Exponential: Order and Chaos in an Age of Accelerating Technology

by Azeem Azhar

Cities are often at the forefront of tackling problems caused by exponential technology. It was places like London that first had to contend with the sudden growth of gig-working platforms such as Uber. Barcelona was among the earliest to reckon with the explosion of digital accommodation marketplaces like Airbnb, and all the economic effects that brought. And, as we have seen, cities will be the engine of the Exponential Age economy. The solution may be to develop more federal models of national politics, which give more power to regions and cities to manage their own affairs. They need the ability to attract people and regulate the quality of their citizens’ lives, by increasingly governing their own energy, resources and climate agendas. This might seem likely to exacerbate the rural-urban divide, but in fact it may help close it. Many of the divisions in our society result from cities and nations – which have vastly different economic interests and political outlooks – being tied together under a single, over-centralised government.