Is our future underground?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 14 March 2024
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
More than half of the world’s population currently lives in cities, and by 2050, the UN estimates that figure will rise to nearly 7 in 10 people. The world is also getting hotter, with heatwaves and wildfires becoming increasingly common.
So how can we deal with the dual challenges of increasing urbanisation and extreme weather caused by climate change? Perhaps we should look downwards.
For millennia, humans have taken refuge underground from the elements, predators and from war. Even today, bomb shelters exist under major cities like Beijing and Seoul. Many cities across the world have subway systems for easy transportation – and some are integrated seamlessly with below-ground business and shopping centres.
But what are the future challenges for urban planners and architects in this subterranean space, and how can we overcome the social stigma against those who live underground?
This week on the Inquiry, we ask: is our future underground?
Contributors: Martin Dixon, trustee of Subterranea Britannica, a society devoted to the study and investigation of man-made and man-used underground places. Jacques Besner, architect and urban planner; co-founder and general manager of Associated Research Centres for Urban Underground Spaces. Antonia Cornaro co-chair of ITACUS, the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association's Committee on Underground Space. Professor Clara Irazábal, Director of the Urban Studies and Planning Program at the University of Maryland, USA.
Presenter: Tanya Beckett Producer: Ravi Naik Editor: Tara McDermott Researcher: Matt Toulson Production Coordinators : Janet Staples & Liam Morrey
Photo by BEHROUZ MEHRI via Getty Images
Transcript
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| 0:49.0 | Welcome to the inquiry with me Tanya Beckett. One question, four expert witnesses and an answer. |
| 0:59.0 | Today just over half of the world's 8 billion inhabitants live in cities. |
| 1:07.0 | The United Nations estimates that that number will rise to more than two-thirds of the world's population within the next quarter of a century. |
| 1:16.0 | Let's just say that again. |
| 1:18.0 | By 2050, seven in ten people will live in urban environments. |
| 1:23.5 | The vast percentage of the increase will happen in Asia and Africa, |
| 1:28.0 | where the population is growing at its fastest and economic growth is more rapid. Cities will become increasingly |
| 1:35.5 | overcrowded. Not only that because they're hotter than their rural |
| 1:39.2 | surroundings, climate change will in some cases make the temperatures too unbearable or costly to live in. |
| 1:47.0 | And as we use more energy to cool buildings above ground, |
| 1:51.0 | this will add further to our carbon footprint. But there is a possible |
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