- Today, for most humans on our planet,
we call cities our home.
Over half the global population
lives in an urban environment
and within just a couple of decades,
that number will reach 70%.
Each week around two million more people
leave rural areas and join cities.
It wasn't always this way.
Urbanization at this scale is a recent human phenomenon.
We used to be a rural population tending to crops
and cattle in small scattered communities.
Today's mega cities are a product of our first
and second Industrial Revolutions and it seems fitting
that they will soon reflect the convergences
of the fourth Industrial Revolution.
Let's quickly review how we got there.
Cities have existed for thousands of years.
Damascus, the capitol of Syria, thought to be the oldest,
continuously inhabited city in the world
was founded around 11,000 years ago.
These ancient cities, however,
were the exception not the norm.
From about 1600 onwards, large scale urban settings
began to be more commonplace.
Even still, the global population was pretty small
and didn't reach one billion until around 1804.
Around this time, the first Industrial Revolution
was beginning in earnest in Britain.
Increasing opportunity and factories
and mines pulled people away from farms
and they established themselves
in housing complex's next to these new jobs.
At first, conditions were pretty poor
but over time social structures improved.
Institutions like the police and unions were established.
Improved sanitation reduced disease
and this period was coupled
with other medical breakthroughs.
British cities began to grow quickly
as did other industrializing cities
across Europe and in the United States.
By the early 1900s, the global population doubled
to two billion and would hit three billion by 1960.
The phenomenon of cities has continued
all over the world as countries have developed.
These organizing structures have provided lots of jobs,
predictable services, significant economies of scale,
increasing prosperity and the emergence
of rich, diverse culture.
Cities have lifted billions of people
out of extreme poverty.
By 2012, the population of the planet
hit seven billion with half living in cities.
Today, cities dominate the human experience
of every major economy on the planet.
China alone has over 160 cities
with a population of over one million people.
While cities have provided so many positive contributions
to our human wellbeing, many argue,
they are the single most important of the human creations.
Unfortunately, they have created
and are sustaining significant problems too.
The price of two Industrial Revolutions has been costly.
Many cities are near breaking point
and many are already failing in
key areas such as basic services.
In fact, cities are now the biggest
contributor towards our global climate crisis.
Thought of another way, if we're going to save the planet
from over heating and becoming unsustainable for life,
we're going to have to fix our cities.
The work to repair our cities and prepare them
for the next 100 years and beyond has started.
Solutions will involve every strat of society.
They will require bold change in areas
such as politics and economics, social and cultural
and of course, technology.
Rethinking and reinventing how our cities
deliver their services in a digital age
will require connected intelligent systems.
Those local governments that are already pursuing
the first phases of this type of
strategy are being called smart cities.
They are using technology to improve livability,
workability and sustainability.
Foundational fourth Industrial Revolution technologies
such as high speed fixed and wireless internet,
the internet of things, artificial intelligence,
autonomous vehicles, digitization, big data
and even newer tech such as block chain
are becoming the building blocks of our future cities.
I would argue that cities are becoming
the ultimate manifestation of this new revolution.
They will be the great big complex urban machines
that have the largest impact on the human experience.
If we're going to fully understand
and respond to the consequences of a major
slice of the fourth Industrial Revolution,
we don't need to look further than our cities.
If you'd like to learn more about smart cities,
I've created a course specifically on the topic.