Abstract Body

The trifecta of accelerating climate change, a level of ecosystem loss scientists are already calling the sixth great extinction event, and pervasive pollution by the residues of the 2^nd and 3^rd industrial revolutions and the lifestyles they enable, is creating an unfamiliar and largely unknowable world in which the cities of our future will have to function. Some scholars suggest that we are entering a period of social, economic and ecological collapse, or even catastrophe, which calls for Deep Adaptation (as phrased by Jem Bendell). It is becoming clear that the Sustainable Development Goals will not be able to manage, let alone prevent this collapse, and the much vaunted Fourth Industrial Revolution, and its emerging successor the Fifth Industrial Revolution, does not even consider the possibility of collapse.

Each Industrial Revolution has changed the form, functions and flows of cities, as illustrated in the paper. However, we argue that the world needs to make a radical step-change towards a Sixth Industrial Revolution (6IR) in which the judicious and wise use of old and new technologies helps us not just to change and adapt, but to reconnect that which was forced apart, marrying human ingenuity and the wisdom of Mother Nature to regenerate the planet and our societies. The components of such a 6IR are already available and only need to be stitched together into a safety net to first catch civilization in its collapse, and then transform into a scaffold for a radically different, live-affirming future in which all our descendants can thrive, not just survive. The purpose of this paper is to weave these threads into a description of the 6IR that we can use to explore how the 6IR could change how we think about transforming and regenerating current cities for a future beyond collapse.