Cities of the Future

The mega-cities of the nearest future are either hubs of innovation and creativity, as outlined by Richard Florida at the Aspen Ideas Festival), or overrun slums without electricity, transit access to center city, running water and the most basic urban services.

Or maybe they are both? 

Check out the forthcoming The Misfit Economy: Innovation on the Fringe by Alexa Clay and Kyra Maya Phillips (www.misfiteconomy.com)

Capetown photo by Kyra Maya Phillips, co-author with Alexa Clay of the forthcoming
The Misfit Economy: Innovation on the Fringe

Florida has a fascinating project that seeks to assess economic development not through conventional surveys and data collection that lead to traditional computations of GDP, but rather through satellite imagery and calculations of energy use as derived from light emissions seen from space at night.

While intriguing, Florida acknowledges key shortcomings in his innovative approach. I asked him about these yesterday.