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  • Alice: Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I'm Alice.

  • Neil: And I'm Neil.

  • Alice: Have you ever played SimCity, Neil? the city-building computer game.

  • Neil: Yes, but I wasn't very good at it.

  • I didn't build enough houses, which created a lot of homeless Sims

  • those are the characters in the game.

  • And then I didn't deal effectively with a flood.

  • Alice: Really? Well, I suppose managing a city is quite a challenge

  • which is the subject of today's show: cities of the future

  • an important subject as so many of us now live in urban areas.

  • I want to start with our quiz question:

  • What is the percentage of the world's population that will be living in cities in 2050?

  • We're dealing with approximates here. Is it... a) 10%?

  • b) 50%? Or c) 70%?

  • Neil: I think that it's a) 10%.

  • Alice: Well, we'll find out if you're right or wrong later on in the show.

  • Now, you've encountered a couple of issues that might face urban planners when designing a city, Neil

  • housing and dealing with a flood.

  • Can you think of any others?

  • Neil: Yes. Having decent cycle lanes. Good transport networks are very important.

  • Alice: Yes indeed, and if people could get around easily on foot, or by bike, or by public transport,

  • roads would be less congestedor overcrowdedand less polluted.

  • That sounds rather utopian to me though.

  • Neil: A utopia is an imaginary place where everything is perfect.

  • But Copenhagen is pretty utopian, Alice

  • the air is clean, there are bike lanes everywhere.

  • Alice: That sounds fantastic, but what about somewhere like Beijing with its constant smog

  • or air pollution hanging over the city?

  • A lot of people ride bikes there too. So which city is going to be the model for the future?

  • Neil: Maybe like the future Los Angeles in the movie Blade Runner

  • you know, glittering high-rises, gigantic neon billboards, flying cars...

  • Alice: Well, today's Los Angeles has terrible urban sprawl and traffic problems.

  • Neil: Urban sprawl is the way a city spreads into undeveloped land around it,

  • often without planning permission.

  • Alice: Dr Janice Pearlman can explain why this happens.

  • She is the founder and president of the Megacities Project non-profit organization in Rio de Janeiro

  • and knows a lot about urban sprawl in Brazilian cities.

  • Dr Janice Pearlman: People are coming massively into the cities which have no housing

  • that's affordable to them.

  • So they can't rent and they can't buy, and they end up building their own

  • communities and houses on unoccupied land.

  • And these communities are becoming in some places the majority not the minority

  • and they're off the grid so they're not often serviced by either the social services

  • but also many of them don't have water, sanitation and electricity.

  • Neil: People migrateor movefrom the countryside to the city to get better

  • opportunities, but end up with nowhere to live.

  • Alice: So they build their own housing on unoccupied land.

  • These shanty townspoor communities where the houses are built out of cheap materials

  • like corrugated iron and plastic sheetingare often off the grid...

  • Neil: Which means they don't have an electricity or water supplyor access to healthcare and education.

  • And these communities are growing, so the problem is getting bigger.

  • So are there any solutions, Alice?

  • Alice: Well, it's all about improving the infrastructure.

  • That's the basic facilities a town or city needs, for example: communication, transport, water, and electricity.

  • But this shouldn't only mean improving housing conditions, but also promoting education and

  • employment among the inhabitants, and building better communities.

  • Neil: That sounds like a real headache for the urban planners.

  • Alice: You're right there.

  • And one thing urban planners are talking about at the moment is creating 'smart cities'.

  • John Rossant, founder and chairman of the non-profit organisation New Cities Foundation, explains what it is.

  • John Rossant: I think, you know, generally it's accepted that cloud computing, ubiquitous internet,

  • robust 5G networks etc, will transform our cities,

  • whether they're in the global south or the developed world.

  • And, you know, technology is really a game changer, I think, in urbanisation.

  • Neil: John Rossant there. What's ubiquitous, Alice?

  • Alice: It means available everywhere.

  • So, the idea behind smart cities is to use technology to collect large amounts of data about how a city is performing.

  • Neil: And that will be a game changersignificantly affecting the way our cities function.

  • Hope for the future, Alice?

  • Alice: Fingers crossed.

  • Now, I think it's time for the answer to today's quiz question, Neil.

  • I asked: What is the percentage of the world's population that will be living in cities in 2050?

  • And remember I said we are dealing with approximates here? Is it... a) 10%? b) 50%? Or c) 70%?

  • Neil: And I said a) 10%.

  • Alice: Yes, and you underestimated there, Neil.

  • The right answer is actually c) 70%.

  • This, according to a report by the United Nations.

  • Today 54% of the world's population lives in urban areas.

  • Neil: A lot really!

  • Alice: Yeah.

  • Neil: Well, I know we're running out of time, so let me repeat the words we learned today.

  • They were:

  • congested

  • utopia

  • smog

  • urban sprawl

  • migrate

  • shanty towns

  • off the grid

  • infrastructure

  • ubiquitous

  • game changer

  • Alice: Well, that's the end of this edition of 6 Minute English. Join us again soon!

  • Meanwhile, visit our website: bbclearningenglish.com, where you'll find guides to grammar, exercises,

  • videos and articles to read and improve your English.

  • Both: Bye!

Alice: Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I'm Alice.

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