What Colour is your Building?

Foreword

Cities are powerful engines of productivity. But they face enormous challenges from shiffing demographics, the demand to reduce dependence on commodities, a changing climate, and the need to create an environment conducive to the improvement of human well-being.

Globally, there will be a continuing rural to urban shiff of the population over the coming half-century. While the global population is in the process of stabilising, and is likely to level out at 9 billion by mid-century, the explosion of middle-class consumers, (those who spend between $10 and $100 a day) is unprecedented. At the turn-of-the-century there were around 1 billion middle class members of the global population. Now, just 13 years later, the number has doubled ...