A project by Evert Verhagen
Most people want to stay where they are. Most cities make that impossible.
There are roughly 4,000 cities in the world that matter. Millions of people are leaving them – not because they want to, but because there is nothing for them there to make them stay.
What is it that all these cities do wrong?
What should they do better?
Why do some cities lose their young and talented people – while others give them reasons to stay?
After forty years of working with cities across five continents – from the South Bronx to Siberia, from Casablanca to Taichung – the answer is not what most planners and politicians think it is. It is rarely about investment. It is rarely about infrastructure. It is almost always about something harder to measure: whether a city makes people aware that they can have a life there.
4,000 cities with over 150,000 inhabitants
42% of the world’s population lives in them
40 years of fieldwork across five continents
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About
Evert Verhagen is a Dutch urbanist based in Amsterdam. His projects have taken him from the Westergasfabriek and Bijlmermeer in Amsterdam to Zaryadye Park in Moscow, an abattoir in Casablanca, a river project in Recife, and workshops in Taichung.
4000 Cities — a book about why cities flourish or decline — is his current project.
4000 Cities 