Cities are more than jungles of concrete

On a business trip last week, I have had the chance to visit King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) for the first time. For those who do not know, KAEC is a city built from scratch, or to be more precise, it is a dream that is still in transformation into reality. Since the visit, I have this question in mind; how does an ideal city look like? That if we agree, for the sake of argument, that there is an ideal city to begin with. Cities, after all, are like human beings, each and every one of them comes with a different taste and flavor, a distinctive personality and character, young and ambitious like Dubai, or old yet beautiful like London. But at the heart of the city, there are pillars all great cities are built upon.
To begin with, there is the basic infrastructure; networks over networks of water pipes, electrical cables and communication corridors. These networks are usually reliable, sustainable and well maintained. Our cities have such infrastructure in place. Yes we might have repeated power cuts here and there, districts with dry water pipes for months, maybe less reliable and poorly maintained compared to even older cities around the world, but by the end of the day, we do have them.
Then, there are the basic amenities; schools, hospitals, banks and food outlets. The next requirement of an ideal city is a transportation system and in here, we begin the journey of falling behind. Weirdly, in a world full of options, our understanding of transportation is narrowed down to two choices only; a car or an airplane. It feels like when the whole world decided to discover and build more reliable urban transportation systems, we decided to build roads. And when they were enhancing their systems to be more eco- friendly, faster and safer, we, once again, decided to build more roads. With such sole dependency on roads and cars, one would assume that we have the safest roads on the planet and the best driving practices, the sad news is: This assumption is faulty. Driving around in our cities is nothing less of a nightmare; overly crowded and full of reckless drivers.
However, we are hopeful for some change. The last feature that I want to talk about is the feature that makes great cities truly great; it is what I like to call ... the human friendliness factor. I know it is a bit of a strange feature, you may argue that all cities are actually built to host humans, so all of them are inherently human friendly, I am afraid you are mistaken; there are cities to live in them and there are ones to live them.
It is the X factor, the soul, that great cities usually possess; it is in harmony between what is natural and what is man-made, the trees and green areas, the walking spaces, the conformity of colors, the cozy embrace between history and modernity, the memories and dreams scattered in each and every corner. These cities are not only drawn on the table of engineers and urban planners, but imagined and lived in the hearts and minds of dreamers and artists. It is not about the mixture of concrete and steel, about the width and height, but in the way the city touches its residents, their eyes, ears, and psychology.
And in this factor of human friendless, sadly, our cities do not perform well. That, I believe, could explain high blood pressure and overall grumpiness popular amongst us. The cure is simple. It is to remember when designing any part of a city, that you are designing it for human beings. Never forget the small details that make their lives easier and enjoyable. It is never late.