Why Cities?
The organization I started several years ago — 10.10.10 — has begun to turn its energy and attention to cities, and I thought this might be a good time to explain why.
At the turn of the last century, fewer that 10% of the world’s population lived in cities. Today 54% of the world’s population lives in in urban areas. In 1990 there were just 10 megacities — cities with populations of 10 million people or more. As of 2014 there were 28 megacities worldwide. In 2017 there are 37.
In the coming decades, most humans on the planet will spend the majority of their lives within an urban area. Many will be born in the city and many more will move to the city within their lifetime. This massive population shift presents a series of consequences, challenges and opportunities that require attention, planning, substantial investment and active/ongoing learning.
Some good news: contrary to what many might imagine, cities scale in a way that makes them remarkably efficient. (See Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies, Geoffrey West, Penguin 2017).) Larger cities are greener — i.e., the inhabitants of these cities have a smaller carbon footprint, on a per capita basis, than those living in smaller cities.
Within these growing cities, humans will find both unbelievable challenges and extraordinary opportunities. What will cities do to ensure the safety and security of their inhabitants as they grow by millions and even tens of millions of people over the next 10–20 years? How will cities handle issues and risks related to the water/energy/food nexus? How does water quality and availability affect future growth? Do cities have effective models for dealing with waste? How will aging infrastructure be reimagined, replaced and upgraded? How does learning about problems in the context of one city or group of cities inform our understanding of opportunities in cities throughout the country and around the world?
If you have any thought about tackling real problems — the problems that matter to you and to the world — you will find most of those problems and opportunities in cities. The future of humanity is cities. The future of entrepreneurship focused on both ROI and impact is cities.
For all these reasons and more, 10.10.10 has begun to identify “wicked problems” — in health, water, infrastructure and more — that will become market-based opportunities for some of the most capable entrepreneurs in the world.
From October 16–26, 2017, 10.10.10 will host its Cities program in Denver. This program will focus on “wicked problems” 2 key areas: water and infrastructure. If you your home is in another city, but you’d still like to be involved, we want you to join us! If you would like to involved in any part of the Cities program, please reach out to us: this is the place to sign up.
We invite just 10 prospective CEOs to participate in each program. (You’ll find our most recent cohort of prospective CEOs here.) If you are a successful serial entrepreneur and plan to start a new venture, you may request an invitation here by filling out the form. We also partner with Validators (organizations and institutions with deep domain knowledge) and Ninjas (individuals with the specific skills — finance, marketing, design, product management, data analysis, etc.) to support our prospective CEOs during the program.
