In December every year, individuals and communities tend to review their year and plan for future. Cities are no exception. The outgoing year left some interesting trends on urban landscape of the world with long terms repercussions for developing and rapidly urbanising countries like Pakistan. Some of these trends herald a rosy future while the others are enough to disdain our current development models as a global community. The most promising trends of 2017 relate to the development of renewable energy, smart cities and vertical urban development, the areas where Pakistan has seen little progress in its annals. According to REN21 Global Status Report of 2017, there was a record ‘new addition of installed renewable energy capacity, rapidly falling costs, and the decoupling of economic growth and energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions’. The world’s renewable capacity was increased by 10 per cent from the previous year, when the world added 161 Gigawatt of renewable electricity. There has been an upsurge in the number of cities committing to 100 per cent renewable targets. More than 7,200 communities with a total population of 225 million people have committed to full renewable energy deployment by 2030. More skyscrapers were built in 2017 than in any previous year in history. A total of 144 new towers were erected with a height of more than 200 meters as per figures of Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. At least 15 of them are 300 meters high. Around 69 cities of the world have raised at least one skyscraper while in the previous year, 54 cities did so. China, a world leader in vertical growth, has cropped up most of these building in smaller towns with the purpose of boosting economic activity in their less populated areas and reducing pressure on big cities. The year 2017 saw an unprecedented rise in the prices of bitcoins – the digital currency that is fast taking over the world’s financial markets and urban economies. The price of bitcoin also saw a rise from $1000 in January to $15000 in December this year. The unreal cyber currency is likely to inundate urban and national economies in the coming year as well. 2017 saw an unprecedented rise in the prices of bitcoins — the digital currency that is fast taking over the world’s financial markets and urban economies The digital revolution and new technologies continued to inspire governments and urban utopians of the world in the outgoing year. Abu Dhabi made strong progress on its project of Masdar City, which is claimed to be one of the most sustainable and smart urban settlements, currently being developed in the world. Bill Gates announced his plans to develop the new smart city of Belmont in Arizona on 25,000 acres of land. Saudi Arabia unleashed its desire to develop a new smart city on its coast with Red Sea while more than 500 Chinese cities have started their ‘smart-city’ transformations during 2017. Despite these progresses on urban and national landscapes of the world, some risks also achieved new highs. Experts believe that these negative trends are ticking time bombs, which need to be defused before they turn into international disasters and humanitarian crisis. For instance, around 2,110 cities in the world have now crossed the recommended levels of atmospheric particulate matter. A recent Lancet report has revealed that an estimated 400 deaths per million of population are now attributed to air pollution in sub-continent alone. The situation is choking cities with smog and urban heat island effect and is causing health hazards and low productivity of labor (5.3 per cent decrease since the year 2000). Cities in Punjab wrapped themselves with thick smog in November this year again, creating a great public health situation, fast becoming a new normal in many cities of the global South. The second most worrisome trend is the continuous increase in the number of displaced people, especially in big cities. An estimated 258 million people are now officially recognised as migrants globally, an increase of 49 per cent since 2000, according to a UN DESA report released in December. 1.5-3 million people are moving to cities every week and their numbers are expected to rise to 200 million people by 2050. Although these migrants have contributed 9.4 per cent of global GDP since 2000, they are also putting undue pressure on urban resources beyond the means of most cities of the world. In Pakistan, the government continued to struggle with the repatriation of IDPs and Afghan refugees this year again. However, the most devastating trend observed in the last couple of years is the complete evaporation of some cities in the Middle East. For the first time after World War II, devastations are happening on city-scale. Whereas, the Syrian Civil War saw the complete destruction of Aleppo in 2016, while the year 2017 witnessed the completion annihilation of Mosul in Iraq. According to media reports, the battle to liberate Mosul from ISIS caused at 9,000-11,000 civilian deaths and a thorough nullification of the city’s infrastructure. The urban conflicts and city scale wars are causing cities of developing country to swell further. The urbanisation happening because of conflicts, wars and natural disasters instead of economic pull factors is not yielding the associated benefits of urbanisation. According to a recent study of London School of Economics, the developed countries have historically seen a 0.7 per cent increase in economic growth over a five-year period for an addition of 100,000 people in their big cities. On the other hand, the same addition has caused a 2.3 per cent decrease in economic growth in big cities of developing countries. Pakistan will have a new government in place in 2018. The urban areas of the country and the middle classes living within are likely to determine which party will govern the country for the next five years. It is therefore pertinent for policy makers in each political party to have a close look at these trends to shape their manifestos and political agenda for future. They must show commitment to bringing positive urban trends home and banish the negative ones out. The writer works as Team Leader, Sustainable Cities Initiative at LEAD Pakistan, Islamabad and can be reached at mrafiq@lead.org.pk Published in Daily Times, December 24th 2017.