us about the lingering effects of air pollution and the disastrous human cost.
Ken Livingstone served as the Mayor of London from 2000 to 2007 and implemented a series of innovative measures in the city, including improved public transport and priority bus corridors. His most recognized initiatives, however, were a congestion charging policy and a Low Emission Zone. High-polluting vehicles pay a fee to come into the city, and all drivers (with valid exceptions) pay a specific congestion fee to access the central part of the city, creating space on city streets, redirecting the demand to drive elsewhere in the city to other modes of transport, and reducing carbon emissions. It is a policy that has inspired cities around the world, with New York and Milan adopting similar measures.28 It also serves to illustrate perfectly how cities, which hold 50% of the world’s population, are uniquely positioned, as well as having a unique responsibility, to tackle the climate crisis head on.
The lesson of how London implemented a largely unpopular set of measures is testament to its ability to listen to the plight of its citizens, respect the data, and above all to recognize the greater good for the city and be tenacious in putting it in place.
Given the lessons from 1665 London through to modern London, it can be argued that the Grenfell fire should never have happened. However, I am confident that London will apply the lessons from this tragedy to avoid such an event happening again.
Jerusalem
The holiest place in Judaism is Temple Mount in Jerusalem where the last remnant of the Second Temple, the outer Western Wall, stands. Each year, thousands of people, of all faiths and levels of religious observance, flock to the Western Wall (also referred to as the Wailing Wall) to pray, sight-see, and hopefully learn for themselves the incredible story behind this site.
The Western Wall is the last remnant of the Second Temple, meaning that before the Second Temple there was also a First Temple. The First Temple was built in 1000 BCE by King Solomon in the years after King David conquered Jerusalem and made it his capital, but the city was captured by the Babylonians and the Temple was then destroyed in 586 BCE.29 In 538 BCE, the Jews returned from their exile to Jerusalem, and by 515 BCE they had built the Second Temple. The Second Temple spanned three significant historical periods: the Persian period, the Hellenistic period, and, finally, the Roman period.30 During the Roman period it was eventually destroyed by Titus, along with the city of Jerusalem. Jewish tradition tells us that both temples were destroyed on the Ninth of Av on the Jewish calendar (usually July or August on the Gregorian calendar). Every year the destructions are commemorated by a day of mourning called Tisha B’Av.
Nowadays, the Western Wall is all that remains, and it stands at Temple Mount alongside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, and the gold-topped Dome of the Rock, one of the most famous symbols of Jerusalem. It is also in close proximity to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, synagogues, and mosques. The site has become the seat of the three Abrahamic faiths – Judaism, Islam, and Christianity – and a symbol of a diverse, tolerant, and international city (Figure 2.5).
Figure 2.5 Jerusalem, the only city to exist twice – in heaven and on Earth. (Source: Josef/Adobe Stock)
This architectural palimpsest tells the extraordinary story of Jerusalem through a single structure. The cycle of destruction and reconstruction, of survival and preservation, is inherently hopeful and inspirational to the cities of today. Jerusalem is a resilient city. The city employs strict security, and behavioural measures are taken to protect the integrity of Temple Mount. The site itself has also proved helpful in attracting tourism, with it often being listed on various “Top Ten” things to do in Jerusalem, which by extension has provided economic benefits to the city.
In recent years the Western Wall has also become the place of social action on the subject of women’s equality. For many years, ultra-orthodox men opposed women praying at the Wall, sometimes going as far as violently dispersing dedicated women’s prayer services. The Wall itself is split into two sections. The larger section is dedicated for men, and the second, much smaller, section is dedicated for women’s prayer. An advocacy group called Women of the Wall was founded, and in 2016, the Israeli government approved the creation of an egalitarian prayer space where non-Orthodox men and women could pray at the Wall31 – a clear victory in the fight towards equality.
Jerusalem is the template for multifaith living in a small urban space, a place that has learned to be tolerant but has had to move with the times and be inclusive to all.
Eco-cities
Dongtan, Shanghai
In 2005, the Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation (SIIC) hired Arup, a design, engineering, and business consultancy firm, to design and plan a city that could bring increased sustainability to a region suffering with overcrowding and pollution. The result was Dongtan eco-city. Dongtan was conceived as a futuristic model for low-rise suburbs, accommodating spillover from the big cities and China’s growing middle class. It was to be a carbon neutral and zero waste city, with a myriad of renewable energy systems; it would ban cars, recycle water, and surround itself with organic farms and forests.32
It failed for a number of reasons:
The project stalled in 2006 after key officials, most significantly Shanghai’s top bureaucrat Chen Liangyu, were arrested for bribery and fraudulent real-estate transactions and given long prison sentences.
Dongtan’s planners failed to comply with government land-use policy.
Built on Chongming Island in the Yangtze delta, many of the people originally living there were displaced, calling into question ethical standards.
During this time, Chongming county officials were able to outpace the SIIC and proceeded to confiscate farmland, relocate peasants, and invest in infrastructure.
In her book Fantasy Islands 33 Julie Sze, whose father hails from Chongming Island, argues that Dongtan failed due to not just corrupt officials but also the failure to take into account how “technology, engineering and politics are intimately woven together”.34 According to Sze, ambitious green projects, engineered “ectopia”, have become symbols of technological excess that have overshadowed smaller more effective steps that can sustain environmental improvements.35
To succeed, it is clear that these ambitious projects cannot be sustained by political structures alone but require individual citizens who must themselves be part of the plans. This may also teach us the desire for incremental change as a means of grasping new realities more easily rather than radical new approaches that make people who have to accept the change nervous.
Masdar, UAE
First conceived of in 2006, Masdar promised to be the world’s first planned sustainable city and spearheaded the plan to diversify the UAE’s economy from fossil fuels to green energy. Developers envisioned a city of 50,000 residents and 40,000 commuters from Abu Dhabi.36 It would be powered by renewable energy with driverless electric vehicles, water recycling, argon-insulated buildings, and wind towers.37
Masdar suffered a major setback due to the 2008 economic crisis, and since then barely any of the city has been developed and it has far exceeded its 2016 completion deadline, with it not predicted to have finished construction by 2030.38 Despite its claims of embodying
