thank you
cities are without any doubt the areas
of concentration and overcrowding of the
population and but we know that this
distribution is not even so if we divide
the population of the earth 7.4 4
billion inhabitants for the habitable
surface of the world would have a
density of 50 person per square
kilometer but we know that there are
many cities which are concentrating a
lot of population so 14,000 in
Casablanca Morocco 14,000 and 800 in
Manila in the Philippines almost 20,000
people per square kilometer in Mumbai
31,000 people per square kilometer and
finally the most dense City which is
44,000 people per square kilometre in
Dhaka Bangladesh but why people is going
to order the cities so there are at
least two different reasons one reason
is the escape from the rural poverty in
the global south and also in the
northern part of the world people is
just looking for better jobs and better
services so this is all what a real a
fabric called the fight for the right to
the city and the city as a basket of
opportunities but we know that cities
have not only been growing and expanding
but they have been also creating
networks of cities organizing many parts
of the world and we just cite some of
them so in Boston Washington 54 million
inhabitants Rio Sao Paulo just in South
America 43 million inhabitants shanghai
nanjing han xue 64 66 million
inhabitants so they are mega city
regions and there are many others in the
world
what is also possible to see is that we
also live in a mega city region because
between Venice and to Rina and Bologna
we are
more or less at the center there is
Milan we have more or less 30 million
inhabitants but the interesting thing is
that we thought a few years ago that
with internet we could the worker
wherever we wanted we could buy
everything from far we could even don’t
need to meet the friends because we are
on Facebook and we can interact with
them at distance but on the end of this
this hasn’t been true so we still need
to meet our friends we still need to
work with other colleagues we still need
to be with others and this map is quite
interesting because it’s a map of
Facebook and you see that in this map it
is very similar to the map of the cities
and so it is a very much possible to
understand that internet and physical
interactions are reinforcing each other
are not alternative but also there is
another way of looking at this kind of
urbanization of the planet and it is the
fact that there are some colleagues of
ours nil blenheim Angada but say there
is a process of planetary urbanization
so all the planet is somehow serve in
the urban because we have skies which
are populated by area routes and
satellites we have oceans which are
crossed by cables and naval routes we
have pipelines bringing us and oil to
the citizen everything is directly to
the prosperity of the city and and for
the and for the life of the city and
these are the cables which crosses the
oceans but in addition to responding to
this aspiration to go to the city there
are a number of reasons functional
reasons why overcrowding is also
producing some kind of interesting thing
for the population of course in the mass
concentration of population high level
commercial services are naturally
developing we have cultural services an
art institution which are based on
cities because they need a wider
catchment area we have a professional
advisory services which are in cities
because they wanted to be closer to mass
of population and firms which are their
clients we can see research in higher
education this is a map of universities
and of the relations among the
universities and again you see that it
looks very much like the image of the
cities but then of course there is a
concentration of businesses of
headquarters of the most important
industries and you see in these red dots
of the most important global cities in
the world and they their interaction but
I think that there is not only the
single functional reason which are
important it is a de combination of all
these reasons which are creating a kind
of media because industry close to art
as we are doing today and the creative
activities close to science and and
research are creating Emilia which is
becoming a creative media and it is in
relation with the multiple network of
connections throughout the world so
cities are also accelerating the
distribution of innovation this map is
quite interesting is that’s been
produced by The Economist and it is how
many years did pass from when an
invention arrived to the moment in which
one quarter of the American population
use of the invention so electricity 46
years telephone 35 years of radio 31
television 26 PC 16 mobile phone 13 the
web 7 and if you go on probably in the
recent invention in the software area
the time is even shorter but the blue
line is showing to as the process of
urbanization so we started here with
less than 10% of the population of the
world which was urban and now we are
about a 60% of the world population
which is urban okay so we can conclude
that not only cities will not die
because there is internet but also that
internet helps the
centration of the overcrowding in cities
because it gives some multiple reasons
for meeting as I said because it spreads
information about the life of cities and
because it governance increasingly
sophisticated system this is just an
image of the control system of the Metro
of Tokyo and you see how complicated it
is but we have a similar things for
managing all the kind of utilities from
Gaza to see well to everything else
until when there is something like last
week here in Milan a small puppy dog
enter into the tunnel of the metro
system and everything collapse so
thousands of people have been forced to
to go buy buy food because of the metro
line collapses and so we have to
understand the how complicate and
sophisticated is the system of control
of our cities and it’s very astonishing
that every day of every year it works
quite smoothly how even if it is are so
complicated but of course we have also
disadvantages of the concentration and
of course this is a this is a very
important element because there are many
positive advantages of the concentration
but there are also disadvantages one of
them one of the most popular kind of
problem is a congestion of the traffic
but also the limited access to to
natural space we know that we live in
cities which are stone city cities of
stone and and we have problems in adding
access to to green space we have a great
pollution in cities particularly in some
part of the word pollution is becoming a
great problem but we also know that
cities were the 2% of the surface of the
planet is producing the 70% of the
greenhouse gases which is something
really incredible on the one end but
this is really a great problem and also
we produce a lot of waste and we know in
Italy how many cities are problems in
managing the waste and waste are
producing the pollution again that are
producing :
zatia of areas which are far away from
cities and are creating some problems
and also I have to say that cities are
also the places of the stronger
polarization and the stronger individual
suffering because the breakdown of the
traditional kind of relations into
cities which have become larger and
larger like in the mega city regions
I’ve been talking about creating
situations in which should be
psychiatric diseases are more than in
another part of the of the planet and
also individual suffering therefore all
people alone in the city because they
are not they are not protected but
particularly important which is what I
wanted to communicate with this image on
the left hand side is the polarization
so a stronger and stronger polarization
between the richest which become richer
and richer Innes particularly in cities
because of their they find the
opportunities and the poorest which
become poorest and and poor poorer and
poorer another great problem we’re
dealing with is mass migration migration
is directed mainly toward cities which
can offer job opportunities and cities
particularly in the northern part of the
world are not able yet to to deal in a
proper way with this this big problem
and finally we had to learn that cities
are also the objective of the terrorist
attacks
so because of concentration because of
overcrowding terrorists are trying to to
aim at cities in order to to produce as
many victims as they can okay
but now my final question is the
concentration able as it has been able
to produce also many positive effects
that are attracting a lot of people is
the concentration able to also to solve
the problems we are facing I think that
there are some science that we are going
in this direction I just put some of
them here so in many cities even Los
Angeles that in the
password just a car city they are now
developing a very important message
transporter system we have car sharing
bike sharing and any kind of new
innovative ways of using the the
vehicles that allow to diminish con
congestion electric cars in particular
can can diminish also pollution we know
that there are buildings that instead of
consuming a lot of energy they can
produce energy the solar map of the
roofs of New York is able to sustain the
energy need of the entire city we have
cities that have become champion in
recycling all the waste and are able not
well not to produce any waste anymore we
know that there is a rediscovery of
greener and of urban agriculture which
is another another very important point
because it is the link to to
concentration and overcrowding because
farmers can go into the city and can
sell their products and also there are
social movements the therapy are able to
reactor to the the difficult ways in
which we can deal with the the most
important social problems that this was
what happened last Saturday in Milan I
saw a manifestation in order to welcome
immigrants instead of pushing them out
and also we know that in cities there
are the creation of movements which are
fighting against inequalities Occupy
Wall Street or the in matters in Puerta
del Sol but also the movements which
have been able to react to the terrorist
attack so to create some stronger
solidarity in order to react to this
kind of threats and I think that this
can help can help our reaction and can
be only in cities because of the
concentration and we know that many of
these movements have been starting in
the internet in the web
and then they have to land in the city
in order to become transformative in
order to become something which is able
really to transform our society so to
conclude cities are are the result of
concentration of people companies
information and infrastructure and they
will continue to attract because they
are responsible of a number of needs
which are very important primary and
secondary needs and in doing so they are
also creating a number of problems which
are not only problems of cities the most
important thing is that these problems
are planetary problems climate change
environmental degradation social
inequalities war which is mirrored by
the terrorist attack this is something
that we live in the city but they are
only part of problems which are
planetary problems so what can we do I
think we have to encourage of the
science of innovation we should try to
use the strength that has been able to
enable the the economic development of
cities and the continuous capacity to
offer the writer to the city to many
people but also we have to direct this
kind of energy towards environmental and
social problems this do not does not
happen spontaneously this requires the
mobilisation of governments but also the
mobilization of civil society and the
mobilisation of citizens because and
this is my last quote from Jane Jacobs
which is a famous urbanist cities have
the capacity to provide in something for
everybody
only because and only when they are
created by everybody thank you
you
[Applause]
cities are without any doubt the areas
of concentration and overcrowding of the
population and but we know that this
distribution is not even so if we divide
the population of the earth 7.4 4
billion inhabitants for the habitable
surface of the world would have a
density of 50 person per square
kilometer but we know that there are
many cities which are concentrating a
lot of population so 14,000 in
Casablanca Morocco 14,000 and 800 in
Manila in the Philippines almost 20,000
people per square kilometer in Mumbai
31,000 people per square kilometer and
finally the most dense City which is
44,000 people per square kilometre in
Dhaka Bangladesh but why people is going
to order the cities so there are at
least two different reasons one reason
is the escape from the rural poverty in
the global south and also in the
northern part of the world people is
just looking for better jobs and better
services so this is all what a real a
fabric called the fight for the right to
the city and the city as a basket of
opportunities but we know that cities
have not only been growing and expanding
but they have been also creating
networks of cities organizing many parts
of the world and we just cite some of
them so in Boston Washington 54 million
inhabitants Rio Sao Paulo just in South
America 43 million inhabitants shanghai
nanjing han xue 64 66 million
inhabitants so they are mega city
regions and there are many others in the
world
what is also possible to see is that we
also live in a mega city region because
between Venice and to Rina and Bologna
we are
more or less at the center there is
Milan we have more or less 30 million
inhabitants but the interesting thing is
that we thought a few years ago that
with internet we could the worker
wherever we wanted we could buy
everything from far we could even don’t
need to meet the friends because we are
on Facebook and we can interact with
them at distance but on the end of this
this hasn’t been true so we still need
to meet our friends we still need to
work with other colleagues we still need
to be with others and this map is quite
interesting because it’s a map of
Facebook and you see that in this map it
is very similar to the map of the cities
and so it is a very much possible to
understand that internet and physical
interactions are reinforcing each other
are not alternative but also there is
another way of looking at this kind of
urbanization of the planet and it is the
fact that there are some colleagues of
ours nil blenheim Angada but say there
is a process of planetary urbanization
so all the planet is somehow serve in
the urban because we have skies which
are populated by area routes and
satellites we have oceans which are
crossed by cables and naval routes we
have pipelines bringing us and oil to
the citizen everything is directly to
the prosperity of the city and and for
the and for the life of the city and
these are the cables which crosses the
oceans but in addition to responding to
this aspiration to go to the city there
are a number of reasons functional
reasons why overcrowding is also
producing some kind of interesting thing
for the population of course in the mass
concentration of population high level
commercial services are naturally
developing we have cultural services an
art institution which are based on
cities because they need a wider
catchment area we have a professional
advisory services which are in cities
because they wanted to be closer to mass
of population and firms which are their
clients we can see research in higher
education this is a map of universities
and of the relations among the
universities and again you see that it
looks very much like the image of the
cities but then of course there is a
concentration of businesses of
headquarters of the most important
industries and you see in these red dots
of the most important global cities in
the world and they their interaction but
I think that there is not only the
single functional reason which are
important it is a de combination of all
these reasons which are creating a kind
of media because industry close to art
as we are doing today and the creative
activities close to science and and
research are creating Emilia which is
becoming a creative media and it is in
relation with the multiple network of
connections throughout the world so
cities are also accelerating the
distribution of innovation this map is
quite interesting is that’s been
produced by The Economist and it is how
many years did pass from when an
invention arrived to the moment in which
one quarter of the American population
use of the invention so electricity 46
years telephone 35 years of radio 31
television 26 PC 16 mobile phone 13 the
web 7 and if you go on probably in the
recent invention in the software area
the time is even shorter but the blue
line is showing to as the process of
urbanization so we started here with
less than 10% of the population of the
world which was urban and now we are
about a 60% of the world population
which is urban okay so we can conclude
that not only cities will not die
because there is internet but also that
internet helps the
centration of the overcrowding in cities
because it gives some multiple reasons
for meeting as I said because it spreads
information about the life of cities and
because it governance increasingly
sophisticated system this is just an
image of the control system of the Metro
of Tokyo and you see how complicated it
is but we have a similar things for
managing all the kind of utilities from
Gaza to see well to everything else
until when there is something like last
week here in Milan a small puppy dog
enter into the tunnel of the metro
system and everything collapse so
thousands of people have been forced to
to go buy buy food because of the metro
line collapses and so we have to
understand the how complicate and
sophisticated is the system of control
of our cities and it’s very astonishing
that every day of every year it works
quite smoothly how even if it is are so
complicated but of course we have also
disadvantages of the concentration and
of course this is a this is a very
important element because there are many
positive advantages of the concentration
but there are also disadvantages one of
them one of the most popular kind of
problem is a congestion of the traffic
but also the limited access to to
natural space we know that we live in
cities which are stone city cities of
stone and and we have problems in adding
access to to green space we have a great
pollution in cities particularly in some
part of the word pollution is becoming a
great problem but we also know that
cities were the 2% of the surface of the
planet is producing the 70% of the
greenhouse gases which is something
really incredible on the one end but
this is really a great problem and also
we produce a lot of waste and we know in
Italy how many cities are problems in
managing the waste and waste are
producing the pollution again that are
producing :
zatia of areas which are far away from
cities and are creating some problems
and also I have to say that cities are
also the places of the stronger
polarization and the stronger individual
suffering because the breakdown of the
traditional kind of relations into
cities which have become larger and
larger like in the mega city regions
I’ve been talking about creating
situations in which should be
psychiatric diseases are more than in
another part of the of the planet and
also individual suffering therefore all
people alone in the city because they
are not they are not protected but
particularly important which is what I
wanted to communicate with this image on
the left hand side is the polarization
so a stronger and stronger polarization
between the richest which become richer
and richer Innes particularly in cities
because of their they find the
opportunities and the poorest which
become poorest and and poor poorer and
poorer another great problem we’re
dealing with is mass migration migration
is directed mainly toward cities which
can offer job opportunities and cities
particularly in the northern part of the
world are not able yet to to deal in a
proper way with this this big problem
and finally we had to learn that cities
are also the objective of the terrorist
attacks
so because of concentration because of
overcrowding terrorists are trying to to
aim at cities in order to to produce as
many victims as they can okay
but now my final question is the
concentration able as it has been able
to produce also many positive effects
that are attracting a lot of people is
the concentration able to also to solve
the problems we are facing I think that
there are some science that we are going
in this direction I just put some of
them here so in many cities even Los
Angeles that in the
password just a car city they are now
developing a very important message
transporter system we have car sharing
bike sharing and any kind of new
innovative ways of using the the
vehicles that allow to diminish con
congestion electric cars in particular
can can diminish also pollution we know
that there are buildings that instead of
consuming a lot of energy they can
produce energy the solar map of the
roofs of New York is able to sustain the
energy need of the entire city we have
cities that have become champion in
recycling all the waste and are able not
well not to produce any waste anymore we
know that there is a rediscovery of
greener and of urban agriculture which
is another another very important point
because it is the link to to
concentration and overcrowding because
farmers can go into the city and can
sell their products and also there are
social movements the therapy are able to
reactor to the the difficult ways in
which we can deal with the the most
important social problems that this was
what happened last Saturday in Milan I
saw a manifestation in order to welcome
immigrants instead of pushing them out
and also we know that in cities there
are the creation of movements which are
fighting against inequalities Occupy
Wall Street or the in matters in Puerta
del Sol but also the movements which
have been able to react to the terrorist
attack so to create some stronger
solidarity in order to react to this
kind of threats and I think that this
can help can help our reaction and can
be only in cities because of the
concentration and we know that many of
these movements have been starting in
the internet in the web
and then they have to land in the city
in order to become transformative in
order to become something which is able
really to transform our society so to
conclude cities are are the result of
concentration of people companies
information and infrastructure and they
will continue to attract because they
are responsible of a number of needs
which are very important primary and
secondary needs and in doing so they are
also creating a number of problems which
are not only problems of cities the most
important thing is that these problems
are planetary problems climate change
environmental degradation social
inequalities war which is mirrored by
the terrorist attack this is something
that we live in the city but they are
only part of problems which are
planetary problems so what can we do I
think we have to encourage of the
science of innovation we should try to
use the strength that has been able to
enable the the economic development of
cities and the continuous capacity to
offer the writer to the city to many
people but also we have to direct this
kind of energy towards environmental and
social problems this do not does not
happen spontaneously this requires the
mobilisation of governments but also the
mobilization of civil society and the
mobilisation of citizens because and
this is my last quote from Jane Jacobs
which is a famous urbanist cities have
the capacity to provide in something for
everybody
only because and only when they are
created by everybody thank you
you
[Applause]
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