From their homepage: "By 2050, the population in cities will double, intensifying existing socioeconomic, public health and environmental problems."
Yes.
People move into a few big cities because companies companies like Google congregate there, ultimately creating problems such as skyrocketing rents, congestion, declining real living standards, homelessness.
Google holds an obvious solution in its hand. By altering their way of working they could support remote working, creating clusters of specialized work forces and communities online rather than in a narrow physical location.
Our research group (started by Geoffrey West & Luis Bettencourt) is also trying to understand (and help address) the issues of growing cities in the developing world, where the biggest issue are slums: http://santafe.edu/research/informal-settlements/
Are you suggesting that an industry driving people into cities is new? It isn't. It goes all the way back to the industrial revolution, and the main alternative before us at present (suburban living) only dates back to the '50s.
And it's not a panacea: the car-oriented nature of suburban life is environmentally pretty terrible (not to mention that detached single-family dwellings are less efficient to climate control, and more expensive to provide services to for municipalities). And suburban life brings with it the long commute, the length of which is a better predictor of happiness (negatively, of course) than almost any other demographic factor, including income, marital status, house size, or any of the other things people think make their hour and change in a car every day worth it.
> People move into a few big cities because companies companies like Google congregate there
Actually in big cities like New York, Google's office doesn't make a dent - most Googlers can just take the subway. The Mountain View office is only 4 times bigger, but because Mountain View wants to be a suburb and not a city, it now enjoys gridlocked roads every day.
Living space and roads are severely limited resources, but in most cases the proximity to resources is more important. That's why people move into cities, not just because of jobs. Think hospitals, shopping, culture, friends, child care, inspiration, work, face-to-face interaction, play, love.
Unless you find a cost-efficient way to decentralize all of this, people will be attracted to each other.
I doubt I'm in the minority here when I say I wouldn't move to a 'specialized and remote' community inhabited by people who are all affiliated with the same company. I don't live to work, and I don't want to be surrounded solely by people who are affiliated with the company I work for.
While one of the reasons I live in Manhattan is because the job market is very good, I also enjoy it precisely because there is diversity. I can walk down the street or take the train and see hundreds of people working hundreds of different jobs in dozens of industries. That's why people are moving to cities - they're exciting. There's things to do and people to meet.
> I wouldn't move to a 'specialized and remote' community inhabited by people who are all affiliated with the same company.
Re-read the sentence again.
> By altering their way of working they could support remote working, creating clusters of specialized work forces and communities online rather than in a narrow physical location.
The concept is that if you encourage remote working via online workplaces, you can solve the "big city" issue for a percentage of the population by allowing them to live further away from the densely populated areas "because of work".
> The concept is that if you encourage remote working via online workplaces, you can solve the "big city" issue for a percentage of the population by allowing them to live further away from the densely populated areas "because of work".
But then again some of us really don't like to work all alone in our house, in the middle of nowhere. If I'm spending 8 hours per day working for my employer I might as well socialize while doing that, not living life like a hermit.
Can I ride a bus/affordable taxi back home at 11PM after having a couple of beers in a pub located downtown? If you're living outside a city the answer to this is in most cases a "no".
That depends entirely on the situation, and "affordable" is a relative term. Also, the term "downtown" seems to indicate you're still thinking in terms of a reasonable size city.
Yes.
People move into a few big cities because companies companies like Google congregate there, ultimately creating problems such as skyrocketing rents, congestion, declining real living standards, homelessness.
Google holds an obvious solution in its hand. By altering their way of working they could support remote working, creating clusters of specialized work forces and communities online rather than in a narrow physical location.