and Asia China India and Nigeria being the primary locus of a process of urbanization that now offers
hope for raising billions out of poverty and creating a more balanced overall distribution of resources in the world
around the world people are flocking to cities as points of access into these emerging global networks and the
opportunities they provide for this process of urbanization to be successful the city has to connect its population into
global economic networks of exchange but many are ill-prepared for the scale of the process that is underway when
managed effectively urban centers can be systems for connecting people and providingthem with opportunities as
we have seen with the development of urban Asia in China a coalescence of urbanization and massive economic
growth helped pull six hundred and eighty million people out of extreme poverty over the course of just 30 years
unprecedented in history the success of many Asian nations has shown us the capacity of urban centers connected to
global supply chains to transform people's standard of living and opportunities [Music]

But in other parts of the world urbanization has been a force for exclusion until recently urbanization largely
happened within countries with relatively high GDP what has changed in
the past decades is that it is increasingly happening in nations with very low GDP these nations are the least well
equipped economically and socially to deal with the transformation the hugemigration into sub-saharan African
cities appears to overwhelm government planners and policy makers with the outcome being that slum dwellers
currently account for over 60% of urban population while these African urban centers have had the highest
inequality of wealth in the world cities that fail to meet the aspirations of the millions who are migrating in search of
better opportunities run the risk of becoming failed projects breeding new social and environmental challenges of an
unprecedented scale and complexity lack of infrastructure creates congestion pollution and insufficient public
services instead of connecting people these urban systems sprawl out into disconnected slums as informal urban
networks fill the gap of overextended and underfunded government's the slums are huge urban systems with illegal
arrangements of land-use the generally lack infrastructure public facilities and basic services such as improved
drinking water waste disposal or transport much of the growth in urban networks over the coming decades will not
be the formal planned infrastructure systems of the past but instead informal settlements of this kind the informal
slums of developing nations are growing in a significant way according to United Nations statistics the number of
people living in slum conditions has grown from 650 million in 1990 to 760 million in 2000 and as of 2017 nearly 1
billion people live in slums this is set to double by 2030 under a business-as-usual scenario [Music]

As these slums are growing around the world in formal urban networks are becoming the new normal for urban
development Kabara on the outskirts of Nairobi is considered one of the largest with some 600,000 people Dharavi
in Mumbai is home to upwards of 700 thousand residents living in shacks in Rio de Janeiro the favelas started
appearing in the 1950s and now housed a total of about 1 million people [Music]

Inclusive growth is a major challenge that we are far from achieving instead of connecting people many of these
emerging mega cities are becoming more economically unequal they are becoming more fractured and
compartmentalized over the decades developing economies have been getting better at achieving growth but have
often seen the benefits of that growth concentrated in the upper levels of the income distribution socially our current
model of urbanization in many places around the world generates multiple forms of inequality and exclusion which
creates spatial divisions in cities often characterized by slum areas or gated communities in places like South Paulo
or Johannesburg inequality is now recognized as a major emerging urban issue as the gap between the rich and the
poor in most countries is at its highest levels in decades increasingly environmental and social sustainability are
becoming linked and seen as no longer nice things to have but instead actual security issues environmental
degradation is changing ecosystems around the world ecosystems that hundreds of millions of small-scale
subsistence farmers are dependent upon when they change and people can no longer continue with their traditional
ways of life this often leads to migration into cities which are ill-prepared for them the net result being that they end
up in slums as the environmental crisis unfolds going forward this linkage will only become stronger and more
critical environmental changes will feed through to reveal previously latent networks of vulnerability in our social
systems and technology infrastructure as global interconnectivity proliferates these networks of vulnerability will
spread farther and shocks will propagate faster what happens in the slums of Mumbai and Lagos will increasingly
affect everyone [Music]

CASTELL
Globalization is the building of global systems of economic social and technological organization. This
connectivity crosses borders reduces all divides and creates inter dependencies that bind diverse people and
places through shared interests, opportunities and threats. Global cities are physical super connectors in this
network but they are also super disconnectors when urbanization is successful. People become integrated into
a global economy and society when it is unsuccessful. They become disconnected and divided in new ways but
the consequences of that are no longer local. with interconnectivity comes interdependencies and the benefits and
losses become increasingly shared globally in the space of just the past few decades we have created a new
economic system of organization in the form of global supply chains and the urban networks that support them
global cities are now the engines driving the world forward and how the process of urbanization plays out in the
coming decades will shape the structure of what happens this century and indeed the future of the relationship
between human beings and the planet the current process of urbanization is nothing less than a fundamental
transformation in the human habitats the indigenous environment of humanity is changing from the natural
environment to the engineered environment at a breathtaking speed in the space of just a few short decades we will
remake our environment and the patterns of organization that shape society and economy in this process we don't
just rebuild the world around us but urbanization changes us it creates a new environment new ways of thinking new
patterns of work of governance of production and exchange of interaction between people through which we come
to redefine ourselves and our relationship to the natural environment [Music]