About the Presentation

Five emerging crisis have been on the forefront this century, 1) post-peak oil era, 2) deteriorating public health, 3) carbon emissions/climate change, 4) a disconnect between market supply and housing demand caused by a change in demographics, and 5) the need to provide housing for the world’s future population.  

Recent UN reports articulate that 2.5 billion additional inhabitants will need housing by 2050.  The majority of this growth will be in urban areas.  To reckon with this projection, we need to be building a new city for a million inhabitants every week, for the next 46 years. All five issues are intrinsically linked to development patterns, and architects and planners need to be poised to help solve these crisis.  The lecture will discuss current planning paradigms that attempt to address these issues, as well as illustrate traditional models that serve as time-tested examples for future developments, with examples from the US, India and elsewhere.