In Millennial City, Authors Dennis Walsh and Glen Hiemstra explore how cities and young people and how their future is bound up together. In the way that we envision and build and modify and retrofit the cities of the future we can unlock the mystery of whether we are, quite literally, going to make it or not. Canadian sustainability futurist and expert Dennis Walsh, and American futurist and Founder of Futurist.com Glen Hiemstra observe that our great human migration to urban areas continues, and that city life is especially attractive to the youth of today. The vitality and promise of the Millennial Generation and those who will follow is not lost on cities, which compete aggressively to attract them to live and work in metro areas.
The book delves into why cities are at a crossroads, some flourishing, some declining and decaying, and all faced with the myriad challenges of creating a sustainable way of living. Transforming cities is both a great opportunity and an environmental imperative. For all who live in cities and are interested in the future of the planet, but especially for the millennials and young people just beginning to create their own futures, this book is about the personal choices we face if we are to make cities and by extension the planet a sustainable place to live. These choices loom large for young people as they shape their own lives, and the authors hope, save the future.
Covering eras, continents, and the array of wrenching challenges we face as well as the amazing opportunities that await us, this inspiring book digs into how cities came to be the way they are, and tells the many stories of people in cities who are creating a new, exiting, and viable future. The book explores the best options for cities to become high-tech and natural, dense and lively, urban and wild, with urban farming, lower carbon footprints, transportation designed for people, and an economy of both affluence and justice. The deep problems facing cities are examined, from economic inequality to water shortage to declining infrastructure to poverty to the threat of climate change.
Ultimately the future will come down to the choices we make going forward. For the Millennial Generation these choices are being made with a new view of how to live ethically and well. This is a book designed to help this new generation, and all of us, understand how we can work together to build preferred future cities together.