The DNA of Cities?

The world is surging towards peak urbanisation. By 2080, there will be 10 billion people living in 10,000 cities. Cities matter to our human and planetary future. Understanding how they succeed and why they fail is a frontier of discovery. There are common factors across many cities: planning, investment, services and leadership. But every city is unique and any effort to diagnose or improve city performance needs to address the questions: 
 

• Why is this city here? What makes it the city that it is?

And if we can do that, we may be able to address other imperatives:
 

• What future could this city have?

• How might this city respond to shocks?

• What should this city prioritise?

• How could this city communicate better?

We call this The DNA of Cities.