Creating cities and human habitats for a sustainable and prosperous world

Cities are humankind’s greatest collective invention. They provide shelter, safety, community, commerce, and a sense of identity to people and cultures around the world. However, rapid urbanization has produced cities that are complex and often poorly understood. While cities are sources of enormous wealth and productivity, they generate significant social, economic, and environmental challenges.

For future generations to survive and thrive, we must have more equitable, prosperous, sustainable, and resilient cities and communities. Cities should work to everyone’s benefit and with this in mind, Hatch is delivering the foundational “systems of systems” approach that sustainably supports our communities and economies.

The goal of any city should be the sustained, long-term prosperity of its residents and environment. Functional, efficient communities and cities provide citizens with opportunities to pursue individual and collective aspirations in equitable, sustainable, and economically viable ways. By 2050, an estimated 70% of the world’s population will live in urban areas, and even as global populations are expected to plateau, urbanization is projected to continue with 200,000 people moving to urbanized areas every day for the next 30 years. The challenge of our century is to ensure that this massive urbanization occurs equitably and sustainably, helping us address and solve rather than exacerbate existing and emerging environmental, social, and economic challenges. We’re planning and designing projects and places with innovation and integration at the core. We partner with our clients in a connected, forward-thinking way, often looking for opportunities to invest in the solutions we help create. And we combine our global pool of talent, experience, and technical expertise with state-of-the-art digital tools and processes to help our clients generate greater economic value, achieve better societal outcomes, and reduce their overall carbon footprint.

With a focus on refining and improving the physical, functional, social, and environmental conditions of historic cities, we’re ultimately easing the centuries-old process of development and redevelopment that is the eternal rhythm of any established city. We also reconsider the expansive post-WWII suburbs, looking to densify, intensify, diversify, and integrate these environments. We look for innovative ways to develop new communities, towns, and cities, optimizing the relationship between the built and natural environments.

With this in mind, we must work to reduce the impact that cars and other motorized vehicles have made over the last 120 years. The single largest piece of public property in every city is its rights-of-way, the vast majority of which is given over to the needs of vehicles. Moving forward, this public land must be optimized to create multi-modal connectivity and an integrated network of live-work-play neighborhoods and districts that leverage emerging changes in living: work, leisure, community, and how we interface with nature.

As we consider individual communities and cities, we also weigh their global context. The character, utility, and structure of globalization is changing, impacting cities. Ports, airports, freight systems, passenger terminals, logistics centers, and hubs are ubiquitous, and it’s impossible to imagine a modern world without them. Yet, while the international movement of people and goods has become commonplace, it consumes enormous amounts of non-renewable energy, creates a massive carbon footprint, and often produces significant economic, social, and environmental disruptions.

To solve this, Hatch teams are strategizing, developing, and optimizing supply chain issues in ways that create exceptional value for owners and stakeholders while addressing rapidly changing contemporary industries, accelerating energy transitions, increased demand for equitable economic opportunity, and recognition that “business as usual” is not sustainable.

Our integrated approach to designing future-ready cities shows us that people, places, and spaces are so deeply connected that it’s impossible to pull them apart. Our legacy will be the creation of a world that nurtures these connections and enhances, preserves, and protects them for generations to come. By taking a systems-of-systems approach to human and natural habitats, we create places that are more attractive for residents and visitors, contribute more benefits to local communities and to greater society, are more desirable for owners and investors, and will stand the test of time as sustainable, resilient, and equitable places for all.