In 1922 Le Corbusier presented its proposal for a city of three million Inhabitants, this “Ville Radieuse” it has been since then in the debate of the models of organization of the western city, its separation of functions has been criticized, and the dehumanization of the new cities created from its influence. And since then they have been elaborated propose more human and sustainable, even so, our contemporary city looks like to hers but without order, with towers of offices of glass and houses in buildings of high blocks, surrounded by fields of grass with curvilinear ways. Le Corbusier settled down a precedent against the overcrowding, the unhealthiness and the plot of the city fragmentary, organic, and uncontrolled. When 100 years of these reflections are being marked, few people put attention to the urbanization processes that are generating establishments of million people organized without model nor control, these “informal cities” will be populated with the planet in few decades and their social organization very different from the western models.

Robert Neuwirth spent two years living in squatter cities on four continents to research his book Shadow Cities. He captures the shantytowns where a billion people live now, and where three millions (a third of humanity) are expected to be living by 2050.

Rural villages worldwide are being deserted, as billions of people flock to cities to live in teeming squatter camps and slums. Stewart Brand says this is a good thing. Why? It’ll take you 3 minutes to find out…

Since the counterculture Sixties, Stewart Brand has been a critical thinker and innovator who helped lay the foundations of our internetworked world. Founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, cofounder of the Well and the Long Now Foundation, writer, editor and game designer, Stewart Brand has helped to define the collaborative, data-sharing, forward-thinking world we live in now.

City, emigration, empty village, informal city, inhabit, neighbourhood, Roberto Neuwirth, rural villages, slums, squatter camp, Stewart Brand, urban sustainability