Calgary by night. Photograph by Gorgo, 2006. Image courtesy of wikimedia commons.

October, 1967: Arnold Toynbee published “Cities of Destiny” exploring elements that, when blended in an urban environment, may foster innovation and greatness. Cyrene set a trend: the ancient Greek city-state created a new culture where sciences, arts, education flourished. Singapore illustrates the power of a city to make its own laws, taxes, policies. Cities use – and therefore can save – significant energy; C40, an organization of the world’s mega-cities, may show the way forward to a better environment. Will the proposed Global Parliament of Mayors, convening 600 city leaders around the globe, forge a new direction for progress? Over half of our world lives in cities. Cooperative leagues of cities may shape the world’s destiny.

For more:

Hargreaves, Steve. “Greatest urban projects of all time,” CNNMoney, October 7, 2014. http://money.cnn.com/gallery/news/economy/2014/10/07/greatest-urban-projects/3.html

C40 Cities, Climate Leadership Group: www.c40.org

Global Parliament of Mayors:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29352004

http://www.globalparliamentofmayors.org/

Barber, Benjamin R. “If Mayors Ruled the World.” (Yale University Press, 2014). www.ifmayorsruledtheworld.com

Toynbee, Arnold. “Cities of Destiny.” (Thames & Hudson, 1967)

Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.