What are sustainable cities, and can we build them? I put my Institute Fellows’ decades of experience together with the content of this fine conference, and conclude: (1) A sustainable city will attend equally to innovation, to human opportunity and dignity, and to the Earth. (2) Cities are not yet doing that. (3) There are obstacles.

For convenience, let’s say it started with Photoshop. That program made it obvious not only that we couldn’t believe our eyes any more, but that photographic evidence could no longer be admissible in court. Socioeconomic implications were even wider, as new industries popped up with products purporting to tell unretouched photos from photoshopped ones. (And the trademarked noun gave rise to a verb!)