Flipping Book | 110 years of future | Salini Impregilo Library

115 114 For a long time, broadly accepted measures of prosperity were based on income or wealth levels, but nowadays quality of life is considered as or even more important than pure material wellbeing. There are many studies to calculate this and they recognize that, while quality of life may mean dif- ferent things to different people, some features are universally appreciated. They typically encompass a sense of socioeconomic security alongside the fulfillment of other non-material needs and aspira- tions, such as health and education, as well as a dense network of social relations and community life. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s where-to-be- born index , based on both subjective life-satisfac- tion (as expressed through surveys) and objective dimensions of a healthy, safe and prosperous life, seems particularly interesting. The 2013 results were pretty unequivocal — the six top countries that provide the best opportunities in the years ahead are all in Europe (excluding Australia) and include Scandinavian countries, Italy and Switzerland, which tops the ranking. Good infrastructure also plays an important role in these comparisons, especially when it supports easy mobility and sustainable urbanization. In any given country, large metropolitan areas, even if they typically contain only a minority of overall population, are powerhouses of the economy, the locations where the bulk of GDP is produced. True, most urban commuters may regret the absence of physical space between people that characteriz- es cities, but in aggregate terms the benefits of being close to each other far outweigh the incon- veniences. Harvard Professor Edward Glaeser has calculated that the countries in which over 50% of the population lives in urban areas have incomes five times higher and infant mortality three times lower than countries that are below that level. When it comes to fostering human innovation, no amount of internet connectivity can diminish the importance of face-to-face contacts. And, with all due respect to Gandhi, he was deeply wrong when he said “the future of India lies in its villages, not in its cities.” At the political level, cities are veritable laboratories of social change of sufficient scale to bring about meaningful actions. More than half of humanity now lives in cities, and it is been incredibly successful. On a glob- Europe. City, Mobility, Quality of Life al level, the 50 largest cities alone have a com- bined 2010 GDP of $9.6 trillion, more than all of China, and second only to the entire U.S. economy. And in fact one reason why Europe be- came rich earlier than the rest and now occupies the top spots in quality-of-life rankings is early and massive urbanization. Estimates vary and are im- precise by definition, but in ancient times Athens, Syracuse and Rome had populations hovering around 1 million souls, a threshold that London probably only reached after the Napoleonic Wars. In each case it is easy to discern a pattern going from top-quality urban mobility — networks of transportation facilities and services that main- tain the flow of people and commerce to, from and within cities — and other amenities promot- ing fast urbanization and even faster economic growth. There are downsides to urban centers, and cit- ies have been battling them for centuries — over- crowded, filthy slums, inadequate housing, high infant mortality, and appalling working conditions were the rule in Dickensian England. And yet the history of urban Europe is rich with rags-to-riches Athens, Greece, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center on the left