In the light of our PerfectCity Charter we want to start the new issue. Therefore a new poll is online focussing on economic environment. Please vote for the most important facets and aspects of this issue shaping the city of the future. We are interested in the following question: Which factors define the economic environment for you the most? What do you think is most important about the economic environment in the City of The Future?

You can cast your votes in the sidebar by distributing 100 points between the following factors which are listed in a random order:

• Geographic advantages
• Industry / Industrial foundation
• Investment environment
• Tourism
• Working environment
• Unemployment rate
• Demographic structure
• Employee structure
• Tax policy
• Market segmentation

This poll will be online until the end of May. Please take a few seconds to cast your votes.
We look forward to your votes!

According to the “World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision” by the United Nations the number of mega-cities had increased to 20 in 2005 and it was projected that there will be 22 mega-cities in 2015. A mega-city is usually defined as a metropolitan area with a total population in excess of 10 million people. The world is getting urban – everywhere. Since 2007 the number of people living in cities is the same as the number of people living in rural areas. Currently, the urbanization has reached its peak speeds in parts of Asia and Africa. New mega-cities like Mumbai with 14 and Shanghai with 18 million people are signs for this progressive urbanization.

What are the opportunities and risks, what possibilities are offered by mega-cites? With a portrait of the Japanese city Oskaka-Kobe we want to focus on an Asian mega-city to open up reasons and positions of the urbanization. [read more...]

In the light of our PerfectCity Charter a new issue is coming up. This time the focus lies on the economic environment of a city.  When we talk about the issue we mean the following: The economic environment of a city represents the external conditions under which people are engaged in, and benefit from, economic activity that includes aspects of paid employment and household finances. The indicators of the economic environment measure the ability of households to access goods and services important to quality of life. It includes aspects of paid employment, economic status and finances.

To see what is important for a city in terms of the economic environment we composed a list of different factors. Please help us to evaluate these factors before we put them in the new poll and let our reader vote for them. [read more...]

Regarding our PerfectCity Charter our current poll on environmental conditions and sustainability closes next week. As long as the poll is still active we like to invite you to vote for the most defining factors of environmental conditions and sustainability. From now on you still have got a few days to participate. Please take a minute to do so.

The next issue will be economic environment. By presenting a list of relevant factors of this issue to you we are looking forward to your ideas and proposals on the integral parts. Besides sending your ideas you can vote on that as soon as possible. 

We are looking forward to your comments and ideas.

During the last six weeks we published all of our “Post and Win” winner’s survey submissions. We hope you enjoyed the different opinion on arenas in and around our cities from PerfectCity readers from all over the world like we did. And once again, we would like to thank everyone who has attended our survey.

We are looking forward to other interesting interviews, projects and contests on PerfectCity.net to get our readers involved. If you have any suggestion or annotations don’t hesitate to contact us in the comments or via email.

Which infrastructural improvements do you anticipate for the districts, in which such arenas are going to be built?

Less infrastructure. More on site sustainability. More functional off grid built space.

Which personal benefits could be a result, in your opinion, from potential changes in social structure and job market situation?

Individual and community independence. Live and work.

In how far does a new arena change the skyline of a city? Do you know any example personally?

The skyline i see does not extend above the canopy. I see most of the built space in the US to become non functional in the next thirty years minus discovery of new energy source equal to oil.

PerfectCity is currently present at the 2. Deutscher Kongress Kommunale Liegenschaften in Düsseldorf, Germany. For that occasion we developed a special questionnaire for people who work for a city in a department of the city council.  As always your contribution can be published on PerfectCity if you want. As the congress is in Germany we prepared the questions both in English and German. Please feel free to anwser them even if you are not currently in Düsseldorf.

If you want to take the User Interview please feel free to follow the link in the sidebar to your right and anwser six questions about your work for your city.

We are looking forward to your interviews and comments.

Ever since our cities became areas of continuous interaction and ever-expanding exchange the term “exotic” – understood as counterpart to the “local”, the “native” or even the “authentic” – has become a rather vague term. Who – in actual fact – is still able to distinguish between the one and the other, between the exotic and the local? Who would be interested anyway? Yet, once again, there seems to be an increasing fascination with, and interest in, importing and seeing certain urban elements from other parts of the world in our own cities. There are, apparently, more Japanese people visiting the fake Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas than the original in Paris. What makes this displacement so interesting today?

The fascination with the “exotic” and its appearance in our cities has a long history, although at first merely going in one direction: from the “West” to the “East”. Interest in the exotic by the Western World was first stimulated by trade with the Eastern World back in the 16th century. But right from the start there has always been this intriguing contradiction in the term “exotic” as being on the one hand associated with fantasies of opulence and barbaric splendour, yet on the other hand considered as integer, uncorrupted and tasteful. The charm of the unfamiliar with its thrill of menace hasn’t lost its attraction even today and has been turned into a global phenomenon that can no longer be discussed within the narrow-minded Orient – Occident dialectic. These days, all kinds of foreign urban elements evoke the atmosphere of far-off lands all over the world. A finish sauna can be as exotic in Sao Paulo as Islamic ornamental motifs on a building in New York City. [read more...]

These days everyone is talking about the current environment problems and how to solve them. Everyone is advised to behave in an earth friendly way. Actually you can find a “Combating Global Warming Mind Map” which outlines approaches to solving Global Warming. The focus is on doing something.