International Youth Year Symposium
(Tokyo, 15 May 1985)
There are two preliminary questions which need to be clarified: WHICH tomorrow ? WHOSE habitat? The first question is relatively easy because the main determinants of the habitat of at least the next 15 years have been already heavily conditionned and even determined by the actions taken in the course of the last 10 years. Hence it is very difficult to imagine any new substantial trends or changes before the year 2000. Even then, they would have to be the outcome of decisions taken today.
Hence when dealing with habitat, "tomorrow" can not but mean the Twenty-first Century. Until then one can only speak of slight adjustments of past policies and decisions. The challenging problem which must be identified from the start is : "are decision-makers and the people concerned ready to tackle this issue in a long-term perspective and to accept all the political, economic and socio-cultural implications of such an approach?"
The second preliminary question is WHOSE habitat? The problems in the Third World are quite different from those of the industrialized countries. It is not possible therefore to handle the subject in a global manner except maybe for a few matters such as those concerning environment, ecology and some of the new technologies which have common effects regardless of the level of economic development.
In this presentation I shall interpret "future" as meaning "post twentieth century" and I shall put a special emphasis on the habitat problematique of the Third World which, in the year 2000, will represent around 5.000 million people or over 80% of the total population of the globe but which will dispose of less than 30% of the economic output and benefits of the world economy. I will attempt to cover the following dimensions of this problematique:
1. The international context;
2. Essential needs and the quality of life;
3. The rural/urban equation;
4. Socio-cultural value systems;
5. The impact of science & technology;
6. Habitat as a political phenomenon;
7. Future perspectives.
Time limitation forces me to be very succinct. The important thingis not so much the content of each of these issues- it is the over-all effect of their interactions.
The least that can be said today is that the international context is not favorable to a restructuring of the international economic system which is indispensable to a new redistribution of resources on a planetary level and without which the basic needs of the Third World, including habitat, can not be satisfied within the next fifteen years.
The inequality between the industrialized North and the developing South, according to a number of socio-economic indicators, is estimated as being of the order of 20 to 1. If things do not change radically soon, this ratio may climb to 50 to 1 by the end of the century according to the Club of Rome.
The countries of the Third World are heavily responsible for the present state of their socio-economic affairs because of the model of economic development which they have chosen. In almost all cases, it is a pale imitation of the one of the industrialized countries and it is totally maladapted to their real needs.
This development model is largely responsible for the continuous increase of the gap between the poor and the rich within the developing countries. Habitat is probably the sector which illustrates best, and in a very concrete way, this social discrimination. The approach to development which has prevailed so far did not encourage self-reliance because it has been too extroverted.
I think that the developing countries are now fully aware of the non-viability of this model and are trying to find new solutions which will inevitably transform, in the coming years, the international economic context and bring about important structural changes at the national level. The effects of such changes on habitat are not likely to begin to be felt in less than ten years at the minimum.
International "aid" which has helped to "develop underdevelopment" will hopefully soon come to end to be replaced by a more equitable international economic system built on equity and solidarity instead of charity and disguised exploitation. South-South cooperation will very likely expand rapidly and will enable countries with similar problems to share relevant experiences. 2. ESSENTIAL NEEDS AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE
Whereas the North is essentially a society of affluence and waste, with a few pockets of poverty, the South is mostly a vast zone of poverty and inequity with a thin layer of contrasting and sometime shocking wealth. When we speak of "tomorrow's habitat" we must first of all ask how many millions are quite likely not to have the most elementary type of habitat by the end of the century.
We already know that about 1000 million housing units need to be built by the year 2000 if the Third World is to meet its most basic habitat needs. The habitat needs can not be seen in isolation from the other development problems such as demographic pressure, poverty, illiteracy, disease, unemployment, social inequalities and insufficient respect from human rights.
How many units will the developing countries be able to build within the next fifteen years? It is hard to answer this question because very few countries have plans for such a long period. What we find in some instances are targets or objectives but without the financial estimates and budgets required to make them meaningful.
The information available and the studies of the international organizations concerned lead us to think that by the year 2000 almost 400 million people will be without shelter and that another 600 millions will be living in conditions below the minimal norms and standards used to define "basic needs" in habitat. This billion people fall in the category of the "absolutely poor" to use a term coined by the World Bank.
What solutions are in view for these populations and for the other two billion people whose housing conditions do not meet the minimum habitat standards and norms (hard construction, minimum space per person, drinkable water, sanitation, sound protection from climatological conditions, etc...? This is the real question for "tomorrow's habitat".
Of course, one can not underestimate the major efforts made in housing in the last two or three decades in the developing world nor neglect a few successful experiences of social housing here and there. On the whole, however these efforts are very far from being adequate and long-term planning is either non-existent or way below the most basic future needs of thepopulations.
Now if we leave out of the equation these three billion people- that is half of the world population of the year 2000- we can then easily speak of another "tomorrow's habitat": the habitat of those who are beyond the basic needs. It is essential that we bear this dichotomy in mind if we do not want to become too abstract or excessively elitist. The facts as they stand and the trends as they can be measured point to one very discouraging conclusion: less than one out of ten inhabitants of the globe will, in the year 2000, enjoy a habitat ensuring a decent "quality of life".
This is the real paradox of the future: a human society which has made fantastic scientific and technological advances, and which has all the human and physical resources to ensure a respectful standard of living for all the inhabitants of the planet, seems to be unable to use this progress in a socially relevant or purposive manner. 3. THE RURAL/URBAN EQUATION
The future of habitat will be toward an accelerated urbanization. By the year 2000 around 51% of the world's population will be composed ofcity dwellers. Out of a total of 6.25 billion inhabitants 3.2 billions will be living in urban areas. This will be a major landmark in the cultural history of mankind. The urban population of the Third World will increase by about one third between now and the year 2000 and the total area of the cities of the "South" will grow fourfold.
This is an inevitable trend because of the huge gap which exists between living conditions in towns and those prevailing in rural areas (infant mortality, access to drinkable water, illiteracy, medical care, unemployment, housing, transport...).
Although about 40 % of these city dwellers live in shanty towns and squatter settlements or what is known as "clandestine" housing, living conditions in cities are improving relatively faster than in the rural areas. Financial limitations, for years to come, are such that there is no reason to believe that rural life is likely to become attractive to the point of stopping migration to the cities.
Urban development however has been a quasi-total failure throughout the Third World in the last few decades. The newly independent countries did not always question the colonial urban plans and policies which they inherited. The interests of the departing colonials were often taken over by privileged nationals without a decolonization of the habitat model. The greatest sin of all has probably been the absence of vision and creativity in the anticipation of self-reliant solutions with economic and social relevance and with the participation of the people concerned.
This has contributed to a very inequitable social differentiation of space within cities. Urbanization has nonetheless brought marginal benefits to the rural migrants who had nothing to expect from remaining in the countryside except a greater misery. This is why there is no political power or economic force or social policy capable of blocking urban development- a historical process thanks to which man, as a cultural animal, has managed to defend his rights and amplify his creativity.
From a global point of view, urbanization has nonetheless some negative facets with respect to the future of habitat. The quantity and the quality of agricultural land will go down as will the surfaces of the grazing lands and of the forests. Numerous plants and several animal species will disappear. The problems of water will become more critical and a variety of new and complex ecological and social problems will inevitably emerge as urban areas expand.
Let us not systematically blame urbanization for all of these developments but rather our incapacity to deal effectively with social change through anticipation and participation as well as our inability to give a proper weight to the importance of the transformations which our socio-cultural value systems are undergoing. 4. SOCIO-CULTURAL VALUE SYSTEMS
The use of space is first and foremost a cultural phenomenon and a by-product of a way of life and of a philosophy. This should not be forgotten even if contemporary problems and those to come are acquiring an ever increasing universal form. This universality dictates however a specific approach when it comes to concrete solutions which can only be of a local nature. Hence the importance of socio-cultural value systems in gearing social change - they control the "genetic code" which programs this change. The models of development which did not take this dimension into account are paying heavily for such a serious omission.
The evolution of value systems, in the context of habitat, has to be considered in the light of several factors including : the exponential development of knowledge, the great shortcomings of existing learning systems, the lack of social relevance in the manner with which we use scientific and technological progress, the age structure of populations, the key role of the spiritual dimension and the aspirations of human beings to a minimum of dignity.
We obviously can not deal with all of these factors in this paper. But as this meeting is an "International Youth Year" Symposium and as its main justification is the international contest which UNESCO organized for young architects throughout the World, it may be proper to say a few words about the relationship between youth, values and habitat.
Each generation lives with the habitat model conceived by its predecessor and preempts, in turn, the model of the generation to come. Raphael de la Hoz, President of the International Union of Architects, has put it quite concisely
"the problem grows when one understands that, we architects, are encapsulating the lives of the new generation- necessarily different from ours- in the dead shells of the past."
This criticism, in my view, is not to be limited to architects but to all decision-makers which intervene in habitat matters. Democracy in space implies democracy in time. The importance of this issue is directly related to the age structure of the population. In the Third World the population is quite young. In Africa, for instance, one out of two inhabitants is under 15 years of age, and one out of three is less than 25 years old.
The value systems of this youth- which represents the
numerical majority of the population- are undergoing major and
rapid transformations which are in no way taken into account by
those who are planning and building tomorrow's habitat.
This is why the contest organized by UNESCO, and in which I had
the privilege of participating as a member of the international
Jury, is a very valuable indicator of the preoccupations of those
who will be the main users of tomorrow's habitat. Two clear
trends come out from the entries to this contest. Firstly, a
great concern for socially relevant solutions bearing in mind the
cultural specifity of the regions concerned, in the case of the
young architects from the Third World. Secondly, a particular
emphasis on conservation and renovation in the submissions of the
architects from the industrialized countries.
As we have noted earlier, urban dwellers will represent the majority of the World inhabitants in the year 2000. Cities have always been the key centers of cultural development and human civilization, it is therefore worthwhile to note the transformation which is going on with respect to the main vehicle of this process, namely language. If we take the 25 largest cities of the World we note the following evolution in the course of the Twentieth Century
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Out of the 400 million people which, in the year 2000, will be inhabiting the 25 largest cities of the World, 250 millions (about two-thirds of the total) will be speaking non-Western languages. The remaining 150 millions will be speaking Spanish, Portuguese, English and French but over 100 millions of them will be living in cities of the Third World. Hence the weight of Western industrialized cities within the 25 biggest cities of the World will be slightly over 8 % as compared with over 80 % in the year 1900 with respect to the languages spoken. 5. THE IMPACT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Developments in three major areas will have important effects on tomorrow's habitat. These are: informatics and the related information technology; new materials; and biotechnology. Informatics is already part of the habitat scene throughout the world. In the speech he made the day of his admission to the French Academy of the Arts, the Chairman of our Symposium, Kenzo Tange, said : "Modern architecture can, I think, be defined by two periods. In the first, it adapted itself to the industrial society. In the second, in which we are today, it just adapt itself to the informatics society...my own work is an attempt to answer one question: what should the architecture of the information society be ?
After the year 2000, or maybe a little before, nuclear fusion will provide low cost energy and will thereby bring about changes in building techniques, transport, heating and air conditioning among other things. What remains to be seen is whether society will be able to harness our scientific and technological knowledge to improve the quality of life in all parts of the World or whether it will continue to spend over half of its energy and resources, in the scientific field, for destructive purposes. Here again, the problems of habitat show us quite clearly how socially irrelevant the applications of modern developments such as those of science and technology can be, at times, when it comes to tackling urgent human problems affecting the plight of billions of people. 6. HABITAT AS A POLITICAL PHENOMENON
Urbanization of the Third World is today an important source of conscientization and politization (in the good sense of the term) of the population as it was and still is in the industrialized countries. It will inevitably bring about a great democratization, radical changes at the national level, and will make itself felt at the level of international relations as in the days of the City-States.
The cities have played a key role in the process of decolonization. I think that they are called upon to make a comparable contribution in the transformation of the international system without which no workable or acceptable solution will be found to the problems of economic and social development.
This is why the models of development and the strategies of international relations which still believe in the possibility of maintaining passive rural populations as a way of checking a disturbing urban development can not but fail. It would be preferable to anticipate the implications of the changes that are on the way so as not to have to learn by shock.
Man has the intellectual and material means to use the creative capacities of cities to positive ends such as the improvement of living conditions and international understanding between all of the inhabitants of the planet. Social, economic and political peace are intrinsic components of the habitat problematique. If we do not attain these objectives we should not blame the cities because they are the product of our own creativity and imagination just as international relations are our own invention. 7. FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
The future perspectives of habitat involve more socio-economic variables than probable those of any other sector of human activity. In a research we are undertaking in FUTURIBLES, we have listed over 100 parameters which are to be measured and analyzed within a matrix for the understanding of the probable trends of the future. This is where we see how interdisciplinary questions of habitat can be, and where we can observe how present decision-making is lagging behind from a conceptual as well as a methodological point of view.
The enumeration of some of these indicators gives an idea of the complexity arising out of their inter-action: economic growth rate, demographic factors, rural/urban population ratio, education, food self-sufficiency, medical care, employment, access to drinkable water, cost of land and of construction, industrial production, transport, energy, desertification, water resources, environmental policy, industrial production, R & D expenditures, technological innovation, value systems, styles of life and use of time.
One can not stress enough the fact that in matters of habitat trend reversal is very slow. perspectives of less than 30 years - the equivalent of a generation - are of a little significance. We are not however equipped to undertake such studies with the minimal scientific backing because we do not have the pertinent data, refined methodologies and also because decison-makers are more interested in the short-term and are not inclined to examine, and much less adopt, alternative solutions for the future.
Habitat is of course more than a question of study or even of decision making. It is a permanent creative process which concerns bodies and souls more than it concerns bricks and mortar. The paradigm of our topic could be summarized as follows: "How to simultaneously recuperate the past, reclaim the present and liberate the future ? ". It is quite a difficult task especially when we know that the tomorrow of our habitat was yesterday. There is a thread of hope for after-tomorrow; let us seize it TODAY !
© 
Genève 1996. Webeditor