Cities are shaping people's lives in the 21st century. They house our governments, drive our economies and determine an ever greater part of our daily lives. By 2050, 70% of the world's population is expected to live in cities. Cities are also important arenas in our fight against climate change. They cause pollution and influence temperatures and rainfall, but are also vulnerable to increasingly frequent natural hazards. It is in cities that a crucial part of the battle for humanity's future sustainability will be won or lost.
However, cities are not a new phenomenon. They have been around for almost 6,000 years. Yet the remnants of this urban past are often treated as either passive legacies, anecdotal curiosities or metaphors of doom should we continue to 'overuse' our environment. However, this talk argues that they can say something more tangible, more practical and indeed more useful about our lives in the present and how we might try to shape our urban futures.
Drawing on the latest research from the fields of archaeology, history, paleoecology and computational methods, this talk will explore how we can use the past to understand local, regional and even global urban developments. We will explore whether there are underlying similarities in urban dynamics, how major climatic and socioeconomic changes have disrupted urban life, and whether we can find pathways to urban resilience. We will see that many answers lie beyond what we think of as 'urban', emphasizing the continuing need to consider cities in their larger networks, landscapes and land use interactions.