In the article titled, “The Modern City Re-invented” by Shafik I. Rifaat, the author discusses the issue about the problems with the growing population in cities, environmental damage and urban accommodation as well as providing solutions to solve these issues. The article states how as the population in the world continues to grow, more people will be living in cities. As a result, cities would have to create more settlements for people who are moving into the area which can be a challenge as issues such as overcrowding and the need for upgrades in old cities becomes more apparent. Rifaat also talks about how humans originally created cities as a way to socialize and efficiently supply items such as food and materials, but during the 19th century of the Industrial Revolution, cities suffered from dense population of workers living in poor conditions. Eventually, the roads in cities turned into highways causing an influx of cars and pollution. Thus, the author suggests ideas that could help reduce these problems. These ideas include focusing on public transportation such as buses and trains as well as creating roads that prioritizes walking, bikes, and public transportation over cars as a way to reduce carbon emissions. To add on, Rifaat suggests determining community sizes based on walking distance that are around 15 minutes as walking communities can accommodate more people in small land area. Another suggestion is the rail line which can help connect different communities together and can even create farm markets with the use of hydroponic agriculture which can allow the sales of fresh produce within walking or biking distance. Throughout the article, the author details his ideas for an ideal modern city which includes a central green park and cultural belt, the sizes of the park, creating a sanitary water system, as well as special services and a recycling system. By focusing on these ideas, the author states that modern cities can benefit from them and create a more sustainable city for a growing population.

The author provides a good explanation and overview of the current issues with cities and population while also providing detail explanations and images of how to design a more sustainable city. However, the article does include flaws that should be addressed. To begin with, while the author provides suggestion to solve the issues, the author doesn’t properly explain how these ideas should be implemented into modern society. While the suggestions may provide good results, Rifaat doesn’t explain how we should try to convince people and raise awareness that these issues exist or why we should care. Moreover, he doesn’t provide enough evidence as to why his ideas can lead to good results as he doesn’t provide much data. Because of this, his arguments sound very idealistic and lack a basis for why the issues that he presents are problematic to the people and how they relate to his ideas. He only provides some details of the consequences at the beginning and end and some in the middle but overall, the details are lacking. Finally, since he mostly discusses how a city should be designed, it makes it sounds like this article was written in a way to simply show his idea and not raise awareness. An example happens when in his conclusion, he comments how high density, high rise developments will eventually become slums, yet, he doesn’t explain why they do and how it relates to the content of the article.Thus, his ideas come across as “Here are my ideas for an ideal city” instead of “These are the issues, here are the solutions, why they can solve them, and why you should care”. Therefore, while Rifaat’s article provides interesting suggestions and ideas, he lacks a basis and a compelling reason as to why the argument he presents is important.