Sustainable Cities

The Reith Lectures

BBC

Society & Culture, Science

4.2 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 1995

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

This year's Reith lecturer is Richard Rogers, one of the most influential British architects of our time. He has established himself and his practice at the forefront of today's architecture industry through such high-profile projects as the Pompidou Centre, the headquarters for Lloyds of London, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the Millennium Dome in London. His series of lectures is entitled 'Sustainable City' and each lecture focuses on architecture's social role and the sustainable urban development of towns and cities through social and environmental responsibility.

In his second lecture, Richard Rogers explores how cities have become, in his view, socially divisive and environmentally hazardous. In the beginning we built cities to overcome our environment; in the future we should build cities to nurture it. We must, he argues, reinvent a dense and diverse urban space that grows around social as well as commercial activity. Strategies to improve the sustainability of our environment can fundamentally improve the social life of our cities.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Ruth Lectures.
0:04.5	This lecture in the series Sustainable City, given by Richard Rogers,
0:08.9	was originally broadcast in 1995.
0:12.1	In the 40 years, up to 1990, the population of the world's cities increased tenfold,
0:18.5	soaring from 200 million to over 2 billion. Cities now contain half of the
0:23.7	world's population, but cause at least three quarters of its pollution. As I argued in my opening
0:30.3	lecture, they are undermining the planet's ecosystem. Cities have become socially divisive and environmentally hazardous, and if we in
0:40.3	Britain think that our problems of pollution, congestion and inner-city decay are appalling, then consider
0:47.9	the changes that are overwhelming the cities of the developing world. In 1990, there were 35 cities with populations over 5 million.
0:58.0	22 of them were in the developing world.
1:01.0	By the year 2000, the figure will be 44.
1:05.0	2 billion people are expected to be added to the cities of the developing world within 30 years.
1:10.0	Whilst our cities are stagnating cities of the developing world within 30 years. Whilst our cities are
1:12.0	stagnating, in the developing world, urban population explosion and migration from the countryside
1:17.9	are expanding their cities at a terrifying rate. Their presence will cause an exponential growth
1:24.4	in the volume of resources consumed and of pollution created.
1:28.6	Yet, at least half of this urban population will be living in shanty towns with no running water,
1:34.6	no electricity, no sanitation, and little hope.
1:39.1	Mexico City has the dubious distinction of being the largest and most polluted city in the world.
1:46.0	Its population in 1900 was 340,000, the size of Croydon's.
1:52.0	It is now the Industrial Corps of Mexico and home to over 20 million people and 4 million cars.
1:59.0	Visitors often think they are flying into a rainstorm,
	...

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