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The ongoing biotechnology revolution is less discussed than the digital one, but is on par with it, if not more prevalent. While less visible to the everyday eye, progress in healthcare and genetics will dramatically alter the way and where we live. Indeed, it feels like science fiction has crept into reality.
For some time now, it has been possible to create an embryonic precursor from someone’s blood cells. Essentially, this means that scientists can recreate a “younger you” in the form of an unevolved and unaged specimen, which could eventually turn into a fetus that will grow into an adult, with your DNA. Some scientists are suggesting that DNA doesn’t age much; what does is the epigenetic, or the molecular processes that regulate the expressions of DNA.
Nowadays, a growing scientific movement views aging not as a consequence of growing older, but as a condition in and of itself, a pathology. In other words, aging is a disease that is not a result of a degradation of DNA, but of the epigenetic. Once we understand how to reboot it and restore the functioning of DNA, we could have treatments for aging and perhaps even the possibility to reverse it.
Highly controversial, of course. Nevertheless, we are slowly but surely moving toward dramatically extending human longevity and eventually, toward cellular regeneration (i.e., regrowing limbs).
There are substantial investments being made with this goal in mind, and results will be obtained much faster than we are aware. As an example, in the 1990s, gene therapy was perceived as high-risk and elusive. Today, a group of technologies named CRISPR-Cas9 enables scientists to edit genomes and alter DNA sequences, with the potential to correct genetic diseases and cure cancer. We may even be able to create immortality. Scientists have not yet found how to do it, but at some point, they well could.
Think of the luminaries the world lost early, of diseases or from causes that genetics research seeks to cure. Steve Jobs lived to be 56. He died as Apple just started really growing exponentially — in a business sense, and in creativity — benefiting from his decades of experience.
Zaha Hadid, the first woman to win the Pritzker prize (considered the Nobel prize for architects) died in 2016 at age 65. She really began to be at the top of her field after 2000, or age 50. Considering that she still might have had her best years ahead, advances in longevity could have an enormously positive effect on our cities, if world-class architects and real estate developers are able to exponentially leverage their experience for longer. Good news.
Urbanism is turning into one of the world’s most pressing issues. Desirable cities are so unaffordable that housing negatively impairs national GDP growth by several points. And well-planned architecture has been found to reduce crime. Boosting longevity could have a direct correlation with much faster economic growth and lower crime. And immortality, all the more. All in all, as human progress accelerates, so should that of our cities and lifestyles.
Living longer would indeed drastically affect the demographic makeup of our cities. With the nationwide trend of migration back toward cities, downtowns have again become gravity centers as jobs, social life and opportunities are all located next to one another. In other words, cities are becoming harder to leave. As their inhabitants have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and live longer, the populations of cities like New York could explode. And so could real estate prices, by the sheer force of supply and demand — not to mention that the older the population grows, the higher the amount of savings in the economy, hence additional capital increasing housing prices.
There urgently need to be solutions. Just based on migration trends, nearly 70% of the world’s population will live in cities in 2050. (That number is over 54% today, and was 34% in 1960.)
One solution could be a movement that is already making a comeback in today’s world: multigenerational housing, through which several generations of a same family coexist under the same roof. Would the United States then become more like traditional Europe, where close-knit families often live together for decades into adulthood? The potential societal changes are enormous. Cities would, in this case, revert to what they had always been before: homes for whole families, as opposed to, say, downtowns of solely high-earning young professionals.
Additionally, advances in transportation such as ride-sharing will reduce the need to own our own cars. If we need fewer roads, we will have more space to build — probably taller, if the aforementioned experts live longer and are able to develop the appropriate real estate structures. There’s another factor increasing urban density.
And what about zoning? If we know we will live until 150, will we take a different outlook at community board meetings, and be more open to rezonings to allow the additional housing that enables our family members to stay close to us? Longevity could lead to less friction on hot-button local issues.
The science fiction of longevity and immortality is much closer to reality than we think. It should be embraced, as it features the potential to drastically improve the way we live together. Optimism is de rigueur for one of the planet’s most challenging and divisive issues. Public policy must follow and allow cities to shape themselves and grow in a way that retains all — this means allowing sound, large-scale construction and urbanism.