Cities are not the problem. They are the arena. More than half of humanity lives in cities today; by 2050 that proportion will exceed two-thirds. How cities are powered, governed, and socially organised over the next decade will determine the trajectory of the planetary transition more than any other single category of human choice.
This plenary argues that making cities regenerative requires redesigning not just projects but the full economic, social, and consciousness architecture of urban life. It confronts three undercurrents: the governance of AI; the escalating urgency of climate risk and adaptation; and the transformative lessons of Asian urbanisation at scale.
The panel draws directly from living case experiments as proof that the architecture described is not aspirational. It is already being built.
