COMMENTATOR (COMM): Previously on Life...

PETER MARCUSE: I think there are loser cities and there are winner cities...

SASKIA SASSEN: Cities do die. Cities decay.

ANNA THIBAIUKA: We started with the empires - mostly in the 19th century we came to the nation states of the 20th century. And believe me, through globalisation now, we are entering - this is a century of cities.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Welcome to this edition of Life. And welcome also to Barcelona, set to be one of the most successful cities in the 21st century, and certainly one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. Where better to discuss what makes cities work in the 21st century? Barcelona is a city by the sea. It's also an old industrial city that could all too easily have become a burnt out "rust belt" town, left behind by the globalised world. What saved Barcelona was a progressive city council which planned for and invested in the future, renovating derelict neighbourhood and the old docks, without destroying the city's old Catalonian charm. Barcelona is a city of three million people - which could have had three million visions of the future - but the city listened to people's hopes and fears and produced a single coherent vision, which so far has been a remarkable success. The man who has the job of turning that vision into reality is Josep Acebillo who's enlisted the help of world-renowned British architect, Richard Rogers.

Just explain to me a little about where we are now and how you've changed this area we're standing in.

JOSEP A. ACEBILLO MARIN, Chief Architect of the City of Barcelona: This area is very typical to, to - for the visualisation of this question: for example, this is the architecture of Barcelona during the 19th century; this enormous building was designed and built in the Franco period. And during the last ten years they have - port authority and the municipality - have arrived to agreement in order to be public this area we are now. And this is the buildings for the facilities of the people designed in the last ten years. And the other side in the Olympic Village we-we have the possibility to relationship the city with the sea because Barcelona has been always in the edge of the, of the sea but er for the citizens was not possible to arrive to the water practically until the '92 operation.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Richard Rogers, what are your feelings looking at this landscape around us, which could have been an old burnt out rust belt industrial waterfront, couldn't it?

RICHARD ROGERS: Well, I love Barcelona very much because of what it has done in the last 20 years. Barcelona is the own ideal for most planners and architects in, in terms that it's the jewel in the crown which we are trying to achieve in other, in other cities. Nothing's ever perfect but they've got nearer to dealing with the industrial past which is a very difficult period because we're seeing the end of heavy industry. This was a great port where we're staying and they've changed it. On one side of course with the new industries as well as - the port, but also with the quality of life: living, work, leisure which is exceptional.

STEVE BRADSHAW: And this sort of dream we see around us - this slightly sort of television set ambience round here - that is something that is practical, which can be copied elsewhere? And, and as an architect you believe that is possible?

RICHARD ROGERS: I'm quite sure. I mean, I think that - you know nearly every city has, for instance, whether it's a river, whether it's a lake, whether the sea, that - and usually it's one of the most beautiful places and often it's the most wasted place because it's where the industry used to be and so on. So that's a, that's using an asset, you know, a god given asset and making it really in the every day quality life.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Isn't there a problem in many cities that they're becoming divided. Perhaps because of globalisation, some - a few people are doing fine, most aren't. Doesn't that make it more difficult to produce the kind of political consensus which you need to make something like this work?

RICHARD ROGERS: Globalisation is good and bad because the good news is we can now start going to one end of - you can go, you can go to Seattle or you can see it on television if you like, you can go to San Francisco, you can go to Curatiba and get those, those lessons and those experiences. So you know you can do it - and it isn't all about money it's about, it's about vision. The bad side of it is when you get private investment who have no interest except for a quick buck. And therefore we have to mix the knowledge if you like, of business and making money but also recognising that business is not about, about quality of life in long term - it's not their role, I mean. But the citizens are about it so they have to balance citizens - the mayors and, and business in a mixed economy.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Common vision, not just chaos.

RICHARD ROGERS: Common vision.

STEVE BRADSHAW: So: Barcelona, the dream city. Not the case, perhaps for quite everyone who lives here but it is a decent working model, maybe, for the rest of the world. Now here with me in the studios of Catalan Television to discuss the future of cities and towns in this urbanised and globalised century are: Josep Acebillo, the Architect in Chief of Barcelona who you've just met. Gary Lawrence, who had the thrilling but surely sometimes nightmarish job of actually being an urban planner - Gary was Planning Director for the city of Seattle on the Pacific coast of the USA, he now runs his own firm: Sustainable Strategies and Solutions and he advises cities around the world. He was also part of the US delegation to the 1996 UN City Summit in Istanbul. Kalpana Sharma; Kalpana Sharma is Deputy Editor of the Hindu Newspaper in India, she writes on environment and development and specialises in cities and the urban poor -which is the subject of her latest book: "Rediscovering Dharavi". Michael Parkes here from the UN Centre for Human Settlements known as "Habitat" - that's the organisation responsible for co-ordinating this week's five year review of the UN City Summit in New York.

Barcelona: the ideal city - it can't be that simple, can it?

GARY LAWRENCE: I've never been in any urban setting where there's so many different lives trying to compete for the same space that there aren't some conflicts. I think Barcelona has done a magnificent job in, in its urban design - the layout of the city -and by reputation it's, it's a well-governed city.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Kalpana, what are your first impressions of being in Barcelona?

KALPANA SHARMA: Well, the thing I found most interesting was the fact that there is this old centre of the city which is a living centre. I mean, so often I think you create tourist sites where people are expelled and you know it's made for tourists. And I talked to some of the people there - even found Indians and Pakistanis living there. But of course it's too short a visit to know whether there are also marginalised communities that are not incorporated into what we as visitors see and that is a question that always arises with cities.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Michael, is Barcelona a model city for the United Nations - or are we pushing a point a bit?

MICHAEL PARKES, Director UNCHS (Habitat) Liaison Office with the European Union: I think it's - no; I think it shows what you can do to make a city an attractive place to, to live in. You can upgrade - you can make the physical side attractive but also the social side. I mean what-what you've done is - is involve the people in, in the process of making Barcelona such an excellent place. But just going back to what you were just asking: you do see that on the threshold of Barcelona, coming from the airport, the new people coming in who are having to squat. So you do get a sort of image of a part of a city in the South -in the developing world.

STEVE BRADSHAW: So there are problems - or opportunities - that both the developing counties and the first world have in common. Now, that's one of the things that you and your colleagues are going to be concentrating on - are concentrating on this week at the UN Cities Meeting in New York. Can you explain what that is about and what you're trying to achieve?

MICHAEL PARKES: Habitat - the United Nations for Centre Human Settlements is concerned with those two things: with-with housing, with shelter and, and with where shelter comes together to make towns. The reality is that half the world live in awful conditions. And there's perhaps over one billion people living with less that a dollar a day - so they haven't got access to the homes, they haven't got houses, they haven't got security. And they probably haven't got access to water and services. So we are attempting to raise the profile of that. The urban development side is, is to do with making the cities work, with getting the traffic to flow, access to schools and clinics. Now obviously this is a problem throughout the world.

STEVE BRADSHAW: What can a small team of bureaucrats working for the United Nations possibly do?

MICHAEL PARKES: Well you've got to actually be positive and look that cities can actually help the whole story of sustainable development. They're actually there -

STEVE BRADSHAW: Let's just be clear - it's, it's rhetoric rather than firm action -

MICHAEL PARKES: Well, you have to move the rhetoric to, to action don't you? You have to move to actually building houses and roads and sewers, providing the services that people need. Er, and you have to highlight the problems that we, that, that you're suggesting - that it's a big wave coming towards us. And if we don't discuss it what-what's the alternative?

STEVE BRADSHAW: OK, well what's, what's - let me come back to that in a minute - what's different about this review City Summit in New York to the meeting in Istanbul five years ago is that we've now all began to talk about that buzz word 'globalisation'. And we've been asking people in the cities we've travelled to in this series of "Life" how they think globalisation has affected the cities they live in.

VOX POP (Calcutta): Globalisation is a, a, um - influencing Calcutta, but I hope it's for the good!

VOX POP (Johannesburg): It was not yet time for it. We were not ready for globalisation.

VOX POP (Calcutta): It will help, you know, people to increase their knowledge and you know, like open the possibility to get more jobs.

VOX POP (Johannesburg): It's one thing to sit here and be isolated and think you're it because the pond is so small. But now if you say Jo'burg, someone's going to compare it to New York, someone's going to compare it to London, and if you live here you're gonna have to work with those standards too. So for me it's competition and it's a good thing and it's put us on the map.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Gary, isn't it a problem for trying to plan cities for the 21st century, that globalisation has created "winners" and "losers" - they less and less in common and this makes it more difficult to have the common vision that's made a city like Barcelona such a success?

GARY LAWRENCE: Well, first of all there have always been "winners" and "losers". I think globalisation has exacerbated some trends and has resulted on more attention - more movement into cities than existed before. You know, it's problematic in part because most of the donor agencies are more interested in investing in the rural side of the equation. And the globalising scheme more people are going to the urban because it's, it's urban centres around the world that are competing with one another - it's not nations that are competing with one another.

JOSEP A. ACEBILLO MARIN: I think it is a very, very critical situation because for me globalisation is the possibility to loss the identity.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Of losing your identity?

JOSEP A. ACEBILLO MARIN: Yes. For example, in Europe it's very clear: our historical centres - in Torino, in-in Paris, in Barcelona, in Rome - are very small. The scale of the cities in Europe one thousand years ago was very small. And then we start and we recycling the historical centres - that's when we finish with the architecture of the stone, with the physical architecture. Arrive the McDonald-isation for example, and arrive the Benetton, Coca-Cola, banks and company -

STEVE BRADSHAW: The brands take - the brands take over.

JOSEP A. ACEBILLO MARIN: And the landscape, and the landscape is not the - it's the new landscape and we can talk about of many, many questions about it and then I - and in the case of Barcelona I personally was very worried for the possibility to losing the identity.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Do you have to worry about this in India or are you grateful when McDonalds and Starbucks move in?

KALPANA SHARMA: Well Starbucks hasn't. McDonalds has and I don't think it's -

STEVE BRADSHAW: It'll get there in the end! I mean do, do you - is it a problem of you?

KALPANA SHARMA, Deputy Editor, The Hindu, India: Well in one sense it isn't - I mean the country is large, it can absorb all this and still survive. I think the trouble is that our cities in Indian were industrial centres, you know, and manufacturing centres. And now suddenly they're going through this process of become service oriented -like cities like Bombay or Calcutta and so on - and nobody's asking what's happening to the people who were working in these factories which have closed down. And they're the ones who are being pushed to the margins, you know? And you're, you're creating an unstable city.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Now, in the globalised world it's not just money that moves around fast but people. Migrants flood into urban areas creating problems of homelessness and overcrowding in cities around the world.

VOX POP (Johannesburg): Look at overcrowding - there is also crime involved in it, so there's - put it this way that you find people, most of the time people are living in fear.

VOX POP (Sao Paulo): The big problem here is the very poor people - these people they are living in the street...

VOX POP (Johannesburg): I think there are a lot of, lot of extremely poor people. Um, homeless people - especially young people. Lots of kids living on the streets...

VOX POP (Sao Paulo): Every day, every day arrived a lot of people in Sao Paulo and other city. Try to - a new life, get money. It's difficult, difficult...

STEVE BRADSHAW: Kalpana, if people flock into the cities from the countryside and don't have homes and end up living on their streets, is it their own fault?

KALPANA SHARMA: I don't think so. I mean, I think anyone who would come into a place to look for work - if there is no option for housing then you will squat on vacant land. Or on the pavement or whatever - or even along railway tracks as we've had in Bombay.

STEVE BRADSHAW: And why should anyone else help sort that out - why should you look to the state for assistance?

KALPANA SHARMA: Well, I think it is incumbent on the state to accept the fact that cities are made up of people who have a lot and people who don't have anything - but all contribute to the economy of the city. And I think therefore that is the role of the state, to facilitate the kind of housing which will be affordable to people who are at the bottom of the rung. And I think the trouble has been in our cities particularly that there has been no planning for public housing. Er, and this dates back to before independence.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Do you believe, Michael, that housing should be a human right?

MICHAEL PARKES: It's part of the-of the whole human rights story that you need shelter - you need a roof. How can you operate? How can you have dignity; how can you bring up a family? How can you er - a house is a-is a hospital and a, and a school - how can you go to work if you haven't got somewhere to, if you haven't got some, some space in the world to live?

KALPANA SHARMA: Also there are forced displacements, you know. That's the other thing that I think we have not discussed. And the point is people are coming in because of infrastructure projects that are inevitably built you know, in the rural areas, like dams and, or things - and people are being forced to come because they are just given no option.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Do, do you accept this - that housing should be a human right?

JOSEP A. ACEBILLO MARIN, Chief Architect of the City of Barcelona: I would like to say if for many people in the city it's only the buildings. From the physical point of view. And the city is the balance between the buildings and the space in between. And for example in the case of Barcelona if you ask me what is the first point: is the quality of the open space. And this is very, very important for the people. If go to Barcelona this afternoon and visit the Ramblas you will be in the core of the city and this is the most important place, the most interesting place, the most fashionable place for people.

GARY LAWRENCE, President, Sustainable Strategies & Solutions Inc: And you ask - one of the questions we always ask now is: "Whose place is this?" I mean, that's the importance of the public space. And Barcelona with the squares - it's clear that this place belongs to the people. Public housing was never owned by the people mentally - let alone financially - by people who live there because they were isolates and it was always the government's place where they were put.

MICHAEL PARKES: You were talking about globalisation a few moments ago. I think the other -the other phenomena is localisation. It's in fact the importance of working together at a local level both with, with all, with all, with the total panorama of society -

STEVE BRADSHAW: OK.

MICHAEL PARKES: OK, you need to bring - you need to work with the private sector with, with the people themselves who are actually very good at delivering what they need.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Let me - let me move on Michael. You wanted to raise the question of gender. One theme of this week's conference is gender, is women - is the relative role of men and women in cities in the developed and the developing world. Cities, after all, are built for men by men, usually - but they are not built for women and surprisingly they don't often work for women either as we've found.

VOX POP (Johannesburg): I think women have a bigger opportunity to improve their lives than they did before, but I don't think they have an equal opportunity yet.

VOX POP (Johannesburg): The segregation isn't as bad as in other countries where there's still that African myth that a woman is a subordinate, you know? So here you're given an opportunity so long as you assert yourself and you work hard at it, you do get companies that upgrade you. But all - at the same time there's still that thing that a woman is a woman.

VOX POP (Calcutta): Wherever I might be in Calcutta I should be safe enough and my parents be very prepared for the fact that I'm safe wherever I am in Calcutta.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Now, for a lot of women in the world it's true, isn't it, that cities are very dangerous places?

MICHAEL PARKES: Well, if, if you look at the-the figures for, for developing countries cities you'll find that probably 40-50% of the households are female headed. Partly because of the migration that we've talked about, partly because the, the men have left. So you have to, have to deal with, with that fact and then you - it's, it's bad, not because of - it's bad because of things like sanitation. You know, there, there was a meeting recently and the -a woman eventually said, 'All I need is a toilet!' You know -something simple like that.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Do you find that women are -if women, if women are running households in the developing countries does "victims"?

KALPANA SHARMA: Well I think it depends a lot - I mean I think in India, for instance, in the cities actually it's an adverse sex ratio issue, there are fewer women and there are more men. So I don't think that has quite happened over migration of women on their own, but there are women headed households. And women are forced to be strong, you know, because they have to fight all the time - especially women living in cities. I mean, I've interviewed a lot of them on a variety of subjects, and they say, 'We spend our whole lives fighting!' You know, I've talked to them about violence and they say, 'You know, what is this abstract thing you are talking about? Every single day I have to fight for my five buckets of water!' But I'll say one thing that - when we were talking earlier about housing: but there's no consultation in terms of including women in the design of houses. You know - the reason why public housing is such a failure is not only that the people forming the housing plan are not consulted but the women are not consulted.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Gary, you travel the world trying to help people run cities and build cities. How many of the people that come to you are men and how many are women?

GARY LAWRENCE: It depends very much on the audience. Let me give, give you an industrialised world example, because, I mean, it's not just that women - have to expend so much more energy to live their lives than men do, in any sort of city context. It's also that without women's voices you can't actually incorporate issues for children, you know. Er, we were doing a comprehensive plan for the city of Seattle and, you know, here I am large white male roaming through life, you know, unconscious about these sort of things. We had advisory groups from women's organisations throughout the city and we learned that the city looks entirely differently from the eyes of a child than the eyes of an adult. So we had planners in little carts being pulled around the neighbourhood so they could actually see the sight lines that children see and found out how they were just living in a, in a world of blank walls.

STEVE BRADSHAW: You mean that - I'm sorry, you meant that literally?

GARY LAWRENCE: Literally, yeah!

STEVE BRADSHAW: Just out of interest, do you listen to this and think this only a - a rich developed country would ever imagine doing?

KALPANA SHARMA: Naturally, I mean, it's all wonderful to hear it but I was just thinking that when you were talking - in, in the case of Bombay for instance when the consultation about toilets took place, it's because women were included in discussing it that they came up with the idea of having children's toilets, you know? Because the Indian style toilet is such that a child cannot use it. So even though the municipal corporation were building toilets children were squatting outside those toilets because mothers didn't want them to use those toilets because they'd fall in. You know, and so I take Gary's point that, you know, I think if women are consulted then children's needs are taken care of but there's a huge difference between the kind of needs that you're talking about the kind of needs - you know, the very basic needs that we have to -

STEVE BRADSHAW: OK, let's talk about how the cities are run. Housing, gender, crime, disorder - the fundamental problem, of course, is that cities around the world are too often badly run. Although we found some people who do approve of how their cities are being governed.

VOX POP (Johannesburg): There's a lot being done to sort out the crimes, there's a lot being done to, to try and sort out the, the economic disparities, if you like. Er, just like the entire country I think everyone is aware that a lot is being done to fix things here.

VOX POP (Johannesburg): Looking at the streets of Johannesburg and looking at the standard of living in Johannesburg and looking at the rate of unemployment, I don't think that it's being well governed.

VOX POP (Calcutta): Right now in India everybody's looking after their portion, building a portion, nobody's thinking about country or state or city. Nobody bothers about this.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Kalpana, it's become fashionable to say that a lot of the problems of the developing world are brought about by bad governance, is that true in cities? Are most of them just simply badly run?

KALPANA SHARMA: Well, I think it's sort of governance by default, that's the way I see it. You know I think all our governments, city governments, are walking up and down escalators, they're not - they're just about coping. There's nobody who's thinking in terms of a vision for the city. You know, anticipating what the city would be.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Is it right, Michael, to be asking the rest of the world - as Western governments effectively do, asking their voters to help cities in developing nations when a lot of the money will disappear in corruption -

MICHAEL PARKES: The whole point about encouraging governance is addressing the problems of - tilting against corruption; having regulations that are appropriate; having a local authority which is answerable to the people. Um, I mean, the definition in my terms of governance is decision-making. Is getting people to be involved in what, what they want. But you can't just have -you also need management, you also need to follow it through with how to do it. So you need a combination of good governance and good over-management to help address the problems that we're talking about.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Josep, I'm sure you don't have problems of corruption or - in Barcelona. Maybe there's still some inefficiency?

JOSEP A. ACEBILLO MARIN: I hope; I hope so -but I don't understand why we talk about corruption in relationship with the cities.

STEVE BRADSHAW: That's where the money is!

JOSEP A. ACEBILLO MARIN: Because I think - no! Because the money is not in the cities - is in the central governments.

STEVE BRADSHAW: That's where the cities are!

JOSEP A. ACEBILLO MARIN: No, no, no, the main - no! Excuse me - and I think the main problem with our civilisation is that the, in the last century the government, the central government has forgot of the problem of the city. In the 16th century in Florence the main important problem of the princeship of Medicis was the city of Florence and today the most important problems of the presidents of the United States is not the cities. And the cities is only for the Mayor, the most difficult and complex job of the world. And I - I know very well because I work in the city of Barcelona from the, till the last 20 years.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Is this the notion that we're moving into an age of - almost literally of city states - and the nation state are dying out; cities are the future and will end up governing themselves. Is this true?

GARY LAWRENCE: The economy has decided that exchanges take place between city states, not between nations. Er, and the whole globalisation phenomenon has been a shift from national agendas to the agendas of economic regions -sometimes within the same country, sometimes central cities. And it's created a tension we haven't talked about - and that is charismatic mayors, people who govern well, people who can inspire people to greatness, are always perceived to be the political rivals of the national government. So there's this element of politics that also exists here, that's difficult to overcome.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Do you believe that cities are going take over from the nation state?

KALPANA SHARMA: No. I don't think so. I mean, I don't think there's any possibility of that and I think that what I see in the future is a sort of - a two class system in terms of cities where you'll have global cities. Even within a country like India, no matter where their economy goes, which'll get all the benefits of being part of this global economy and all the problems that come with it. And you'll get the other smaller cities which will continue to struggle without getting the funding and without getting any of the attention that they ought to get.

STEVE BRADSHAW: So do, do you believe, Michael, that cities are the future - I mean is Habitat going to be the executive of some 21st century world government?

MICHAEL PARKES: It - cities are here to stay. If half the cities are in a bad state, it makes the other half of the city bad. So there's problems as you said of security and so on. So we have, we have to draw - to attend to all these problems. It is the urban century we're moving into - first time in the history of mankind -and all these things have to be done.

STEVE BRADSHAW: Thank you all very much indeed. Thank you Gary Lawrence, Josep Acebillo, Kalpana Sharma and Michael Parkes. And goodnight from Barcelona, a city where you can see what can be done when people agree how to build the cities of the future.

END