A Bonus: what we anticipate…
After surveying the defining trends that will shape our urban future, in certain areas it becomes evident that we expect to see changes happening quickly. In this chapter we outline some of these changes/ scenarios, thereby hoping to provide inspiration for our conference guests and City Changers around the globe.
A shrinkage in scale
Cities in essence are complex networks of goods, resource, services, people and ideas. They are by their nature complex systems. The density and complexity have huge benefits (e.g., energy and resource efficiency, assets utilization, physical interactions), but building and maintaining them is very costly and imposes great challenges and constraints (e.g., the reliance on centralized systems, the need for and complications in coordination).
A city’s performance – or attractiveness – can be measured by the ratio of benefits to costs.
In megacities, costs overwhelmingly outweigh benefits. The complexity mismatches between different systems and the enormous amount of coordination required to keep them from failing are not only expensive, but also often lower life quality for their citizens.
As a result:
New urban technologies, such as new transportation models and energy generating and storage models can increase the density of suburban areas at low-cost; while certain advantages megacities previously had are weakened by digital connectivity, virtual-reality technology and the changing pattern of production and supply.
Moderately-sized cities with distinctive city brands are likely to attract people and growth, as well as tending to be more sustainable and resilient.
Decentralization
New technologies increasingly render centralized business models obsolete. Production units (from farm land to manufacturing) are down-sizing drastically and can be distributed within the proximity of points of supply and consumption, eliminating the hassles and resource waste caused by logistics and transportation.
As a result:
Multi-functional, ad-hoc public/ communal spaces will be needed in cities, where production, commercial activities, social functions, entertainment, human interactions for exchange, engagement, collaboration, innovation, and so forth can swiftly take place.
Blurring of boundaries and hybrid diversity
What happened in the business world – the fading out of conventional boundaries between different industries and the emerging of new, more complex and interwoven business domains, is impacting cities in the same way it impacted businesses.
As a result:
Different functions, urban and natural elements, biodiversity, production, work, living, learning and play, will be ever more intensely mixed, so as to generate more ‘good frictions’ and create a vibrant environment for innovations to emerge more easily and naturally. Mid-sized urban mixed-use complexes may be the starting points of such experiments, as private developers can be the first ones incentivized if they recognize this trend. However, careful planning is required to craft a unique profile (while providing the variety) that meets the taste and demands of the targeted local market.
Cities as dashboards – IoT, AI & Big Data
While ubiquitous censors will be collecting data, which will be analyzed by AI algorithms (that continuously improve themselves by learning from the growing data and feedbacks loops) for constant optimization, there must be a way for these to communicate or interact with humans. Cities will have to provide or eventually become the ‘interface’ of these processes.
As a result:
Buildings, roads, and newly- built structures will optimize their settings and functions in real time, depending on the climate, traffic, as well as what’s happening in other parts of the city, to attain optimized efficiency and performance.
Visionary city administrators have long been developing platforms that can harness the value of this data while facilitating open frameworks for the public business providers in the private sector. This can potentially foster city level innovation, and can lead to improved life quality and enhance the city’s attractiveness and competitiveness.
Proximity vs. Services on the Go
While walking distance (rather than driving distance) defines the new scale of neighborhoods, making proximity a basic parameter of the urban life quality, driverless cars may fundamentally change the meaning of travel.
As a result:
From retails services such as banking, to dating, education, seminars and social and public events, self-driving vehicles have the potential to offer an alternative space for productivities. In addition, these are productivities and services that come to people rather than the other way around.
Proactive Public Space
Just like the vision of the computer-enabled paperless office never materialized, and in contrast we consume more paper than ever before, the belief that virtual connectivity will eventually replace physical interactions is false. As the American theoretical physicist and futurist Michio Kaku pointed out in his book Future of the Mind, humans will (almost) always prefer physical experience over virtual ones – we are hardwired to seek physical interactions with other fellow humans. That’s why we are drawn to Parisian streets full of cafes and life, not to the post-industrial suburban settlements where street life implies nothing but criminality.
Although mobile phones, E-mails, Skype and other tools greatly reduced the need to physically interact with others, these are all planned activities with pre-defined purposes and agendas; they offer no opportunity for serendipity. Cities, on the other hand, set the stage for all types of unplanned encounters. Various public spaces and commercial facilities from parks to pubs enable diverse groups of individuals to meet and their ideas to ‘have sex’ with each other, eventually giving birth to entirely new breeds.
As Rohit T. Aggarwala, Head of Urban Systems at Sidewalk Labs, wrote in his article The First Principles of Urbanism, ‘…getting people in the same place is a very big differentiator. It is also a key reason that density seems to accelerate innovation, create stronger communities, and enable greater social mobility.’
As a result:
The quality of public space and street life play a tremendous role in a city’s attractiveness and competitiveness.
Cities devoted to design public spaces in ways that can proactively increase the life quality, well-being, productivity and innovation of the citizens will more likely to grow and thrive.
Community
Evolutionary biology claims that humans feel comfortable only in limitedly sized groups. In our ever more globalized, commercialized and homogenized society, a stronger sense of community is desired and can be increasingly beneficial.
As a result:
Intelligently designed urban settings may be able to contravene social segregation and polarization, and thus strengthen social bounds among different groups.
An alternative to the inclusion approach is specialization through self-selection of like-minded individuals forming different communities. These communities can be the driving force and building blocks for achieving a truly diversified city with distinctive neighborhoods.
Local communities can also be great help for citizen engagement and participation. Inputs such as community members preferences and needs help shape the design of district or city better serving its purposes; the participation also helps increase emotional bounds and commitment to their neighborhoods, eventually making them more resilient in times of crises. Communities may also help strengthen trust among citizens as well as toward city administrations, yet another big asset in a world of trust crises.
In any case, cities and districts that actively engage citizens and communities will have a better chance to succeed.