Ideas worth spreading

The biggest risks facing cities -- and some solutions

1,370,303 views |

Robert Muggah |

TEDGlobal>NYC

• September 2017

With fantastic new maps that show interactive, visual representations of urban fragility, Robert Muggah articulates an ancient but resurging idea: cities shouldn't just be the center of economics -- they should also be the foundation of our political lives. Looking around the world, from Syria to Singapore to Seoul and beyond, Muggah submits six principles for how we can build more resilient cities. "Cities are where the future happens first. They're open, creative, dynamic, democratic, cosmopolitan, sexy," Muggah says. "They're the perfect antidote to reactionary nationalism."

With fantastic new maps that show interactive, visual representations of urban fragility, Robert Muggah articulates an ancient but resurging idea: cities shouldn't just be the center of economics -- they should also be the foundation of our political lives. Looking around the world, from Syria to Singapore to Seoul and beyond, Muggah submits six principles for how we can build more resilient cities. "Cities are where the future happens first. They're open, creative, dynamic, democratic, cosmopolitan, sexy," Muggah says. "They're the perfect antidote to reactionary nationalism."

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Reach out to an inter-city movement and take action. Great examples include the Global Parliament of Mayors, the C40, United Cities and Local Government (UCLG), Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), the US Conference of Mayors and Eurocities.

Share data on cities so that citizens are better informed. Reach out to the CREATE Lab or the Igarapé Institute and they might be able to visualize your datasets.

Explore the Earth Timeline platform, a collaboration between the Igarapé Institute and Carnegie Mellon University's CREATE Lab that tracks climactic and human-induced risks — from refugee flows, terrorism and other risks — on a planetary scale over the past three decades.

About the speaker

Robert Muggah

Megacities expert

See speaker profile

Robert Muggah creates tools to understand cycles of violence in urban environments and opens dialogues on ways to confront them globally.

Max Weber | Free Press, 1966 | Book

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Benjamin Barber | Yale University Press, 2017 | Book

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Jane Jacobs | Vintage, 1992 | Book

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

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Igarapé Institute | Explore

Fragile Cities Visualization

Working with the United Nations and other partners like xSeer, the Igarapé Institute developed an interactive data visualization to track risks in more than 2,100 cities around the world. The platform features eleven risks that shape fragility in cities, allowing users to track changes between 2000-2015 and predict future trends until 2030.

Richard Florida | Basic Books, 2017 | Book

The New Urban Crisis

Described as the rockstar of (urban) regeneration, Richard Florida shot to fame in the early 2000s arguing about the importance of fostering “creative classes” in cities. In his latest book, Florida revisits his earlier assumptions, warning of the ways growing inequality and exclusion are expanding in some of the world´s most successful cities.

| Explore

Earth Timelapse – CREATE Lab

Carnegie Mellon University´s CREATE Lab explores ways to spread technology fluency and communicate scientific data to inform evidence-based decision making. CREATE Lab works with dozens of partners, including the Igarapé Institute, to build stunning data visualizations such as Earth Timelapse which stitches together 30 years of satellite data to encourage discover and facilitate communication.

Learn more

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Reach out to an inter-city movement and take action. Great examples include the Global Parliament of Mayors, the C40, United Cities and Local Government (UCLG), Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), the US Conference of Mayors and Eurocities.

Share data on cities so that citizens are better informed. Reach out to the CREATE Lab or the Igarapé Institute and they might be able to visualize your datasets.

Explore the Earth Timeline platform, a collaboration between the Igarapé Institute and Carnegie Mellon University's CREATE Lab that tracks climactic and human-induced risks — from refugee flows, terrorism and other risks — on a planetary scale over the past three decades.