DISCUSSION Financing Tomorrow’s Cities

Created by the City of London Corporation with support from Z/Yen Group, Financing Tomorrow’s Cities aims to discuss and encourage innovative financing mechanisms for tomorrow’s sustainable cities through online community discussions, a series of events and shared research on finance & cities.

The World Health Organisation estimates that by 2030, 6 out of every 10 people will live in a city, and by 2050, this proportion will increase to 7 out of 10 people. This means that two-thirds of the world’s 9 billion population will be living in cities. [1]

A range of factors from immigration, population growth and increasing urbanisation are pushing cities to adapt to new pressures on transport, employment, energy use and housing. Given the long lead-time for major infrastructure development (sometimes spanning 20 to 50 years), there is a degree of urgency in finding solutions.

According the a CBI/KPMG survey of 526 business leaders in the UK, two-thirds of British companies fear UK infrastructure will deteriorate over the next five years. [2] (See the CBI’s Infrastructure Infographic)

A number of online discussions are taking place in the London Accord group of the Long Finance online community covering topics such as ‘Financing Infrastructure’, ‘The EU energy challenge’ and ‘Community financing models’.

The launch of Financing Tomorrow’s Cities will be on the 19 November 2013. This event will be followed by the launch of Tomorrow’s City at 17:00 at Mansion House.

Tomorrow’s City is a programme of events and dialogue with CIty and other leaders which will set out how the City can best ensure its future success as the ‘City of Cities’ by promoting and enabling long-term value creation, drawing on all the talent available.

Other upcoming Financing Tomorrow’s Cities events include:

• Long Finance Symposium “Measuring Up Cities” – London, 30 January 2014
• BASE London “Tomorrow’s Cities” – London, 25 & 26 June 2014