Demographic estimates inform us that by 2050 10 billion people will inhabit the earth.  Among them, two-thirds will find habitation in cities.  Consequently, urbanization will intensify throughout the first half of 21st century.  Hundreds of new cities will be built, the existing megalopolises will continue to expand, and many will connect, forming urban corridors consisting of hundreds of millions of people, and our smaller, secondary cities will mushroom into grander urban forms.  These realities make the 21st century the urban century. 

 

Urbanization will define the outcomes of the great challenges we face, the perfect storm of large-scale, interconnected, global, and synchronous crises (climate change, energy transition, food and water insecurity, pandemics, economic instability, and ecological stress).  Given the important role that cities will have in our shared future, an understanding of the urban experience constitutes a requisite area of knowledge for any educated 21st century citizen.  The urban challenge also provides enhanced opportunities for students to further develop the critical reasoning skills nurtured through liberal education, and the chance to re-imagine liberal education for the 21st century.  This context invites us to become better complexity thinkers.  Cities provide us a rich terrain for thinking about the human condition, inquire into what is possible within the human potential, and wrestle with the predicaments caused by structural limitations and the great challenge of the 21st century's perfect storm.  As we move toward two-thirds of ten billion people being urban, City Lab aims to better understand the human condition in the 21st century.