In A City Creating the Future, Rob van Gijzel, Mayor of Eindhoven, takes the reader on a journey into the future. He demonstrates the inadequacy of current social, political and economic systems to deal with the problems of that future. These are huge challenges, the Grand Challenges.
Food, energy, climate, mobility, water and health care are global problems which desperately need solutions. The old system of the vertical world, with its cumbersome institutions, sluggish government, unwieldy decision-making, ideological conflicts and top-down approach has been shown to fall short, unable to provide answers. The reason for this is that change, and technological change, is going faster that the prevailing constitution's capacity to deal with it.
