Paper short abstract:

For the first time in history, humanity is an urban species. Historically, cities have been incubators of wealth spurred by growth in production and trade, but millions of new urbanites are poor, overwhelming cities with the challenges of building for a rapidly expanding population.

Paper long abstract:

For the first time in history, humanity is an urban species. Historically, cities have been incubators of wealth spurred by growth in production and trade, but millions of new urbanites are poor, overwhelming cities with the challenges of building and managing sustainable material, administrative, and social infrastructures for a rapidly expanding population. Will urban century cities become sprawling cesspools of destitution and despair or catalysts of dynamic, inclusive wealth creation for the flourishing of humanity and the planet? While the burden of industrial urbanization weighs most heavily on the poorest nations, it is the wealthier nations, cities, and companies -- that hold the levers of power shaping the future of cities throughout the world. We have created the Livable Cities Index for multisector stakeholders to collaborate in exercising power responsibly with humanity in mind.

The Livable Cities Index integrates the ten elements of the Sen/Nussbaum capabilities approach with the UN-HABITAT social, environmental, and economic sustainability framework to place human beings at the center of a basic architecture of factors that characterize a livable city. This framework is applied to create the Livable Cities Index as a tool designed to assist business, civic, and public sector leaders in promoting livable cities in public discourse, policy, practice, and civic conscience throughout the world.

The time is right for US business to pivot and focus its global leadership role on urban livability as the key to a sustainable future for humanity and the planet. This assertion is based on four factors (not necessarily in this order).

LIVABLE CITIES 2

1)

The New Urban Agenda (articulating the values, principles and goals we support in the Livable Cities Index) is a culmination of decades of multilateral, multisector effort to focus development on urban sustainability for the future of humanity and the planet;

2)

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is a platform for generating the kind of knowledge, technology, and products that synergize wealth creation, human development, and sustainability. Ambivalence about “saving the world” through a new era of business is spurring public accountability for the social and environmental impact of business.

3)

The “shareholder growth machine” is widely perceived as no longer viable and is actually part of the non-sustainability problem. The 2019 Business Roundtable Statement and growth of ESG investing – despite recent challenges has changed the business climate away from glorifying greed and towards creating wealth for the flourishing of humanity and the planet.