ABSTRACT
Cities have long been blamed for many human failings. Data presented in earlier chapters showed the close association between urbanization and economic growth and the fact that urbanization is not 'out of control'; it also showed the high concentration of the world's largest cities in the world's largest economies. Many cities or particular city districts demonstrate how cities can provide healthy, stimulating and valued housing and living environments for their inhabitants without imposing unsustainable demands on natural resources and ecosystems. Cities are also places in which the 'social economy' has developed most, and where it must prosper, only for the benefits it brings to each street or neighbourhood but also for the economic and social costs it saves the wider society. Cities have the potential to combine safe and healthy living conditions and culturally rich and enjoyable lifestyles with remarkably low levels of energy consumption, resource-use and wastes.
