© Neil Hall / Reuters
As world leaders gather for the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, Livingstone said that governments are not always effective when it comes to tackling people's problems.
"I'm almost beginning to think that it's time to abolish governments and just let the world be run by large cities," Livingstone told RT on the sidelines of the Moscow Urban Forum, which provides a platform for international discussion on the development challenges of global megacities.He backed up this idea by noting that mayors always live in the cities they run, know their problems and attempt to tackle them. In contrast, many high-ranking government officials are preoccupied with irrelevant issues, according to Livingstone.
"Presidents and prime ministers are living in some sort of an academic world, where they are debating ideas and theories and very often get caught up in wars that are completely unnecessary, like in Iraq and Libya," he said.Huge protests are expected at the upcoming G20 summit on July 7-8 in Hamburg, and there are fears demonstrations could turn violent. The city has already seen a number of anti-G20 rallies, including one on Tuesday, when police unleashed water cannon to disperse a large crowd of protesters.
However, the former London mayor believes that violence breaks out when the police fail to recognize people's right to have their voices heard.
"If a protest is determined to be violent, you've got to make sure it doesn't happen, but a peaceful protest should be never interfered with, the police should never block it," Livingstone said.More than 100,000 people are expected to take to the streets to join various demonstrations in Hamburg on Friday and Saturday.
"Very few protesters turn out with a determination to be violent, and very often the violence that happens at a demonstration is because police tend to block a peaceful demonstration. They are working for the establishment and not recognizing the right of people to protest."
Germany has already stepped up security in preparation for the event. At least 15,000 police officers from Germany's federal states are being deployed to ensure security at the summit.
In fact the utility of cities has diminished with the advent of fast communications. Why spend hours each day in a dirty, noisy, expensive and dangerous place when you can stay home and video conference whenever necessary. Cities are already beyond human management. Livingstone's own experience tells him London is actually just the old name of many boroughs where the decentralized administration is done.
The efficient conurbations in the world are not cities but towns of 50,000 - 80,000 population where many of your neighbors are old school friends, members of the same sports club sharing similar interests, families that have lived there for generations. Operating a town is simpler and the services - utilities and garbage collections - work as intended.