NORMAN FOSTER INSTITUTE VIDEO

I'm Norman Foster and, recently created with a team of the Norman Foster
Foundation, a new institute, an institute for sustainable Cities.

Cities are our future.

They generate 90% of our wealth.
They create opportunities, innovation.
They also generate 70% of carbon emissions, CO2.

So, they are the key to combating climate change.

2 billion people have to be housed,
90% will be in cities.
If most of humanity are living in cities,
then it's about the quality of life.
It's about health of the individual,
of a community of a society.
It's also about the health of the planet.
There is a disconnect between academia and practice.
What we've done is to create a course which has both elements.
So, it feeds on the network of world experts who've engaged.
with workshops over the last six years since the launch of the
foundation.

And we mix that with the digital tools which are able to bring data
alive.
So, it's the best of academia and it's the best of practice.
But that practice engages directly with cities at the moment.
The first intake of scholars who are all postgraduates, are from 23
countries and five continents.
So, they will go back, and they will be the civic leaders of the future.
The next generation.
That's the future.
That's the future of the planet.
That's the future of humanity.
I'm in a helicopter and I'm going over the countryside and I look.
down and I see those cities that sprawl that consume highways, suburbia,
and that's the city of the past.
And I'm approaching the city of the future and it's compact,
and it's surrounded by nature.
When I descend down,
I'm discovering that I can walk to work.
I can walk to a school.
I can walk to a restaurant.
It's got a historic court.
It's very familiar.
It's the cities that most people want to live in.
Today they vote for.
In many ways,

the city of the Future is the city of the past, brought alive.

But it's cleaner, greener, quieter and the countryside is at its

doorstep, and it's not plastered over.

It's alive. It's called biodiversity