CITIES

Global warming, drought, migration and population growth have put our cities under heavy strain. Cities have a significant impact on climate change: It’s estimated that urban areas are responsible for 75 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. If the majority of the world’s population is living in cities, and urban dwellers’ activities have such a large environmental impact, it stands to reason that cities must be implement solutions.

As numbers of megacities grow and more and more people move into cities from rural areas, every city should prioritize three issues that have great impact on the quality of urban life: mobility, sustainability and socio-diversity.

A healthy city is an integrated structure of life, work and movement. It requires urban design that respects land and its ecosystem: the topography, bodies of water and vegetation. Although more efficient and energy-saving construction techniques and materials are important, it is a city’s layout that make the biggest difference in creating a more sustainable urban environment. The layout is the city’s structure of organization and growth.

Cities that are facing such significant transformation can use FLUX Festival as an event to influence and condition citizens for the coming era and more importantly give them the possibility to become part of it.

Cities must offer hope, not desperation. A sense of shared identity, the feeling of recognition and of belonging to a specific place, improves quality of life. A city must provide reference points to which people can relate and connect — rivers, parks, public buildings. Such spaces tell stories and protect memories, much like a diary or a family portrait and FLUX will bring some more colour to those memories.