What’s the Greatest Risk Cities Face?

[Leo the Dog]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

elon musk sort of just said as much re: AI as an impending threat.

AI and UBI.

[chris08876]

None of these risks in the politico article.

The greatest risk? Mother nature itself.

Money doesn't mean squat when flood waters or heat or the ever increasing volatility of storms rolls through the area, causing death, destruction, and news ratings. Plus, at some point, the sun will explode. If we are even around by then. Most likely wiped out via an asteroid or a rogue gamma-ray burst that de ionizes the atmosphere or increased warming. Unless plants adapt, we are screwed in the long run. If common plants that we rely on food go away, everybody, including your pet dogs or cats, will suffer.

With that said, happy Sunday to all!

But in all seriousness, nature is the biggest threat. Especially for coastal cities.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Leo the Dog

AI and UBI.

human nature, i'm afraid, would make an awful mess of a UBI world. it's just not the way we are wired. it would be better to pour those resources into repairing regional/local systems/agriculture/economies, i think...

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

human nature, i'm afraid, would make an awful mess of a UBI world. it's just not the way we are wired. it would be better to pour those resources into repairing regional/local systems/agriculture/economies, i think...

That's going deep, but is really the biggest threat next to nature.

Humans are their own biggest enemy. Greed and the ego (power tripping) pose the biggest threat.

Until society can collectively come to together, and work together for the sake of survival, our future looks grim. Sure globalization has helped, but its a facade. Greed, and power play a role, and until we can disband those notions, the survival of our species isn't definite in the future.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by Leo the Dog

AI and UBI.

You'd be very kind to be a little bit more explicit here.
Typing on a keyboard is nothing much hard. Tons of brainless people can do it faster than you breathe.
Acronyms are so overused in lazy English that you don't even know what they mean in the end.

Possible meanings of UBI:

Unrelated Business Income
Unified Business Identifier
United Bicycle Institute
UKW-Sprechfunkzeugnis für den Binnenschifffahrtsfunk (German: internationally valid radio certification)

And so on.

I can't believe you'd be an anti-bike person. That's not what you are, right?

I agree that phones and computers are dangerously addictive, but artificial intelligence is most often very far from the main entertainment of the addicts. They don't even know what it means technically. Google stuff like "neural networks" for instance, it's just a bunch of algorithms, that's no brand new tech at all. It's just a term in fashion at the moment, nothing so scary.

Addictive social networks are more dangerous IMHO, but NIMBYism is even far worse, as mentioned by James Bond Agent 007. It is the very threat where I live. The vicious French would invent any type of insane regulations to increase and enforce crazy constraints, so their fierce NIMBYs feel comfortable and satisfied.
I just can't stand that attitude. It's deeply disgusting. That's the issue we got to get over here, then we'd make this silly world die from envy even more.

[llamaorama]

it would be better to pour those resources into repairing regional/local systems/agriculture/economies, i think...

How?

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

How?

Quite possibly by actually smart and helpful regulations.
But not those regulations to only comfort those NIMBY people already established in their traditional social environment.
Not those nasty regulations most can't stand.

[pdxtex]

the greatest risk? people. too few or too many. legacy cities will have to deal with underused land and blight after people and industries leave, and popular cities will have to deal with rising costs of everything, housing, infrastructure maintenance and expansion. the warmer midwest and plains will become more prominent than ever however. there is also going to be a shift in the power structure within the next 20 to 30 years. this was the last hurrah for boomer led, social politics. gen x and gen z will become today and tommorrow's urban leaders, leaning more towards conservative centrism.. shifting demographic patterns will also swing additional democratic power back to the south, challenging the coastal leadership. should make for some interesting times. im looking forward to the next 40 years.

[mhays]

The article is a jumble of what random people are afraid of. So it's all over the map...in time horizon, issues specific to certain types of cities, magnitude, and so on. An activist or politician will respond that their personal issue is the biggest, and often in the shorter term.

[jtown,man]

The internet.

When I was a kid it was a treat to go to the city to go shopping with the family. You don't need this now. People in rural Arkansas can now just go online and get whatever they want. No more trips to Memphis.

Our cities will become more dead and lifeless when retail dies off.

Thanks, everyone who cant help but buy everything online.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Physically? Global warming, especially rising sea levels.

Aesthetically? Generic glass towers; whole city blocks with only one building entrance.

Culturally? Boring suburban families raising boring suburban kids. Fortunately for many western countries, at least, multiculturalism can lessen this impact.

What does this even mean?

Boring people means whites and blacks? I don't understand how a Pakistani is better than a white or black American.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

The internet.

When I was a kid it was a treat to go to the city to go shopping with the family. You don't need this now. People in rural Arkansas can now just go online and get whatever they want. No more trips to Memphis.

Our cities will become more dead and lifeless when retail dies off.

Thanks, everyone who cant help but buy everything online.

The opposite has occurred, though.

In the last few years, cities have boomed and rural areas have been emptying out. Rural America is now the poorest, most drug addicted, most welfare-dependent typology.

And internet retail probably increases the desirability gap, since e commerce makes city living more convenient. Major online retailers are focused on the densest and wealthiest centers. Amazon has free same-day delivery for Prime members in major cities. And brick-and-mortar destination retail thrives in big metros, not so much in small towns.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The opposite has occurred, though.

In the last few years, cities have boomed and rural areas have been emptying out. Rural America is now the poorest, most drug addicted, most welfare-dependent typology.

And internet retail probably increases the desirability gap, since e commerce makes city living more convenient. Major online retailers are focused on the densest and wealthiest centers. Amazon has free same-day delivery for Prime members in major cities. And brick-and-mortar destination retail thrives in big metros, not so much in small towns.

Sure, however no one can argue that retailers would be even better in cities if the internet had not taken such a large share of retail sales.

[dc_denizen]

We are living in the age of cardboard

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

We are living in the age of cardboard

the last trendy housing movement was tiny houses, the next one will be modular cardboard homes that reuse amazon and ikea packaging in a sustainable way.

[ChargerCarl]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

the last trendy housing movement was tiny houses,.

You mean apartments?

[Jonesy55]

Surely the 'biggest risk' varies from one city to another, it's not like all cities are the same.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by muppet

I disagree, globalisation is what is powering the continued rise of cities in the West, without which our populations would be haemorrhaging soon enough, and having suburbanised ourselves to death - not to mention the brain gain. Just look at how historic 'globalisation' has built cities like NYC, Istanbul, Paris, Berlin, Toronto, Chicago, Shanghai, HK, Singapore, Amsterdam and London to give them an edge over their sister megacities in the past. Current belle du jours of globalisation would be the rebirth of places more recently like Moscow, Dubai, KL, Shenzhen, Sydney, Vancouver, Melbourne, Barcelona, Doha, Cape Town, Auckland, Frankfurt, Vienna, Stockholm, Brussels, Guangzhou.

This is why places like Tokyo and Seoul (also smaller places like Edinburgh, Oslo, Athens, Helsinki) - who are already culturally globalised (as almost everywhere is to some extent), but not as demographically, are seriously trying to toy with the idea of opening their doors wider to immigration/ attracting foreign skilled workers, faced with ageing timebombs and substituting lost generations of new talent and youth with technology, robots and algorithms. Seoul and Tokyo of course have huge amounts of talent - one only needs to look at the current Korean Wave of art, culture and media - but there's a major worry it's unsustainable.

I agree with this.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by ChargerCarl

You mean apartments?

i thought it was kind of a dumb movement, but i guess applicable to regions that don't have huge piles of dirt cheap apartments and condos but have space, like smaller western u.s. metro areas. they are good for humble weekend cabins, in my view.

[Steely Dan]

the biggest threat facing cities is clearly C.H.U.D.s.