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What do you think about planned capitals? Do you live in one?

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I hope, that in my lifetime, we can all recognize inter-cultural heroes as well as global heroes who will come together and give meaning to life and the pursuit of happiness. Global fascism will not survive in the long-term.

I am living in the village of Kirchzarten in the Black Forest, Germany. As the people from neighboring university town Freiburg moved into the country site, our village planned a totally new part called Kirchzarten-Birkenhof. It has all the facilities you need including a train station for commuters.

Planned cities are systems that work, move (not clogged with traffic), scenic( beautiful) and attractive with open parks (lungs) to be or live in.

I live in a terrible one -- Nairobi.

I live in Brussels, which is not a 100% planned city, you miss the big avenues like in Berlin.

But the city is made up of ‘quartiers' (neighborhood zones) and each quartier has its own center. To take fresh air and to be in the forest it only takes 15 minutes by public transport.

I live in Abuja, a city built with a master plan for a beautiful city.

But the implementation (of the plans) was not followed properly, due partly to some administrative factors, and the master plan does not reflect our realities.

Perhaps with planners did not consider our socio-cultural, religious and demographic characteristics as a people, hence the implementation of the plan ran into some hitches.

I have been in many cities with more than 5 million people, and I think we should not plan capitals -- we should avoid them, avoid big cities and look instead to smaller, networked ones.

There is no way to know the needs of a city in the future. Maybe we can design a city good for the next 30 or 50 years, but as the economy and culture changes over time, what we think today about what should be the optimal city will become obsolete.

Smaller cities are more flexible, cleaner, safer and easier to refurbish as people require change. We have to make cities for the people, not crowded with people.

Planned cities, be they capitals or otherwise, are always going to be uninteresting or boring.

What makes people remember places are the factors that make them unique. What makes places interesting are their own individual 'quirkiness'. Planned cities by their very nature lack such qualities.

Bangalore is a city in south India where there has been a tremendous influx of people lured by jobs outsourced from western companies. It is not capable of handling even 20% of the existing population.

Planned capitals would help in any part of the world, but only if the economic forecasting (what jobs, how many jobs, how big the urban infrastructure should be, etc) by the government matches what happens actually.

Today most metropolises, principally in the countries of the third world, have problems.

Here in Brazil, for example, our capital (Brasi­lia) was planned. But the problem isn't the structure of the city, we are talking about of the structure of society, that's the problem.

What's more important: to build a monument or build the future of our children, making schools, hospitals, cultural spaces?

I think planned cities/capitals are great.

In India, on the one hand we have Bangalore, with around 7 million people and a transportation system which is virtually choked. There is no mass transportation system in place.

On the other hand, we have the planned (state) capital of Chandigarh, with a population just under one million but infrastructure absolutely robust, and plans in place to counter any increase in population.

The interesting point with planned cities, and not only capitals, is that they allow for integrating harmoniously all aspects of life and transportation: public transportation by road and/or rail, roads and bikes or pedestrians.

I do not think that a city will be boring if people can have all facilities, including entertainment, at close hand. The problem starts when people commute.

What sets cities like Manhattan, Boston and London apart from the rest is the history.

The grit, the dirt, the everyday aspects of the city, which new-urbanists are trying to remove from cities.