Beyond Traditional Practice

The reality is that the human condition is now urban. More of us live in cities than don't. There are some staggering numbers: a North American who lives in a typical suburb has a carbon footprint that is five times that of someone who lives in Manhattan. Five times. The combined population of the world's ten largest cities is in excess of 210 million, which is more than the collective populations of Britain, France and Italy. And take density — in a place like Dhaka there are 118,000 people living per square kilometer (compare that to 31 per sq km in the US). As go cities, so goes the future of the human condition. That's why we've created the AECOM Global Cities Institute.

Cities are today the best vehicles for us to address the complex global challenges of our time. A dense city center is in fact much more ecologically friendly than one might think: city-dwellers use significantly less resources and energy.

When we live closer together and share more spaces and amenities, we lessen our adverse impact on the Earth; economic opportunities and social solidarity increase; and prejudices decline. From this concentration of energy and celebration of diversity, cities can offer a more enriching and inclusive way of life, one more sensitive to maintaining a complex balance of human and natural interests.

Our Institute will address the evolving role of cities and metropolitan regions in realizing positive social, economic and environmental outcomes. It will be an urban laboratory that goes beyond traditional practice. Working closely with our partner cities, we will conduct in-depth analysis of contemporary urban issues, processing data to identify opportunities for potential improvement. Drawing on AECOM's extensive planning, design, engineering and management capabilities, we will challenge preconceptions to better realize changes in support of sustainable growth and regeneration. In each city, we will explore strategic opportunities in a 'city ambitions' report. The report will be focused on areas important to our partner cities, driven by their aspirations for realizing the full potential of their region. The report will provide a centerpiece for a facilitated discussion forum attended by recognized experts, city leaders, academics, business and political leaders to openly discuss the opportunities before them.

We begin with the Arizona Sun Corridor (the rapidly growing mega-region from Phoenix to Tucson) in the U.S., Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Beijing, China. On three separate continents, these three cities offer interesting lessons for the wider urban world. In Jeddah, unplanned settlements challenged by lack of infrastructure are a large concern. In Beijing, the city faces the question of how to use its Olympic legacy.

The Sun Corridor
The concept of "megapolitan areas" has been developed to describe the expansion and merging of metropolitan regions in the United States through the second half of the 20th century as their boundaries blur, creating a new scale of geography. Megapolitan areas are characterized by interlocking economic systems, shared natural resources and ecosystems, and common transportation systems. The Arizona Sun Corridor is one of eleven nationally-defined megapolitans. Greater Phoenix and greater Tucson are its principal metropolitan areas, although the megapolitan is defined as stretching from north of Phoenix (Prescott and central Yavapai County) to south of Tucson (Nogales), and potentially further southward to deep-water ports in the Mexican state of Sonora. In 2005, the entire area had a population of five million people; the projected 2040 population is more than ten million.

As this mega-region finds it place in the global economy, it will face many challenges, including identifying and developing economic engines, the extent of State Trust land near urban areas, infrastructure needs, the rise of sustainability, competition for a diverse, high-wage economy, advances in technology, the availability of water, changing population trends, growing tribal influences, and the size and scope of government. The Global Cities Institute will help the Sun Corridor face some of these challenges head-on by focusing on a few key areas and providing innovative solutions.

The Team
The Institute will be led by Jason Prior (Executive Vice President, Practice, Planning, Design + Development), and Diana Mendes (Senior Vice President and National Director of U.S. Transit Planning). A Steering Committee consisting of Joe Brown (Chief Executive, Planning Design + Development), Jane Chmielinski (Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Officer) and Fred Werner (Executive Vice President, Business Lines) will guide the Institute.

The Institute brings together inter-disciplinary teams consisting of a core city team, supplemented by assistance from global experts. The pilot effort in Phoenix is being co-led by John McNamara (Vice President ,Transportation) and Jay Hicks (Principal, Design + Planning), supported by emerging talents Jackie Pfeiffer from Transportation and Ximena Zamora from Design + Planning. Their work is being supported by a wide range of contributing experts including Shuprotim Bhaumik (Senior Vice President and Director of Economics); Peter Yendall (Director, Transportation); Bob Doyle (Vice President for Corporate Strategy and Private Sector Client Development); Raymond Ellis (Senior Vice President, Transportation); Claire Bonham-Carter (Director of Sustainable Development, Design + Planning); Abbas Sarmaad (Vice President, Transportation); and Chris Choa (Vice President, Design + Planning). Emerging experts Suzanne Lee Farmer and Jose Mantilla are providing research support. Fran Hegeler (Vice President for Marketing, Planning, Design + Development) and Daniel Elsea (Creative Director, Planning, Design + Development) lead the communications team to support the Institute. David Barwell (Chief Executive, Middle East) and Sean Chiao (Executive Vice President, China) are providing executive leadership to mobilize the upcoming engagements in Jeddah and Beijing, respectively. Based on the needs of each engagement, professionals drawn from across AECOM's business lines and from corporate business partners, academic institutions and non-profits will contribute to the work of the Institute as it moves forward in the future.

Diana Mendes explains that "the Global Cities Institute provides participants with a unique opportunity to explore urban systems in a more comprehensive manner than might otherwise occur through traditional, single-purpose consulting services. For example, through Global Cities we are contemplating ways in which the use of advanced technologies can transform how infrastructure investment choices are made, and how investments are prioritized and implemented. By better leveraging social, physical and digital infrastructure, we can develop more efficient investment decisions in our urban systems, and more effectively monitor the performance of those investments in enhancing equity, promoting economic return on investment, and maintaining environmental quality. It's a powerful approach that we can refine as we initiate ventures with other cities in the coming months and years ahead."

Urban SOS
We will continue to engage with the future generation of city leaders through our annual student competition as well. Last year, Urban SOS: Distressed Cities, Creative Responses sought solutions to pressing urban problems from students worldwide. More than 1,050 student teams, representing more than 250 universities in more than 60 countries, responded to the call. This year, we will hold a similar competition, but will ask students to submit interdisciplinary responses targeted to our three focus cities (Phoenix, Jeddah and Beijing), as well as Port au Prince, Haiti, São Paolo, Brazil, Istanbul, Turkey, and Johannesburg, South Africa. All seven cities are in the midst of transformation, and we will ask for proposals that address these transformations through specific sites within each city. Finalists will present before a master jury at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona in November 2010. With $20,000 prize money at stake, a grand finalist will be selected. The Global Cities Institute and Urban SOS will give us a dynamic platform with which to participate in the ongoing urbanism conversation.

"AECOM is an organization built to tackle complex challenges by focusing expertise from a wide breadth of disciplines and at all phases of the development process," says Joe Brown. "Most of the work that we do is at small scales and in local contexts, but when we assemble this experience for large projects, we have the ability to process seemingly unmanageable volumes of information and guide profoundly positive change. This institute will focus that ability toward the specific mission of imagining and delivering better cities."

Daniel Elsea