With all the ben­e­fits cities bring to their inhab­i­tants there are also numer­ous draw­backs; draw­backs that could, if not accounted for and stud­ied, spell the end of cities as we cur­rently know them. That’s the view of Geof­frey West—president of the Santa Fe Insti­tute—as he dis­cusses what needs to be done to safe­guard the future of our cities as sus­tain­able, inno­v­a­tive cen­tres of pop­u­la­tion .

Cities have tra­di­tion­ally been — and con­tinue to be — cru­cibles for cre­ativ­ity, inno­va­tion, and wealth; as such, their extra­or­di­nary growth is often asso­ci­ated with a rapid rise in liv­ing stan­dards, pros­per­ity, and qual­ity of life. […]

How­ever, the dark side of urban life man­i­fests an anal­o­gous “super­lin­ear” behav­ior. Dou­bling the size of a city increases wealth and inno­va­tion by about 15 per­cent, but it also increases the amount of crime, pol­lu­tion, and dis­ease by roughly the same amount. Appar­ently, the good and the ugly come hand in glove, an inte­grated, almost pre­dictable, package.