City-Level Decoupling-Full Report

1930s through to the post-World War II period, including the Marshall Plan in Europe, as the investments that 'resolved' the 1929–1933 economic crisis and paved the way for the post- WWII long-term development cycle. In much the same way, in 20-30 years researchers may look back and regognize that the debt-based investments that helped 'resolve' the crisis that began in 2007 were, in fact, investments in networked urban infrastructures such as using 'Web 2.0'-type information and communications technologies (ICTs) as their operating systems (for instance, smart grids, telecommuting, virtual shopping, remotely controlled intelligence systems, and digitalisation). Retooling the world’s cities for the next long-term development cycle is emerging as a key strategic opportunity for many investors.

climate change] through transformational investment and innovation that has the potential to make the opportunity from intervention so credible. ‘Green' investment is also large-scale and offers potentially profitable markets for decades. It can therefore leverage in serious private money. As a result, much of this private investment should be additive (rather than displaced from elsewhere), helping to break out of the deflationary confidence spiral, much as Roosevelt’s New Deal did in the United States from 1933.” 76 Thus future investments in sustainability- oriented urban infrastructures have two primary drivers: the economic demand for

The key question is what kind of networked urban infrastructures will be built?

Will cities be designed for sustainable socio-

ecological metabolisms, or will they continue to draw down nature’s resources and ecosystems? Will they reinforce the stark techno- apartheid that is splintering cities around the world or will they create the basis for greater equity, reduced levels of poverty and greater opportunities to build a sense of community? Will more sustainable modes of resource use reinforce

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or undermine the search for greater equity and a sense of place? And will infrastructure designs and investments take into account the changing nature of urbanisation patterns in response to the rising cost and changing flow of resources through cities? In other words, will infrastructure investments ’sink in concrete' urbanisation and settlement patterns that may well be superseded by patterns of urban development that are still to emerge in highly unpredictable ways? This, in turn, may suggest modular approaches that apply the flexible specialisation pioneered in the

more viable urban infrastructures as the second urbanisation wave takes its course, and the ecological demand for more sustainable use of natural resources (both sources and sinks). If the necessary policy frameworks can be put in place to provide greater certainty for investors, investment rather than fiscal or monetary interventions could well bring the global economic crisis to an end. Economists look back on the investments in automobiles, roads, petro-chemicals and mass production systems made from the

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