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We live in a time of information abundance, which far too many of us see as information overload. With the sum total of human knowledge, past and present, at our fingertips, we’re faced with a crisis of attention: which ideas should we engage with, and why? Big Think is an evolving roadmap to the best thinking on the planet — the ideas that can help you think flexibly and act decisively in a multivariate world.

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Big ideas are lenses for envisioning the future. Every article and video on bigthink.com and on our learning platforms is based on an emerging “big idea” that is significant, widely relevant, and actionable. We’re sifting the noise for the questions and insights that have the power to change all of our lives, for decades to come. For example, reverse-engineering is a big idea in that the concept is increasingly useful across multiple disciplines, from education to nanotechnology.

Themes are the seven broad umbrellas under which we organize the hundreds of big ideas that populate Big Think. They include New World Order, Earth and Beyond, 21st Century Living, Going Mental, Extreme Biology, Power and Influence, and Inventing the Future.

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Why Good City Living Is a Human Right

June 1, 2012, 4:16 PM
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What's the Latest Development?

Social movements like the New Urbanist and Eco Cities are working to root out unjust urban policies, born of prior centuries' segregation laws, by taking advantage of city infrastructure and economic policy. "Urban planning built around public transport and walkable spaces has enormous potential to make urban color and class lines more porous and thus create cities that are at once more just and sustainable." Affordable housing developments built in cities' empty cores can help revitalize local economies and strengthen sustainability projects to help communities live better together. 

What's the Big Idea?

As humanity trends toward city living, issues of urban justice have never been more relevant. Many American cities, like Baltimore, still bear scars from the segregationist policies of centuries gone by when public facilities, even entire city blocks, were legally divided along racial lines. But with more than half the world living in large population centers, creating a more equitable society will mean offering different cross sections of the population improved access to city resources like housing, education and political institutions.

Photo credit: Shutterstock.com

 

 

Why Good City Living Is a H...

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