Imagine cities of the future
Cities have been at the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic, as they play a key role to implement nation-wide measures and provide test beds for bottom-up and innovative recovery strategies.
Acting as travel and trade hubs, they got a higher risk of disease spread due to high population densities, tend to have extensive public transport networks, and often serve as points for healthcare surge.
During the ongoing global pandemic, we have seen, on one end, cities devising on crisis management related to healthcare access, social distancing, workplace, commuting, vulnerable groups, support to business and citizen engagement. On the other end, cities have continued and strengthened long-term repair strategies towards Net Zero.
Some of the dynamics in urban settings shifted due to the crisis, affecting businesses and citizens: digitalisation, mobility, density, urban design.
Collaborative governance also has gained a second youth. The necessity of action-oriented guidance bring governments, communities and private sectors together to build back better cities. With a consensus aligned on climate priorities, long-term investment and partnerships have the potential to accelerate the transition to a resilient, equitable and low-carbon future.
What a city of the future might look like?
We could dare to imagine a city where public spaces are no longer single-use spaces and but true commons, prioritising people, not just movement.
Dense pedestrian and cycling networks, completed with shared transportation, replace personal cars.
Buildings are flexible. Home is a workplace; offices are hotels; roofs are wind and food farms; neighbourhoods wetlands are carbon sinks + energy is 100% renewable. Enough power is produced within or close to the city. Area buildings share energy resources, and generate as much energy as they consume.
Human movements are contained within urban nuclei, leaving space for thriving biodiversity and revived habitat.
Businesses thrive as they anchor into localisation. Food is locally and organically produced. Urban developers epitomize ecology impact by offsetting in rewilding projects.
We can dare to imagine climate positive cities repairing our planet’s life-support systems, resilient to disruption, where all homes and businesses are adaptable green pods with a zero+ carbon balance: they regenerate more than they use, and support rural areas.
Cities of the future are cities where the “less is more” of Mies van der Rohe takes a whole new sense.
More about my perspective on cities of the future:
And some insights in the context of a recent panel discussion on Imagining the Cities of the Future here and below:
