KEY POINTS:
Cities around the world need to invest US$40 trillion ($55.5 trillion) to upgrade infrastructure or risk losing their workforce to locations with better services, a report says.
It argues that the London drought last year and the nine-day blackout across the New York suburb of Queens highlight how fragile and antiquated basic infrastructure is becoming in some of the world's major cities.
The drought was caused partly by ageing pipes leaking billions of litres of water, while the Queens crisis was caused by 60-year-old feeder cables.
Booz Allen Hamilton, the consultancy that produced the report, said fragile infrastructure used to deliver water and power and to provide transport services would not be able to keep pace with rising demand.
With 50 per cent of the world's population expected to be living in urban areas by 2050, cities that did not invest in infrastructure would risk losing the brightest and hardest working individuals to other locations.
The report argued that the cities that organised effectively would become "cities of opportunity" which would act as "magnets for humanity" by providing more effective services that citizens often took for granted.
Booz Allen Hamilton argued that water, transport and power infrastructure could hit crisis points at the same time in cities because the networks were fundamentally intertwined. The report, called Lights! Water! Motion! said planning for these needed to be done together.
It said infrastructure could be reinvigorated by integrating finance, governance, technology and design.
The consultancy said the private sector had to take the lead in the financing, pricing and ownership of infrastructure improvements, and governments should encourage collaboration and competition.
It cited Amsterdam's Schiphol airport as an example of the type of public/private partnership needed.
- INDEPENDENT
