Cities Past and Future

The final day of TEDGlobal 2009, brought together five perspectives on ‘cities past and future‘, but cities have been a longtime focus for all TED conferences.

We thought it’d be useful to share some of those earlier city-centric TED talks with youas an appropriate preamble to next month’s TEDxLeeds2010 and our theme of ‘the city as a platform’. Who knows we may even screen a couple for you…

Paul Romer’s Radical Idea: Charter Cities
How can a struggling country break out of poverty if it’s trapped in a system of bad rules? Economist Paul Romer unveils a bold idea: “charter cities,” city-scale administrative zones governed by a coalition of nations. (Could Guantánamo Bay become the next Hong Kong?)

Eric Sanderson pictures New York — before the City
400 years after Hudson found New York harbor, Eric Sanderson shares how he made a 3D map of Mannahatta’s fascinating pre-city ecology of hills, rivers, wildlife — accurate down to the block — when Times Square was a wetland and you couldn’t get delivery.

How food shapes our cities: Carolyn Steel
Every day, in a city the size of London, 30 million meals are served. But where does all the food come from? Architect Carolyn Steel discusses the daily miracle of feeding a city, and shows how ancient food routes shaped the modern world.

Bjarke Ingels: 3 warp-speed architecture tales
Danish architect Bjarke Ingels rockets through photo/video-mingled stories of his eco-flashy designs. His buildings not only look like nature — they act like nature: blocking the wind, collecting solar energy — and creating stunning views.

Magnus Larsson: Turning dunes into architecture
Architecture student Magnus Larsson details his bold plan to transform the harsh Sahara desert using bacteria and a surprising construction material: the sand itself.

Stewart Brand on squatter cities
Rural villages worldwide are being deserted, as billions of people flock to cities to live in teeming squatter camps and slums. Stewart Brand says this is a good thing. Why? It’ll take you 3 minutes to find out.

Robert Neuwirth on our “shadow cities”
Robert Neuwirth, author of Shadow Cities, finds the world’s squatter sites — where a billion people now make their homes — to be thriving centers of ingenuity and innovation. He takes us on a tour.