How to manage a megacity 

You know it's time for serious "city discussion" when the violins start playing over a skyline timelapse

Cities all over the world should be doing everything they can to discourage car ownership. High quality Public transport and pedestrian infrastructure are the only way for a city to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

What about designing cities around humans rather than cars? Mixed use buildings (shops, offices, apartments all in the same building) which means travel distances are shorter, as well as making energy use cheaper due to the density. Encouraging people to walk, take public transport, cycle rather than drive their expensive and inefficient cars.

I live in Ahmedabad and it's an awesome case study of development.

i am from Ahmedabad, and this is accurate narrative of my city, yes there is some corruption in development, but it done in advancing projects, and also waste management is improving .

"Overcrowding", screen shows traffic jam which is a consequence of urban sprawl.

I wasn’t aware of what San Francisco was doing with the automated recycling. That is a very cool use of artificial intelligence that I actually am ok with and definitely would like to see that technology be adopted in my city!

I'm from Japan. Japan's population has been concentrated in metropolitan areas, especially in Tokyo. I suppose cities in Japan are relatively well-planed and well-organized but, in my opinion, Tokyo is facing the same problem as San Francisco. I feel that it's about time for companies to relocate their headquarters or branches from Tokyo to other areas in Japan, considering we no longer need to commute to offices thanks to the Internet technology. I assume that companies will do this in the near future because they've realized that there was no need to gather employees in one place during the pandemic. This trend could reduce traffic jams and then air pollutions in metropolitan areas. In addition, given that Japan is a country with many earthquakes, decentralization of business or government is quite important.

Fantastic video. However I disagree with the focus on composting. This is not a sustainable option in large-scale centralized applications. Centralized composting facilities will not last. They emit methane and nitrous oxide (36 and 298 times more potent than CO2, although not densely concentrated) and they still produce vast amounts of CO2 in this mostly aerobic process. A more sustainable option in the future is to first recover the carbon into a value-added product or biofuel, and then use the residuals as soil amendment (eg. Hydrothermal Liquefaction, Gasification, Pyrolysis, Anaerobic Digestion)

I think water infrastructures is one of the most important issues that need to be solved.

San Francisco waste management is nice but most modern mega-cities are in Asia (e.g. Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tokyo, Seoul), the video would be much more complete if it would show how they are managed

I live in Japan, and everyone moves to Tokyo. When I look around, all I see are a bunch of miserable people with their heads down sighing away. Try to strike a convo with them and they will give you a mean glare like you invaded their personal space. Go to the countryside and you'll see more cheerful people. Are mega cities really necessary? The internet brings us together now so we don't need to physically live near each other in shoebox sized houses.

I read somewhere (perhaps in a comment) that the concept of Waste-to-Energy (WtE) has some drawbacks, and that is why it is not being automatically employed near all the large (urban) waste sources to generate electricity and/or heat. However, I always forget what the disadvantages of such a technology are, as they haven't seemed to be convincing to me yet, and I'm starting to find it suspicious how little WtE is being talked about as a solution to the increasing waste problem.

Many thanks for your work! Great material!

Great planning makes great cities!

When you look at it from the perspective of an individual's daily life routine, their isn't such a daunting crisis!

Here's an idea to foster survival of urban population: fossil fuel corporations should be either lured or forced to move their business models to solid waste processing. mounting demand from megacities is a sustained source of revenue.

Great article found, thanks you.

Being of age and how to manage the sequence of returns in those early periods is what seems quite scary in the current market. The market is never a loser in a twenty year cycle, but the 2000s decade scenario scares me and could really disrupt my retirement. When you are no longer accumulating but withdrawing its hard to be anything but cautious.

This is excellent!! Please make more quality content about cities

you deserve more views. that was an awesome work

loved this video!

It's become clear you cannot build your way out of automobile congestion. Congestion comes down to human tolerance for inconvenience. If you increase capacity of highways, you'll get short term relief from congestion, but it will soon return to jamming up as people who had given up driving return to the automobile. The only way constructing more highways can work is if you construct super-by-pass corridors. Each suburb gets its own highway terminus, with no off ramps in between. Of course politically this doesn't work because the neighborhoods near the city limits get carved up and isolated, and the land given over to a super-by-pass provides zero economic benefits, unlike traditional off ramp / on ramp access which provides some economic stimulus.

Very nice production!

Preserve natural habitats and animals. Cities? More trees 🌳

Looks like a lot of these megacities are on the coast and around the equator. Not sure how to break this to you guys....

Clever and smart people along with technology will help but, the idea and thinking that the economy always has to grow for humans to progress and to be able to survive may need to be reviewed and revised. Presently, if the economy is not growing, it is considered a problem and or a failure. Growing the economy is also thought to be the best way to help end poverty. If a growing economy could end poverty, the most developed and prosperous countries should not have any poverty. This type of thinking cannot continue uninterrupted on a finite planet with finite resources. There needs to be flexibility in the system for the economy to expand and contract and for a contraction to be considered normal and not a problem or a failure. For this type of thinking to work, there needs to be some new economic models developed along with some new types of money and financial systems based on economic sustainability! Not on economic growth!

India has never taken an innovative approach to anything. India is full of individuals how are innovative. Sadly the country, it’s politicians and it’s leaders do not value these people enough.

Let me know when ecosystemic methodology will be a required application amidst the urbanized planet. Waiting for that.

India always be an icon about filthy,slum,pollution,crowded,etc etc. I feel sorry for India.

Witnessing the birth of new landmarks is truly special.

What about the problem of Innequality and Poverty, what are solutions?

That Ted talk was aaaaaamazing.

It's wise to live in small towns or villages. Go to big cities to study and to have fun, but don't get stuck in there for life. The real luxury of life is closer to nature, not to pollution.

The economist e seus planos para um mundo "melhor"

Big corporations will not like it, but we have the technology to make them food and energy independent. The start-ups bringing that tech to neighborhoods and individuals will be essential for survival. Especially when huge distribution collapses happen. And they will happen.

this video leaves the best example that is metropolitan tokyo.

private cars are a suburban utility. they have absolutely no place in highly dense urban areas. if you hate transit, walking, or cycling, then move back to the suburbs or coutry side.

But most palstic can't be recycled and it can be very expensive for any developing countries to recycle whatever litte plastic can be recycled

WHIM ( 5m 42s, Helsinki ) was deployed in the west midlands UK in 2018 what was or is the outcome of that?

Nice video.

I understand accepting reality but shouldn't there be an effort to move *away* from city concentration. Half of world population in cities? Wouldn't there be a limit to what technological help can achieve?

Lagos, Nigeria is projected to hit 70 million by 2100. With their oil revenues waning, they had better get a grip on family size fast. This is big trouble on the horizon.

City scale composting is not new, my city has been doing it for decades.

Here's a simple solution. Build a second level highway above the first. Wow, it's like double the road in the same area, spend 20 billion doing that, and then over 5 years you save 80 billion.

In India, it would be how to manage a overrated place with lot of slums.

very nice

Just an FYI a GMU professor is using your video as Homework without accreditation

Compost produces greenhouse gas effect as well, specifically methane which is more harmful than CO2. How do you capture those Vapours?

High air pressure underground tubes could carry garbage to recycling centers automatically. No trash truck and manual labor are required.

what was the song at the beginning I liked it

Guangzhou metro city is 65 million people

Car-pool lanes are a failed experiment. Very few people actually change their driving habits to use the car pool lane and so the result is you have a useless lane.

I don't understand why everyone wants a car n want to travel to office alone stuck in jams

Interesting propositions - wouldn't it be even greener to deal with waste at source? Where there are homes that can equip themselves with specific bins for sorting waste products and a composting facility, these could be on hand. Where homes do not have the space - eg flats - there could be a communal waste site for recycling/composting. It would be more cost efficient than the full scale and probably more expensive processes. The waste generated is bought with the product - so the immediate disposal should be part of the buyers remit. They could remove packaging at the store and have a facility there for leaving it with the store if the store is not on board with recycling /net zero waste. The problem should be eliminated so that it isn't a problem, not nursed. We don't live in a world that is easily blanketed for some - the negative effects of living in a negative lifestyle affects the planet. L R

No matter what happens on Earth, you can be rest assured the Megacities on the moon, Mars and Venus will be much better planned for the future of humanity.

To say this is a planning issue... without asking what the capacity to plan of cities and also what is the context for planning. Indian cities are different from West African cities and other mega-cities across the world. How easily transferable are solutions in one mega-city compared to another?

Cities should ban conventional cars from the city center. Instead, they should create a fleet of self-driving, electric, one-person, PLASTIC pod-taxis, which would recharge in the pod barn. Need to go somewhere? Summon a pod. Want to visit the city? Park on the edge of the city and summon a pod. The conversion of parking lots/structures to housing/offices WOULD PAY FOR THE FLEET. Pedestrians would be safer (an accident with a plastic, one-person pod would cause less injury than with a heavy, conventional car). Furthermore, the pods would be more predictable than human drivers (no more desperate turns into unoccupied parking spaces!). The pods would densify the city. Eliminating on-street parking would enhance street life.

There are some assumptions about the superiority of mega cities in the beginning of this clip which are simply not true. Al the advantages are true for smaller cities and in bigger extend. The most creative and wealthiest cities are not (alone) the mega cities, but cities much smaller in size. San Francisco, Boston, Zürich, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Frankfurt to name a few I know. They have all the advantages of mega cities, culturally, universities, jobs, etc. but not the problems concerning housing, traffic jams, crime, health (CO2 smog), al least in much lesser extend. They are much smaller and much more managable and generally more relaxed. A city like Amsterdam is offering more in terms of culture and art of highest level then half of the mega cities mentioned. San Francisco has more IT expertise then all of the megacities in the world. And most megacities would dream to have Boston's MIT or Zürichs ETH or the creativity of Berlin or the high level of life quality of Munich or the fashion and style of Milan. All mentioned cities offer much lower crime rates, has and have at least the same level of job opportunties. I don't know the midsized cities from other continents but I presume you would see a similar image as in Europe or the USA.

It is crucial to set up multi-centers in the megacities to solve the problem of traffic congestion. Expanding the mass transit system isn't a solution as facing perpetual growth of population and business activities. Hope that this tragedy can be ended in the future : )

This is what it means to dream BIG

Cities never made humans more free.

Food for thought

Dalej nie mogę usunąć co wy czekacie na kolejny cud za dużo się modlicie

Replace agricultural farms with electroporated vats of Knall Gas bacteria, replace rail transit train trolleys with Robert L Morrisons Lighter than air solids sealed in foil for nuclear powered airships, and use Marshall J. Corbett's panted for aerial cold plasma highways with spaceplanes for upward angular acceleration into orbit. Keitaro Yoshihara has patented nimbus storm clouds from humid air.

O to chodzi że meta może być lekiem na nadchodzącą recesję w starym znaczeniu, maskonur Tzn Lem miał rację maskony organiczne i nieorganiczne będą potrzebne, sterylizacja stopniowa regulacja bôlu i zmiany ekonomii rządowych na model scarcity proponuje hodowlę krów mlecznych na parterach

Got here from a great ad

audio on the narrator a bit off on this one?

Bantar Gebang in Indonesia is the biggest landfill in the world.

There should have been more info ..

❤️

By leaving one for the suburbs like always 🤔

The homeless. The garbage. the masses. How will these people be lodged and fed? How will they keep the water clean?

Bombay is the most developed place in the solar system

building more lanes doesn't help traffic. Solution is public transport and cycling

Yes compare developed country to developing country. The thing is you throw the business model in countries that aren’t prepared to deal with such lifestyle. They have no technology or skilled labour in this particular field. When it comes to environmental issues critical zones must be addressed regardless in which country it’s happening because the effects of mismanagement will spill over globally.

Jest straszny problem jakbym sam miał podejmować decyzje to bym po prostu był bezpieczny i bezwzględny a Rzeszów jest mały także raczej będą strzelać co najwyżej bez nuklearnych wybuchów

Remove cars from Mega cities. Build more transit. Ban single family housing in mega cities. Build up (vertically)

Why not address the waste problem earlier in the chain? Produce less materials that needs to be taken care of. Better packaging, less single use food containers, glass bottles in stead of plastic etc. This is just life support for an unsustainable lifestyle

How can save the earth from polythene pollution?

We couldn't agree more with the fact that with smart planning... shantytowns would be eradicated. The lack of new strategic planning had enabled new shantytowns to increase everywhere globally: a mistake. Most important, inhabitants of shantytown must be moved away to other locations; and with the promise of returning when the areas are transformed in a time specified. Shantytowns represent new health hazards.

Dobry temat poruszony, nigdy więcej te labirynty są najprostsza droga do wojny światowej. Przecież to jest walka uli tylko że pszczoły chyba się nie zabijają

These red dots with the green in the back, are really hard to see to colourblind people.

wow amazing subhanallah

The future holds deeper inequalities for the big cities

Meanwhile we have thousands of billionaires that pay little tax for clean ups

Vorr mange har kloakk og vanntrøt i bakken Og strømm? Vordann bytter dere vann og kloakk og El høyspent ledninger i disse byene?

Recycling plastic into more plastic. How is that going to help???

Why don’t they measure mega cities by city population instead of Metro?

You better not fear your neighbors in the future.

Megacity is simultaneously comforting and destroying the humankind

Upgrade...

Simple people should control the amount of kids they have

Да миллиардерам, мега корпорациями насрать на развитие городов, улучшение обстановки, главное прибыль, ещë больше денег получать...

The only conclusion we can draw with certainty, is the following: NEVER LOOK AT USA examples! Look at European, Chinese examples of how to manage megacities. In terms of connectivity, promoting public infrastructure, waste management, energy handling, long term vision, they have the Americans beat!

Food shortage. From lack of economic distribution to these meaningless habitats.

Free energy made cities bigger but this is about to change with less and less energy available . Before the fossils fuel era so 2 centuries ago the size of the cities were limited by the food supply the surroundings can provide and transport using animals . With the end of the free energy people will have to leave cities and go to the countryside in order to produce themselves their food . Thought ‘ The economist ‘ will dig deeper than trying to explain how unsustainable system will evolve as it is a sustainable one . If you want to invest buy some land in the middle of nowhere and preferably in high latitudes certainly not real estate in cities.

Sustainability should not be the priority for the longterm health of a more urban society. Its an excuse for governments to expand their bureaucracy, taxes and power. What should be prioritize its the potential of individuality in realms of innovation and productivity. Most government's treat their citizen subjects as pawns towards an agenda that most of the time its utopic, unrealized or benefits a few well connected on the top. The rest of society feeds this monster of the state their time and resources for so called stability. Once we realized that we can achieve a more faster and happier growth through a system of less dependence on involuntarily altruism and coercion, our civilization will catapult towards the fourth industrial revolution. This will bring forth the most productive means and solve the greatest problems in our society. Cryptocurrencys, blockchains and smart contracts will lead the charge.

Megacities become megahell and megadumps

I don't think we should be focusing on this problem. we should make housing, food, and energy human right. when we do this, and we can start in places of the modern world with high homelessness like california. my vision is not 1 big city more like 1 city made of smaller self-sustainable districts - which have their own power plant - nuclear fission later fusion. housing can be made more efficiently - small houses, which are easy to build, and repair. to do that we could nest shipping containers into the ground and build around several of those second layers to help protect against weather. we will not need pretty houses anyway since we will be moving to VR. today we have the technology to grow food more efficiently - laboratories can produce meat, and vertical farming can help make vegetables and fruit.