Urban civilizations continue to evolve and history is testimony that great civilizations have crumbled either due to the onslaught of natural disasters or gradual shift in economic trends. Environmental Graffiti, a blog with an eclectic mix of the most bizarre, funny and interesting environmental news on the planet, takes a look at such cities in the United States that may be endangered. News editor Ben Ray explores cities, which in the distant future could be reclaimed by nature. Like before, climate change and changing economies continue to influence the state of our cities.

In the latest article on Lost Cities of the Future, five American cities were listed. According to Ben Ray, these cities are:

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One factor of the current poll is “Gardening and landscaping”, which is defined as maintenance of public green areas. It also means creating and building new public green areas and there is an interesting project to find in New York City: A defunct stretch of railroad on the Far West Side of Manhattan is destined to become a park in the sky.

The High Line is an abandoned 2.33 km (1.45 mile) section of the former elevated freight railroad of the West Side Line, along the lower west side of New York City borough of Manhattan between located in the West Village. The High Line was built in the early 1930s by the New York Central and has been unused by freight service since 1980. It is in a state of disrepair, although the elevated structure is basically sound. Wild grass and plants grow along most of the route.

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As we have reported, we are very much interested into city rankings. Now, another one caught our attention. This time we found a ranking by monthly general interest family magazine Reader’s Digest. Although this ranking is two years old we would like to present it to you because it raises controversy.

In July 2006, Reader’s Digest published an investigation on the courtesy of 35 cities. They sent two undercover reporters, a man and a woman, from Reader’s Digest editions in 35 countries to assess the citizens of their most populous city. In each location they conducted three tests:

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In the light of our PerfectCity Charter Issue No. 5 Social Services, we would like to focus on one factor of our current poll: Refuse management. Mainly, we are interested in future solutions of coping with waste, which direct leads to questions like “How will future waste disposal look like?”, “What are alternatives to conventional waste disposals?”, ect..

Pollution problems resulting from the disposal of human waste are a well-known phenomena these days. In times of an ever growing world population and the concentration of this growth in urban centers, waste is produced in excessive amounts. Our conventional waste disposals are almost cramped and overstrained to handle all this waste. New ideas are needed!

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We have closed our poll on economic environment and we would like thank everyone who has voted for the factors in our poll. Now, we would like to present the summarized results to you:

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FDi magazine, a news and foreign direct investment publication owned by The Financial Times Business Group, has a interesting section called “Locations of the future”. In this section they published future predictions for almost every region across the world.

The magazine’s "Cities, Regions and Countries of the Future" competition has been running for five years. Using a process similar to that used by the decision makers who decide the location of large-scale corporate investment projects, fDi magazine has created its own short list of the locations most suited for inward investment. These cities, regions and countries have the basics in place to flourish in the next few years by attracting high levels of inward investment. The magazine creates its short list by asking locations to provide key data and qualitative information in much the same way an investor might approach locations during the screening process used to decide which locations are suitable for new capital investment projects. fDi’s Locations of the Future competition covers each region once every two years.

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Regarding our PerfectCity Charter it is time for a new issue. Therefore, a new poll is online focussing on social services. 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 social services for you the most? What do you think is most important about social services 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:

• Health care
• Education
• Security service
• Road and building maintenance
• Refuse management
• Gardening and landscaping
• Social security

This poll will be online until the end of August. Please take a few seconds to cast your votes. If you have any questions concerning these factors, please do not hesitate to ask in the comments.

We look forward to your votes!

While I was participating in The European Sustainability Summit in May in Berlin, I was listening to a very interesting keynote speech by Sir David A. King. That speech was on “Climate Change and the Built Environment”, and King, as the Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford and former UK Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Government Office of Science, was introducing the Foresight sustainable energy management an the built environment project.

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Today it is popular to create city ranking corning very different aspects. We appreciate the interest into this topic very much. Now, Monocle magazine will publish the 2008 edition of the 20 Most Livable Cities index in their July/August issue. Monocle’s unique ranking goes beyond the usual metrics that only look at housing costs and schools to include the possibility of getting a good glass of wine at one in the morning, the quality of new architecture, the ease of setting up a business and even the number of cinema screens. They write “Months of good-natured, frequently late-night and jetlagged debate have produced Monocle’s definitive (and just a little subjective) guide to the world’s most liveable cities. Correspondents were dispatched worldwide to assess the cities. The entire issue is devoted to the concerns, forces, people and policies that make our cities work.”

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