My alma mater, the EPFL, publishes the magazine Reflex, which is free for alumni.  I usually read it, slowly and in chunks, on lunch breaks when I stay at work.  Recently I finished the March 2013 issue, which focused on the science of cities.  One article observed that cities, like organisms, benefit from an economy of scale: double the size of a city, and you’ll add 115% to the GDP, the wage bill, the number of patents and universities, but also to the number of crimes committed, flu cases, and the amount of garbage produced – but you’ll get it all for only 85% extra infrastructure.  (That’s a semi-quote from the article, paraphrasing Geoffrey West from the Santa Fe Institute.)  That explains to a degree why pretty much any restaurant in Tokyo survives: it’s part of the 85% extra infrastructure getting 115% revenue.

What I found more interesting, however, was an article entitled “Seven ideas for future cities,” by Benjamin Bollmann.  These are the ideas he collected:

1. Don’t raze slums: use them as urban laboratories.
2. Attract yuppies to the suburbs – give the suburbs a culture makeover.
3. Build natural barriers to natural disasters (e.g. wetlands against flooding).
4. Spruce up industrial wasteland with gardens.
5. Design for change and adaptability instead of immutable structures.
6. Draw tourists with funky architecture (Bilbão effect).
7. Reduce crime with clever urban planning (“shaping the path”).

Most sound good, if expensive; #6 and #3 might pay for themselves quickly, #4 and #7 more slowly.  I’m not sure what to think of #2: do we really want to urbanize the suburbs?  On the one hand, that might slow urban sprawl, if the suburbs get densified, but if it works, what will happen to the centers?  #5 has me worried that it will counteract the prettification #4 achieves, and #1 – well, I just don’t know enough about slums.  Is misery a fair price for innovation?