The DNA of Cities?

Our planet is surging towards peak urbanisation with more than 9.2 billion people living in at least 10,000 cities sometime later this century. 

80%, maybe more, of our global urban population is predicted to be living in cities by 2080. Cities matter to our human and planetary future. Understanding how they succeed and why they fail is a frontier of discovery. There are common factors across many cities: planning, investment, services and leadership. But every city is unique and any effort to diagnose or improve city performance needs to address the questions: 
 

• Why is this city here?

• What makes it the city that it is?

And if we can do that, we may be able to address other imperatives:
 

• What future could this city have?

• How might this city respond to shocks?

• What should this city prioritise?

• How could this city communicate better?

We call this The DNA of Cities.