The Future of Securing Global Cities

Author:
Raymond Odierno, Michael O'Hanlon

The task of securing global cities is becoming a crucial challenge of our day. Already, half the world’s population lives in urban areas; by 2050, the UN predicts over two-thirds of the world’s population will do so. These cities face threats not only from Al Qaeda, ISIL, the Taliban and like groups, but international drug cartels, human trafficking networks, arms traffickers and street gangs.

Scale is a major contributor to this complexity. As cities grow, their vulnerabilities grow—often in nonlinear ways. A megalopolis of 20 million does not simply face ten times the challenges of a city of 2 million. Whole new patterns often emerge, largely because size creates opportunities for criminals and extremists through anonymity in the large and often weakly governed spaces that emerge in these massive places.

Another factor is resource scarcity. As populations (and population density) increase, resources for emergency services don’t always keep up. In 2013, for example, Nairobi had a population of 4 million—and a single working fire truck. Water is increasingly scarce, partly due to climate change effects as well, in large swaths of the Middle East and Africa. In many places, urban migration is marked by the poorest and most vulnerable in society moving into huge slums, not well-heeled neighborhoods.

At the same time, urbanization means that cities are a key engine of global economic growth. Trade, foreign direct investment and globalization enhance prosperity. But the same movements of people, goods and ideas also create vulnerabilities and make it imperative that metro areas collaborate on security.

The article's full-text is available here.

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