Mitchio via Flickr
The folks at TED have just announced the winner of their annual TED Prize, which comes with $100,000 and the resources to support the winner's "one wish to change the world." This year's winner is.... everybody (kind of). It's the first time the prize has not gone to a specific individual, but to a concept that TED wants to explore: the City 2.0.
The City 2.0 is the city of the future… a future in which more than ten billion people on planet Earth must somehow live sustainably.
The City 2.0 is not a sterile utopian dream, but a real-world upgrade tapping into humanity’s collective wisdom.
The City 2.0 promotes innovation, education, culture, and economic opportunity.
The City 2.0 reduces the carbon footprint of its occupants, facilitates smaller families, and eases the environmental pressure on the world’s rural areas.
The City 2.0 is a place of beauty, wonder, excitement, inclusion, diversity, life.
The City 2.0 is the city that works.
So the idea is... lots of us can "win" this prize by helping to craft that one wish to change the world.
I imagine lots of you Maddowblog regulars might have some wishes for the city of the future. Mine involves better, cleaner, more frequent public transportation. Also, pneumatic tubes, just cuz they're cool.
What are your wishes?
Leave a Comment:
My wish? For our gov't to allow the cultivation of industrial hemp for building products, health products, and food products. Oh, and to reduce our dependence on OIL, we can refine hempseeds into fuel that can be used in diesel engines TODAY!
Oh, and hemp makes excellent biomatter for burning in cars, too, if you absolutely have to burn things. And biodegradable plastic, and fabric that's superior to cotton (which uses half of all the pesticides used worldwide each year).
Henry Ford made a car out of hemp:
http://www.rense.com/general67/FORD.HTM
Google: Ford Hemp Car for a ton of links to tons of stories, many of which are current! The body of the car was hemp panels and the engine burned hemp seed oil. The diesel engine was never meant to burn gas. It was designed to burn vegetable oil.
Also, for those of you terrified of marijuana, hemp is not cannabis for smoking. You can smoke hemp from now til the end of time and not get high.
Now go drink a beer and think about this: Alcohol can kill you three ways. 1. Binge drinking, alcohol poisoning. 2. Slowly over time if you drink large amounts regularly. 3. Withdrawal can kill you, too!
Marijuana has never killed anyone. Not one person has died from ingesting too much marijuana. Not one person has died from regular ingestion over time. Not one person has died during "withdrawal" which I put in quotes, because there just isn't much of a withdrawal from regular marijuana use.
I'm not counting 'stoned driving', nor am I counting 'drunk driving'. I'm only looking at the effect of the drug on the user. Alcohol kills. Marijuana does not.
Alcohol can be burned in cars, too, but it's extremely volatile, and not particularly practical as a fuel source. Hemp oil, and hemp biomatter are both excellent sources of fuel, and neither is the least bit volatile.
Birds prefer hempseed to any other type of seed. Third world countries still use ground hempseed to create porridge.
We have an endocannabinoid system, just like we have an endocrine system. Every creature above a mollusk has an endocannabinoid system, even if you think marijuana is bad, awful, evil, you still have this system, and your body would appreciate you using it!
And if you think marijuana is bad, awful, evil, you've been sold a bill of goods. The Royal College of Medicine in Britain has said marijuana should be unclassified and decriminalized, and alcohol and tobacco should be scheduled with coke and meth! American doctors have recommended that cannabis should be legalized for all uses, medical and recreational.
But the feds are breaking Obama's promise, and dispensaries, growers, everyone in the industry is being persecuted. It makes much more sense to outlaw alcohol and tobacco that to continue bullying people in the medical marijuana industry.
Dammit!
I could not agree more completely than I do with the above statement!
I want to see the end of corporate personhood throughout the world. It's corrupted our country and it's dragging down the worldwide economy. I want to see it GONE.
But what does this have to do with pneumatic tubes?
@Eric, we can use the tubes to ship the Wall Street Bankers, who still aren't being prosecuted, to the North Pole. Maybe some ice occupation will give them a bit of an education.
(I can tell I'm losing my geek badge, Oh NO!)
Oh no! Not the North Pole! Think what they would do to Santa and his entire socialist operation!
Empathy.
I'm with you, but I want more! I want "humanity" and for everyone to recognize that we all have goals, dreams, and love for each other!
I like Melissa's wish for empathy and Zora's desire for a little more...
To that I'd add:
I wish for more empathy, passion, wisdom, and integrity.
Yes, indeed.
I'd like to see a push towards the concept of highrise living. Quality condos with 1,000+ sq ft of space with all the amenities, in an affordable package instead of just "luxury condos" that are overpriced. Americans are so strongly biased toward a single family house, and it'd be nice to have affordable highrise condo living in smaller cities and urban landscapes that are filled with stores and shops as opposed to Walmart and Single Family Housing. It really doesn't matter if you're in the suburbs of Boston, New York, San Diego, Atlanta, Houston, or for that matter the suburbs of Youngstown, OH... America has the same setup: buy a single family house, waste on the upkeep of it, drive to Walmart (or Target) and live the proto-typical lifestyle. We practically drive to the mailbox.
Archology; Architecture/Ecology. Three dimensional pedestrian cities, first proposed by Paolo Soleri.
I wish I could see the rest of that little table. What I can see is quite attractive.
My idea of a future city is one which is self-sustainable. Power, water, waste, food, transportation, everything for the city begins and ends it lifecycle within the city.
This necessarily changes some of the basic concepts and ideas of what a city would look like and how it functions.
Eradicate hunger in America, esp children. America has a few blemishes, and one of the biggest is our wealthy country's hunger problem. We should also continue to support and build on work being done in the schools to teach children to make better choices in food. And, then the collective "we" need to make that food more available.
We need to find a way to encourage local farmers to help with that, perhaps through school programs designed for just such a purpose?
I would like to see an accepted model for adding and compensating for infrastructure development. Currently we do not properly adjust the net worth of nations to reflect their increased capabilities. The current credit rating agencies are clearly manipulating value assesments for their own purposes.
Agreed....their greed is going to ruin us, unless we take a stand against it.
Quality infrastructure with maintenance/replacement irreversibly budgeted in. Investment in infrastructure should never be a political decision.
Make use of city vacancies --
I would like to see vacant properties/foreclosed properties turned into housing for the homeless and poor. I would like to see vacant lots turned into gardens to raise food for city residents I would like to see vacant offices turned into workspace for startups.
Urban Farming! Yes! Catherine Ferguson Acedemy was visionary. Also in the William Gibson novel Count Zero, aqua-culture, hydroponics + shrimp and catfish farming were worked into a project heating and cooling system. Cool!
My wish for the future City would be to make them more pedestrian friendly. More green spaces and green roofs. Urban/community gardens that communities use to feed the poor and homeless. And more support for Co-Ops.
I'd like to see much more highrise farming!
I'd like to see much more trees and yearly green plants being added to our highways, especially the hemp plant, because it eats pollution like candy.
Rooftop Gardens and rooftop beehives, public parks that are well maintained, a city market area similar to farmer's markets, but held daily.
Charter Schools.
Reliable, efficient, sustainable public transportation, fewer roads and cars.
Transportation that runs on compressed air.
What about having local automakers get into making the cars that run off of compressed air?
And can we stop paying farmers NOT to PLANT crops, and actually pay them for the diversity of food that they can be growing!
Yes...that kinda seems like a duh, doesn't it??
"Common sense" - it isn't that "common" anymore.....
I must say that I, too, like the table and was curious about it...
But having lived in Manhattan for 14 years, nearly two decades ago, and having walked more then than I ever have before or since: ...more green space and pedestrian walking space; less space used for individual transportation...larger population automatically translates to less living space per person so public green will be necessary. Also, put some school buildings IN the greenspaces, built to BE green and efficient and to blend in with green so kids will always have an understanding of their own relationship to the urban environment.
Need lots of green space in the city - no extreme highrises...
Need lots of green space in the city - no extreme highrises...shops, galleries, and grocery stores within walking distance. Bike routes...no private vehicles within the city limits...garages for private vehicles on the outskirts. Public transportation, cabs and bikes only inside the city
"...pneumatic tubes...." I rise to second the coolness status of the technology. Thank you....
I would like my city to be Corporate free. United in caring for one another equally. Former Fox contributors, Koch Brother buddies, or silver spoon fed out of touch politicians would not be allowed..Oh ya, and free beer on Fridays.
As John (Aristotle) Lennon said: All you need is eudaimonia.
It would include a Tesla Wardenclyffe Tower for wireless power and communications.
I want a 100% self sustaining city located on the Moon.
I believe that meets all the points listed for City 2.0
I would like to see the following.
Each item from 1 to 4 has a positive return on investment. More tax is collected during a lifetime than the cost for government subsidy - so government actually runs a profit on each of these government subsidies.
Item 2 needs to be linked with item 7. Health care costs average 15% of total lifetime income right now and double each 10 years. This is due to physician shortage (in part). That will bankrupt the US if nothing changes. Medical school satellite campuses need to be opened in counties with population over 250,000. Medical students require hands-on clinical experience as part of their education, and there is no better way to get that experience than to utilize schools to provide that service.
Items 5 and 6 are needed to improve air quality and national security. Item 5 requires a re-think on employment law. Item 6 reduces oil import requirements and justification for war.
Items 7 to 9 are because human beings represent the true value of the US economy, and this resource needs to be used efficiently and treated with dignity.