Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Ghost Cities of 2100

Since our discussion during the past couple weeks has been focused on looking at the future of cities, I though the article below would be a good read. This article, published by Forbes, attempts to predict what will happen to cities in 2100. The article discussing what it takes for a city to vanish, and explains what cities they believe will disappear in the next 100 years.

http://www.forbes.com/2007/06/11/ghost-cities-future-biz-cx_21cities_ee_0611ghostcities.html


11 comments:

  1. Weather issues maybe, but besides that I see cities growing, not disappearing. They may evolve into more connected areas with public transit and community housing and stores instead of individuals separated by a system of driving oriented areas, but they will still be cities.

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  2. I'd love to see that shrinking cities exhibit. No one seems to have solved that problem yet, it'd be interesting to see what the Germans think. They're pretty good problem solvers and more willing to face hard choices than America, generally speaking.

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  3. I love this article. It is hard for people to think this far ahead and think about how small we are in the scheme of things. I think that some cities will certainly vanish. The article may underscore human involvement in that as resources become more scarce and population growth levels off, humans will be forced to recycle older cities' resources for future growth. This will mean the destruction of inefficient cities in the search for metals and other resources that we have exhausted.

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  4. If you look at the pictures of the cities in this article, Detroit is the number 2 picture they show. The site predicts that Detroit will continue to shrink in size of population until AT LEAST 2030. I hope this is not the case, but the city needs to get back on track very soon.

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  5. Quito, Ecuador is the second largest city in Ecuador and could face similar issues to San Francisco. Quito is surrounded by three volcanoes and experiences earthquakes. One explosion could put the city into ruin.

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  6. Great post! While I don't think that cities like Detroit are going to become non-existent in the future, I agree that they're going to become smaller and very very different from their peak years. Is that bad though? At this point, something needs to change!

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  7. Some of these cities are failing due to poor choices for location. When referencing New Orleans 80% of the city flooded because it’s located below sea level. We need to make serious changes if we want cities such as Venice, Italy or San Francisco, California to survive. I agree that weather is playing a huge role. Think about the number of natural disasters we have had this past year alone and the impacts.

    I think Michigan is going to continue to fall because we have yet to hit the bottom, but through innovation we will be able to rebuild. One of the biggest problems I see with all of these cities and solutions are we want immediate results. We want to see that our plans or programs have instantly solved the problems. This is going to take time and we need to learn to be more patient.

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  8. I like the measure of young people moving to or leaving a city as a measure. Our generation likes technology, convenience, and excitement. Unfortunately, I don’t think Detroit falls under any of these categories. If Detroit is to survive they need to look into a complete overhaul, take some risks and provide incentives for new "cutting edge" businesses to relocate to the city.

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  9. I agree with Chris. Measuring the flow of young people in/out of a city definitely shows whether or not the city will be vibrant and growing in the future.

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  10. Agreed with Chris, youth is crucial to a city for long-term survival. While Detroit is moving towards new industries to attract future business it also needs to be aware of the sort of people it needs to attract.

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  11. I have had the opportunity to witness the ruins of Moenjodaro, which mainly looks like a desert now. Considering the very possibility that cities like Detroit or San Francisco can become ghost cities is spine-chilling!.If you look at the pictures of the ghost cities in 2011, some of them state population flight as the reason, but a lot of the others may disappear or shrink because of natural catastrophes or geographical hazards. While the problem of population flight can be fixed, I really don't how cities with volcanic eruptions or earthquakes can be saved .

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