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What is the Internet of Things (IoT)?

The term IoT, or Internet of Things, refers to the collective network of connected devices and the technology that facilitates communication between devices and the cloud, as well as between the devices themselves. Thanks to the advent of inexpensive computer chips and high bandwidth telecommunication, we now have billions of devices connected to the internet. This means everyday devices like toothbrushes, vacuums, cars, and machines can use sensors to collect data and respond intelligently to users.

The Internet of Things integrates everyday "things" with the internet. Computer Engineers have been adding sensors and processors to everyday objects since the 90s. However, progress was initially slow because the chips were big and bulky. Low power computer chips called RFID tags were first used to track expensive equipment. As computing devices shrank in size, these chips also became smaller, faster, and smarter over time.

The cost of integrating computing power into small objects has now dropped considerably. For example, you can add connectivity with Alexa voice services capabilities to MCUs with less than 1MB embedded RAM, such as for light switches. A whole industry has sprung up with a focus on filling our homes, businesses, and offices with IoT devices. These smart objects can automatically transmit data to and from the Internet. All these "invisible computing devices" and the technology associated with them are collectively referred to as the Internet of Things.

How does IoT work?

A typical IoT system works through the real-time collection and exchange of data. An IoT system has three components:

Smart devices

This is a device, like a television, security camera, or exercise equipment that has been given computing capabilities. It collects data from its environment, user inputs, or usage patterns and communicates data over the internet to and from its IoT application.

IoT application

An IoT application is a collection of services and software that integrates data received from various IoT devices. It uses machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) technology to analyze this data and make informed decisions. These decisions are communicated back to the IoT device and the IoT device then responds intelligently to inputs.

A graphical user interface

The IoT device or fleet of devices can be managed through a graphical user interface. Common examples include a mobile application or website that can be used to register and control smart devices.

What are examples of IoT devices?

Let's look at some examples of IoT systems in use today:

Connected cars

There are many ways vehicles, such as cars, can be connected to the internet. It can be through smart dashcams, infotainment systems, or even the vehicle's connected gateway. They collect data from the accelerator, brakes, speedometer, odometer, wheels, and fuel tanks to monitor both driver performance and vehicle health. Connected cars have a range of uses:

Monitoring rental car fleets to increase fuel efficiency and reduce costs.

Helping parents track the driving behavior of their children.

Notifying friends and family automatically in case of a car crash.

Predicting and preventing vehicle maintenance needs.

Connected homes

Smart home devices are mainly focused on improving the efficiency and safety of the house, as well as improving home networking. Devices like smart outlets monitor electricity usage and smart thermostats provide better temperature control. Hydroponic systems can use IoT sensors to manage the garden while IoT smoke detectors can detect tobacco smoke. Home security systems like door locks, security cameras, and water leak detectors can detect and prevent threats, and send alerts to homeowners.

Connected devices for the home can be used for:

Automatically turning off devices not being used.

Rental property management and maintenance.

Finding misplaced items like keys or wallets.

Automating daily tasks like vacuuming, making coffee, etc.

Smart cities

IoT applications have made urban planning and infrastructure maintenance more efficient. Governments are using IoT applications to tackle problems in infrastructure, health, and the environment. IoT applications can be used for:

Measuring air quality and radiation levels.

Reducing energy bills with smart lighting systems.

Detecting maintenance needs for critical infrastructures such as streets, bridges, and pipelines.

Increasing profits through efficient parking management.

Smart buildings

Buildings such as college campuses and commercial buildings use IoT applications to drive greater operational efficiencies. IoT devices can be use in smart buildings for:

Reducing energy consumption.

Lowering maintenance costs.

Utilizing work spaces more efficiently.

What is Industrial IoT?

Industrial IoT (IIoT) refers to smart devices used in manufacturing, retail, health, and other enterprises to create business efficiencies. Industrial devices, from sensors to equipment, give business owners detailed, real-time data that can be used to improve business processes. They provide insights on supply chain management, logistics, human resource, and production - decreasing costs and increasing revenue streams.

Let's look at existing smart industrial systems in different verticals:

Manufacturing

Enterprise IoT in manufacturing uses predictive maintenance to reduce unplanned downtime and wearable technology to improve worker safety. IoT applications can predict machine failure before it happens, reducing production downtime. Wearables in helmets and wristbands, as well as computer vision cameras, are used to warn workers about potential hazards.

Automobile

Sensor-driven analytics and robotics increase efficiency in automobile manufacturing and maintenance. For example, industrial sensors are used to provide 3D real-time images of internal vehicle components. Diagnostics and troubleshooting can be done much faster while the IoT system orders replacement parts automatically.

Logistics and transport

Commercial and Industrial IoT devices can help with supply chain management, including inventory management, vendor relationships, fleet management, and scheduled maintenance. Shipping companies use Industrial IoT applications to keep track of assets and optimize fuel consumption on shipping routes. The technology is especially useful for tight temperature control in refrigerated containers. Supply chain managers make informed predictions through smart routing and rerouting algorithms.

Retail

Amazon is driving innovation in automation and human-machine collaboration in retail. Amazon facilities make use of internet-connected robots for tracking, locating, sorting, and moving products.

How can IoT improve our lives?

The Internet of Things has a wide-ranging impact on human life and work. It allows machines to do more heavy lifting, take over tedious tasks and make life more healthy, productive, and comfortable.

For example, connected devices could change your entire morning routine. When you hit the snooze button, your alarm clock would automatically get the coffee machine to turn on and open your window blinds. Your refrigerator would auto-detect finishing groceries and order them for home delivery. Your smart oven would tell you the menu for the day - it might even cook pre-assembled ingredients and make sure your lunch is ready. Your smartwatch will schedule meetings as your connected car automatically sets the GPS to stop for a fuel refill. The opportunities are endless in an IoT world!

What are the benefits of IoT for business?

Accelerate innovation

The Internet of Things gives businesses access to advanced analytics that uncover new opportunities. For example, businesses can create highly targeted advertising campaigns by collecting data on customer behavior.

Turn data into insights and actions with AI and ML

Collected data and historical trends can be used to predict future outcomes. For example, warranty information can be paired with IoT-collected data to predict maintenance incidents. This can be used to proactively provide customer service and build customer loyalty.

Increase security

Continuous monitoring of digital and physical infrastructure can optimize performance, improve efficiency and reduce safety risks. For example, data collected from an onsite monitor can be combined with hardware and firmware version data to automatically schedule system updates.

Scale differentiated solutions

IoT technologies can be deployed in a customer focused way to increase satisfaction. For example, trending products can be restocked promptly to avoid shortages.

What are IoT technologies?

Technologies used in IoT systems may include:

Edge computing

Edge computing refers to the technology used to make smart devices do more than just send or receive data to their IoT platform. It increases the computing power at the edges of an IoT network, reducing communication latency and improving response time.

Cloud computing

Cloud technology is used for remote data storage and IoT device management - making the data accessible to multiple devices in the network.

Machine learning

Machine learning refers to the software and algorithms used to process data and make real-time decisions based on that data. These machine learning algorithms can be deployed in the cloud or at the edge.

What is AWS IoT and how can it help?

AWS IoT brings AI and IoT together to improve business outcomes. It is the only cloud vendor that combines data management and rich analytics to create easy-to-use services designed for high-volume IoT data.

AWS IoT includes services like security, data encryption, and access control to device data. It is built on secure and proven cloud infrastructure and IoT networks and scales to billions of devices and trillions of messages. AWS IoT also integrates with other AWS services so you can create complete solutions.

Build with AWS IoT

AWS IoT provides IoT services for industrial, consumer, and commercial solutions. You can rely on AWS IoT services to build applications that uncover new business value, run sophisticated analytics and detect and respond to events from large number of IoT devices.

Get started with AWS IoT by creating a free AWS account. New to IoT? Learn the basics and get started building simple end-to-end IoT applications.

IoT next steps

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What is IoT (Internet of Things)? - Everything you need to know - AWS

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Find out what is IoT, how and why businesses use IoT, and how to use IoT with AWS.

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Architects including Thom Mayne, Peter Cook and Reinier de Graaf have explained the thinking behind planned megacity The Line in a recently released 45-minute documentary.

Numerous architects feature in the recent Discovery Channel documentary, which is named The Line: Saudi Arabia's City of the Future in Neom, alongside members of the Neom team and Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.

"I can't think of anybody that wouldn't want to be part of this project," said Morphosis founder Mayne, while Cook Haffner Architecture Platform co-founder Cook said that "if it succeeds, it will be a new Babylon".

The 45-minute-long documentary marks the first time the majority of architects connected to the 170-kilometre-long city, which has largely been developed in secret, have spoken at length about it in public.

Mayne explained how Morphosis had developed the concept for The Line, which forms part of the Neom mega project, as its entry to an invited competition to design a new city.

"It's actually a complicated project, but the big idea is incredibly simple," he explained.

In the documentary, Cook Haffner Architecture Platform is described as the project's lead designer. Cook explained how the project builds on his ideas for the Plugin City developed in the 1960s with Archigram.

Everything you need to know about Saudi mega-project Neom

He described his ambition for the city and was critical of current architectural thinking describing young architects as "scared".

"There is a certain moral atmosphere - we shouldn't be too clever," he said. "You shouldn't need to experiment, don't do anything too funky - I came out of a funky period."

"It's always assumed the young are more progressive," he continued. "Now, I think the youngest architects are nervous. They're very nervous. They're not natural experimenters. They're a bit scared."

According to the documentary, the current plans will see the city, which is currently under construction, divided into 140 modules. Each module will be 800 metres long and house 80,000 people.

Each of the first five of these modules will be developed by a different architecture studio picked "from a playing field of 20". Each studio will "develop their own module and bring The Line into reality".

The film features interviews with architects from six studios - Morphosis, Cook Haffner Architecture Platform, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, HOK, LAVA and OMA. However, OMA previously confirmed to Dezeen it was not currently working on the project.

"We participated in the competition in 2021," a spokesperson reconfirmed to Dezeen. "We are currently not working on the project."

HOK clarified that the studio was also not currently working on the project. "HOK was engaged in an early stage of design on The Line but is no longer participating in the project," said a spokesperson.

The other architects in the documentary aimed to explain the uniqueness of the project and how they believe it could offer an alternative to current cities.

"We as architects and urbanists have to think differently about everything," said Michael Bischoff, partner at Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.

"The questions and the threat on our planet is so immense, that I really don't understand that we try to answer these questions with old answers," said LAVA co-founder Alexander Rieck.

"There's an enormous responsibility that comes with that because you're dealing with the lives of people that are going to live here," added HOK design principal Roger Soto.

Drone footage reveals The Line megacity under construction in Saudi Arabia

The documentary was also the first time the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is leading the development of The Line, spoke at length about the project. In the film, he dismissed people's scepticism of the project.

"They say a lot of projects in Saudi Arabia can't be done, they're too ambitious," Mohammed bin Salman said in the documentary. "They can keep saying that and we can keep proving them wrong."

The Line is one of the world's largest and most controversial projects, although this is not mentioned in the documentary. It has been criticised on sustainability and liveability grounds as well as its human rights record.

Last year human rights organisation ALQST reported that three people who were evicted from the Neom site have been sentenced to death. Early this year, UN Human Rights Council experts expressed "alarm" over the imminent executions.

Speaking to Dezeen, Amnesty International's Peter Frankental said that companies working on Neom were facing a "moral dilemma" and should "think twice" about their continuing involvement in the project.

What the architects said about The Line:
Peter Cook, founder, Cook Haffner Architecture Platform
"There is a certain moral atmosphere - we shouldn't be too clever. You shouldn't need to experiment. Don't do anything too funky, I came out of a funky period."

"If it succeeds, it will be a new Babylon, so to speak. And if it doesn't succeed, it will be an interesting phenomenon."

"The Line is something that is intriguing to many people, puzzling to many people, and in some ways, puzzling even to those who are involved in designing it."

"It's always assumed the young are more progressive. Now, I think the youngest architects are nervous. They're very nervous. They're not natural experimenters. They're a bit scared."

"I think the best cities are slightly naughty."
Thom Mayne, founding partner, Morphosis
"I can't think of anybody that wouldn't want to be part of this project, it's going to be, without a question, the single most extraordinary piece of work that begins in the first quarter of the 21st century."

"It's actually a complicated project, but the big idea is incredibly simple."

"In our presentation, we showed a conceptual map that took New York apart. It was very important to us to develop the scale that broke down socially into communities that had personalities and gave people opportunities to live in very different environments like you would in London or Manhattan."

"I drive a Tesla, and I see that now that's transitional. That's the last car before there's no cars."
Branko Belaćević, partner, Cook Haffner Architecture Platform
"There was a moment in the development of the project when people started saying, 'I could live there'. People are starting to believe that it's possible"
Eui-Sung Yi, partner, Morphosis
"It's almost inevitable that a project like Neom should be engaged."

"You can imagine the amount of naysayers, you could imagine the amount of critics and those who are kind of worried if it was even possible."

"What if we just say that the ground is now multiple grounds, rather than always a singular ground that we always go down to."

"The ambition is proportional to the challenges."
Erlend Blasted Haffner, founder, Cook Haffner Architecture Platform
"What it will lead to will be interesting for all architects. It will have an impact on our profession, I think."
Roger Soto, design principal, HOK
"As soon as you start to get into it, you start to sort of think about the possibilities of it. And your mind starts to sort of begin to imagine that, yeah, it is maybe possible."

"We as architects and urbanists have to think differently about everything."

"Vertical transportation is a little bit more like a subway system. You're not like calling an elevator, it's just arriving on a regular basis. And you're moving up and down."

"There's an enormous responsibility that comes with that because you're dealing with the lives of people that are going to live here. And that's going to have families here."
Alexander Rieck, co-founder, LAVA
"The questions and the threat on our planet is so immense, that I really don't understand why we try to answer these questions with old answers."

"It has not been done before. We need this pioneering spirit in order to create, not only cities, but to create a planet, which will sustain the next couple of 1,000 years.

"Neom itself is one of the most amazing places in the past decade where the best minds are coming together. And we can test out different solutions."
Wael Sleiman, architect, OMA
"Humans in general, they tend to go horizontal and avoid vertical by all means possible. Lifts and stairs and things like that are abrupt interruption during movement. They hate it."
Michael Bischoff, partner, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners
"You look around at cultures that are just propagating endless fields of point towers, and saying that that's the way to create a society, then you ask yourself, maybe we should rethink this, maybe we should have some new urban ideas"

"It is inspiring to take things that we've seen happening in sci-fi and say, is it really sci-fi? Or is it really the world, that's what is at the heart of this."

"We've realised that if you're 500 metres tall, that there was a spot at about 300 metres high that we felt was a sweet spot urbanistically and allowed for a place that people could come together and provide the livable public realm."

"You can't do this if you're not excited about it."
Reinier de Graaf, partner, OMA
"My immediate reaction was, what the hell is this?"

"A state of panic, that should almost emerge if you really take it seriously, that's curiously absent from a lot of projects. And I do believe that in the context of this operation, the state of panic, for whatever reason, is abundantly present."
Iyad Alaska, partner, OMA
"It is very easy to imagine that it will go wrong. Maybe this is essential to imagine it going right. And of course, architects are by definition, optimists."

"When you work on a project that deep it becomes part of your working hours every day and you're dreaming hours also. You always want to live in your projects. I mean, it's something we struggle with all the time."

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The Line architects explain Saudi mega city in documentary

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Architects including Thom Mayne, Peter Cook and Reinier de Graaf have explained the thinking behind the planned megacity The Line in a recently released 45-minute documentary.

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With the prediction of even hotter summers to come, what can be done to cool urban environments?

From Adelaide, right through the red centre this week, architects, city planners and scientists have come together to asses if there is a way to turn Australian temperatures down .

It seems Darwin has been selected as the perfect steamy and sweaty candidate to showcase plans for future cities.

The CSIRO has joined forces with the Northern Territory and Local Governments to establish the Darwin Living Lab, and are on a mission to create a tropical city that is cool, smart and sustainable.
Guest:
Nerida Horner, Northern Territory Science Consultant with CSIRO and Darwin Living Lab Coordinator

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Examining rising heat to build future cities - ABC listen

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With a prediction of an even hotter summer this time around, what can be done to cool urban environments? The Northern Territory is widely recognised for it's steamy summer temperatures, and is now the testing ground for heat mitigating research.

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Rapid urbanisation and multi-faceted pressures on existing cities demands research that can better inform design, governance and construction.

Through our unique breadth of disciplinary expertise across planning, urban design, landscape, property and construction, researchers are collaboratively tackling how we can build and live in sustainable, creative and equitable urban environments.

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Future Cities - Melbourne School of Design

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https://blog.tkelevator.com/cities-of-the-future-what-will-urban-living-look-and-feel-like/

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Cities of the future: what will urban living look and feel like?

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Cities change before our eyes. While most of the population will call a city their home by 2050, many still have a hard time imagining what the city of the future will look like. We check out the technology, ideas, and design behind the projects shaping futuristic cities.

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The climate crisis, rising social inequality and the ongoing global pandemic begs the question of what our future cities and regions will look like. A diverse list of speakers and thought leaders will debate and define opportunities to bring about better urban and regional futures.

Urban planning, as a future-oriented discipline, has often embraced new technological solutions at the expense of meaningful community engagement or systemic change. Yet the promise of the so called 'smart city', while often unrealised, brings with it a space to explore alternatives and opportunities for more socially just and environmentally resilient places.

In this context, the 9th Festival of Urbanism (12-23 September) asks how our future cities and regions will change and what interventions are needed to address past mistakes. Wide-ranging topics from reinstating the voices of First Nations' communities, the impact from the rise of digital platforms, to transitioning to zero carbon models of development and ensuring affordable homes for the many rather than rising housing wealth for the few - will be debated over two weeks.

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What will future cities and regions look like?

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Cities and regions are at a precipice. Leading researchers, practitioners, community advocates and industry heads come together in this year's Festival of 'Future' Urbanism to debate the threats and opportunities facing our cities and regional areas through live and online events, podcasts and films.

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Since the pandemic upended the world, we've been getting plenty of mixed signals about cities. We've heard both that cities like New York are over and that they're immensely popular. Are they bastions of disease that people will forever avoid? Then why is the rent so damn high? Remote work means that people can work from anywhere - and they are, with the percentage of working days from home settling in at 30 percent - and yet companies keep calling people back to the office. At the same time, economists are predicting the demise of a lot of office buildings and the tax windfall they bring for urban governments, meaning cities could run out of money to fund some of the things we love about them.

It's a confusing situation, to say the least. So we asked some of the best and brightest people who think about cities - economists, urban planners, academics - to weigh in on their future. Though they certainly didn't all agree, a few themes emerged.

Big cities - think New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago - will ultimately be okay, since a lot of what made them attractive in the first place is still there and impossible to find elsewhere. But that doesn't mean they will - or can - stay the same.

There are a number of things cities can do to retain their positions as attractive places to live - and many more they could do not just to survive, but thrive. And while the move away from cities is overstated, even small shifts from powerhouses like NYC could represent windfalls for the suburbs, exurbs, and other cities those people choose to move to. That means smaller cities - like Cincinnati or Tulsa or Indianapolis - have a big opportunity to position themselves as destinations for those who do leave big cities, even as the largest urban areas are far from dying.

"The truth of it is that cities are living organisms, they alter and change," Mary Rowe, president and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute, told Vox. "They're too dynamic, they're too changing, and they're unbelievably resilient."

"It takes a lot to kill a city."

The demise of big cities has been greatly exaggerated

If you were to travel 10 years into the future, chances are your favorite big city will look "remarkably similar" to the way it does now, according to Richard Florida, an urbanist and professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. The pandemic - and remote work - sped up a departure from cities. But the populations of big cities are always churning, as people - often families - in search of more space or cheaper housing depart, and new people move in. The pandemic simply accelerated the norm.

"What happened was all those people hit family formation age almost all at once and a pandemic struck and they were married or partnered or had a kid, and they just left cities," Florida said. "That's a typical American pattern."

Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economics professor who studies remote work, estimated last year that the biggest 12 US cities collectively lost about two-thirds of a million residents from city centers through the pandemic, with about 60 percent leaving, as they usually do, to nearby suburbs. The explosion of remote work did allow many of the rest to go further afield, to other cities, more distant suburbs, and rural areas. But relatively few people abandoned urban life altogether, as the numbers show. "That is a drop in population but is not catastrophic and maybe reduces about a decade of urban densification," Bloom said, adding that it probably moves those cities' populations back to about 2010 from 2019.

And already, cities are showing signs of recovery after historic pandemic population loss, with the greatest reversals seen in the biggest cities, according to a recent analysis of Census Bureau data by the Brookings Institution. From July 2020 to July 2021, more than half the nation's largest 88 cities lost population - something that hadn't happened to many of them in decades. From July 2021 to July 2022, most of those cities had lower population losses, a switch to population gains or even greater gains, the analysis shows. In that time, nine out of 10 of the biggest cities - those with more than a million people - increased gains or reduced losses.

Even with the option of remote work for many - but not all - the same things that attracted people to cities before are still attractive: jobs, other people, amenities.

"We are social animals and people will always want to gather and cluster in cities. That is hard-wired. I don't see it changing. Downtowns create a critical mass of activities where commercial, cultural, and civic activities are concentrated," Emily Talen, a professor of urbanism at the University of Chicago, told Vox. "This concentration facilitates business, learning, and cultural exchange - that will always be desirable, socially and economically."

Covid-19 was historic, and its aftermath has not been without pain. Violent crime rates in cities, though down from pandemic peaks, are still higher than they were just before the pandemic. Unemployment rates in cities like New York are higher than the national average, something that wasn't the case pre-pandemic.

But big cities have faced massive challenges before: Between 1970 and 1980, New York City's population dropped by nearly a million people, while the Great Recession drove many into financial distress and deteriorated living conditions, but ultimately the city fared better and recovered more quickly than the nation as a whole.

Cities will be most attractive to the young - and the old

Cities have long struggled to retain young families, given their inevitable need for more space and generally higher living costs. But for the population groups at both ends of the age spectrum - the young and the old - post-Covid cities could represent the sweet spot.

Young people will still be attracted to big cities for the one thing they can offer that suburbs and rural areas can't: other people, lots of them, in both a professional and social sense. They're also the biggest fans of the cultural amenities giant population concentrations bring: restaurants, nightlife, swift public transit, diversity, and green spaces.

"While remote work has reduced the pull of dense urban labor markets, this effect has weakened the least for young professionals in their 20s and 30s still forming the networks that will shape their career trajectories," Economic Innovation Group research associate Connor O'Brien said. "At the same time, most of the non-economic reasons young people congregate in dense cities have not gone away; if anything, perhaps the brief period without these amenities led people to appreciate them even more."

Ellen Dunham-Jones, a professor and director of the urban design program at Georgia Tech's architecture school, says labor shortages exacerbated by an aging population of baby boomers will force employers to increasingly cater to the desires of a smaller young workforce, which will likely want a combination of working from home and in-person mentorship. They also want the amenities and socializing opportunities cities bring.

Meanwhile, aging populations too could flock to cities at higher rates to take advantage of best-in-class health care, myriad services, walkability, and cultural opportunities - all of which allow active seniors to live independently longer.

"As you get older, you don't want to have to be encumbered by a lot of things," Rowe said. "So it's better that you be where there are a lot of people, where the services are easily accessible, where there are transit choices and ways to get around, and cultural activities and all the things that people in their older years, who aren't working as much, want to be able to enjoy."

Notably left out of all this are people in the middle, especially those with young children, who have not returned to large cities after the pandemic, according to an analysis by the Economic Innovation Group. Since the start of the pandemic, the population of children under the age of 5 in large urban counties has declined 6 percent, or twice the national rate.

Families are driven out of cities by perennial problems like unaffordable child care and housing that doesn't meet their needs.

City developers have largely stuck to one- and two-bedroom units - rather than larger ones that can accommodate multiple children - because the margins are fatter, said EIG's O'Brien, and there's also a lack of flexible child care arrangements, due to what he calls "stifling regulatory environments." Reversing this would likely take a lot of political will.

"The extent to which cities age relative to the nation as a whole will hinge significantly on whether they take up the kinds of policies that will attract parents and families," O'Brien said.

Downtowns will have to revolve around something besides office space

Giant office buildings are giant elephants in the room when it comes to looking at the future of cities.

"The old central business district is over," Florida said, referring to them as the "last gasp of the industrial age."

As it stands, three years after the start of the pandemic, offices are still at half their current occupancy, according to data from keycard company Kastle. Researchers at Columbia and New York University estimate remote work has destroyed half a trillion dollars in office value nationally.

And as $1.5 trillion in commercial loans come due amid high vacancy rates, high interest rates, and low property values, that could mean defaults and budget shortfalls. In New York, real estate taxes make up about 30 percent of the city's budget, and offices make up about 20 percent of that, though the city's comptroller says he's only expecting a modest budget shortfall. Other major office cities like San Francisco are facing office-related budget shortfalls as well.

Most experts we spoke with agree that many big-city office buildings will have to become something else to withstand the sustained move to hybrid and remote work. But while the loss of commercial revenue stands to put a hole in city budgets, it could lead to a transformation that will ultimately improve city dweller's quality of life.

"Downtown office space will need to be transformed, as well as the activities that are done downtown," said Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, a professor in the University of Chicago's economics department. "These cities will probably become less business and more amenity-oriented, with an emphasis on culture and entertainment."

Talen echoed that sentiment.

"American downtowns have revolved around office space, and that needs to change," she said. "In order to remain vibrant, downtowns can't only be a business district or only an office district. They need to be places where people can live, work, and play. So downtowns will greatly diversify."

That will likely mean more of an emphasis on other revenue streams, like food, entertainment, tourism, and, importantly, converting office spaces to other uses - especially housing. (One of the paradoxes of the modern urban moment is that even as we debate the future of cities, housing costs have remained high in most coastal cities because the demand is still high and the supply low, and people who've remained in cities have sought out more space.) Doing so, of course, will require a lot of ingenuity on a number of levels, and certainly won't be easy. Many office building footprints are extremely large, making it basically impossible for each apartment to have necessities like windows. The cost of retrofitting things like kitchens and bathrooms into individual apartments rather than in just centralized areas in offices is also high - and a difficult economic lift considering that apartment rent is less than what offices would typically charge. That's of course if building developers can find funding in this high-interest environment. Finally, city regulations often prohibit such conversions, so there will be political hurdles to overcome as well.

"The thing about a really thriving ecosystem is that the waste in the system is quickly repurposed," Rowe said. "As a plant loses its leaves, those leaves become compost that then feeds the plant next to it. That's the same thing with cities: They're constantly self-refueling and regenerative."

Remote work is a big opportunity for small and midsize cities

While small population declines don't mean much to big cities, they do mean a lot to little ones, where even a small influx of new blood would be a bigger deal. Remote work has made it so that people leaving cities can go farther than they would have typically and that's a big opportunity for smaller and midsize cities, where prices are lower, but so were job opportunities.

Of course, these smaller cities have to prove that they are good places to live. That means having - and marketing that they have - things like cheap housing, good schools, temperate climates, abundant green spaces, good airports, and robust cultural activities.

"Going forward, footloose hybrid-WFH workers will have greater freedom concerning where they want to live," said Matthew Kahn, an economics professor at the University of Southern California, who added that postindustrial cities have a leg up, due to ample housing, historic culture, and proximity to major waterways, that now might function as recreation in addition to ports of commerce.

People want places where their money will go far and where the quality of life is good. Beyond that, though, much of what people want varies. Small cities don't have to be all things to all people.

"To thrive, cities will have to think like consumer products in a world of infinite choice," economic historian Dror Poleg told Vox. "They will have to be more deliberate about the mix of customers they're trying to attract."

That could mean trying to attract liberal professionals or outdoorsy, mid-career families, he said.

"Think like a consumer brand: Bring together unique features and services in a manner that offers a unique value proposition to a specific group of people."

Florida predicts the next growth centers will be in the Heartland, in places such as Tulsa, which has done a good job of courting remote workers from around the country. (Florida advises the Tulsa Remote program.)

These types of cities still have some work to do in diversifying their economies and job prospects, and finding other ways to court remote workers.

"Smaller cities will have to reinvent as hubs for remote workers," Florida said. "Cities have to be more about living and playing and suburbs more about working. There has to be a little bit of rebalancing."

Smaller cities can also use this moment as a chance to be more daring, trying things that can make their cities stand out.

"Leaders of midsize cities need to be really brave," Rowe said, citing ideas like banning cars downtown or adopting flexible policies on where housing can be built. "And they need to find their way to say yes to as many things as they can."

At the same time, it's important that these smaller cities don't run into the same problems that people leaving bigger cities are trying to escape.

"The country is doubling down on low-density agglomeration, with the fastest growth taking root in mind-bogglingly expansive footprints around Sun Belt cities in Texas and the Southeast," said Kenan Fikri, research director at Economic Innovation Group. "How this plays out in terms of congestion and land consumption, how it gets reconciled with a changing climate, and what impacts it has on the nature or extent of innovation are all huge open questions as we look to the next decade."

To compete with each other and truly thrive, cities must work on becoming more attractive places to live

Just because big cities are probably going to be fine doesn't mean they don't have a lot of challenges or that they couldn't be a lot better. They do and they can.

"The strength of big cities' labor markets allowed them to paper over other issues like school quality, transit reliability, public safety, and housing affordability," O'Brien said. "The rise of remote work should at least nudge cities back to the basics, refocusing city leaders on core quality-of-life concerns that local governments were created to address."

That means maintaining what already makes cities good and adding things that could make their constituents' lives better - that's something that will keep people there and make others come.

"Critical areas for cities to focus on include building housing, infrastructure, and managing public services more broadly," said Arpit Gupta, an associate professor of finance at NYU Stern.

That would require a combination of loosening zoning restrictions, incentivizing office-to-housing and other commercial real estate conversions, and finding new tax bases. It also means maintaining the systems they already have, like transit systems.

It's also important that cities maintain cleanliness and safety, both in perception and actuality.

"Law and order is paramount as no business or high earner wants to live in a high crime area," Bloom said.

Going forward, cities would also do well to try and be more family-friendly. That means funding schools, building housing that can accommodate families, creating policies that encourage affordable child care, and just generally making life easier for people with kids. Cities must also consider new challenges on the horizon like climate change and invest more heavily in adapting to changing weather patterns, with things like sea walls and fire-resistant structures.

What exactly the future of cities holds isn't totally clear, but they'll certainly stick around. Whether they truly thrive depends on what we do with them next.

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The future of cities, according to the experts

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Cities aren't going anywhere, but they do need to change.

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By the year 2050, it's expected that two thirds of the population will be living in urban areas. This means city services will face a significantly higher demand. So, what will the urban landscape actually look like in three decades' time? It's possible technological advancements will completely reshape our infrastructure. With the onset of big data, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence we may find our cities begin to think like a human brain. Here are some of the advancements we can expect to see in the cities of the future.
The Revolution of Transport
Autonomous vehicles are a hot topic of conversation at the moment. It's no surprise, this is a development which could entirely change the way we get from A to B.

Tech which today is in its infancy, will be fully developed by 2050. We're expecting to see roads filled with self-driving vehicles ferrying residents to their desired destinations. We're also expecting to see fleets of connected public transport pods which are both intelligent and autonomous. These will make set routes and timetables obsolete in the world of inner-city public transport. Passengers will simply hire a pod via app and board the closest vehicle heading in the same direction.

Big data will also have a huge part to play in all of this. Information will be collected and strategically used to influence behaviour, leading to more efficient and reliable roads.
Lower Fuel Emissions, Better Air Quality
The faultless efficiency of public transport is likely to see car ownership figures drop rapidly. This will give a huge boost to the fight to improve air quality. Today, the negative health impacts of poor air quality are becoming clear for all to see.

Data about air quality will be recorded in ways that will force industry and government to act. This will massively benefit the environment in the long run, influencing infrastructure design and the behaviour of citizens.
Smart and Sustainable Buildings
By 2050 we're likely to see public buildings begin to gather data from their occupants and visitors. They will use this data to constantly improve their performance, efficiency and of course the general maintaining of temperature and safety.

Buildings will utilise developments like solar windows to gather their own energy. They will become self-sufficient. Any surplus energy gathered will be offered to local vehicles and buildings that are running low.
The Intelligent High Street
Through advances in Low Power Wide Area Networks - a network technology that provides connectivity for a vast number of devices over long distances - we're likely to see the potential of the Internet of Things sky-rocket. This is going to completely reshape our High Streets.

Imagine a world where clothes shopping is dominated by augmented reality and interactive dressing rooms. Your assigned interactive mirror will gather data like your dress size, fashion preferences and upcoming social calendar to make intelligent suggestions personalised to you.

Forget queuing for a cup of coffee. Order by the touch of a button and have your favourite option delivered on your commute - made just how you like it.
More Time for What Matters
When discussing technological developments like this, there always follows a debate about the potential loss of jobs. We predict that instead of taking over from people's employment, service will become far more personalised. The human element in any service will give the touch of quality. This technology will simply allow us to spend time on the things that really matter.

If you're interested in more videos like this, you can subscribe to Innovate UK's YouTube channel here.

Additionally, you can follow @InnovateUK on Twitter here.

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What Will the Cities of the Future Look Like? | BIG DATA LDN

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By the year 2050, it's expected that two thirds of the population will be living in urban areas. This means city services will face a significantly higher demand. So, what will the urban landscape actually look like in three decades' time? It's possible technological advancements will completely reshape our infrastructure.

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Ten Steps to build the Cities of the Future

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Yann Zopf, Public Engagement, Tel.: +41 22 869 3618, Email: yann.zopf@weforum.org

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Ru Ling loves spending time in skywells. To her, these courtyards of old Chinese houses are the perfect place to be in on a hot and humid day.

"They are airy, cool and well-shaded," says 40-year-old Ru.

From 2014 to 2021, Ru lived in a century-old timber-framed home in the village of Guanlu in eastern China's Anhui province. She moved there for a change of life after living and working in air-conditioned buildings for many years.

"The natural cool feeling of my home in summer was so refreshing, and a rare find in the modern world," she says. "It also gave the house a calming and zen vibe."

Ru says that the house's skywell helped create this cooling effect. And she's not alone in extolling the benefits of skywells in hot weather. Studies have found that the temperatures inside some of the skywells in southern China are significantly lower than the outside - by up to 4.3C.

In today's rapidly urbanising China, fewer and fewer people live in skywell dwellings - air-conditioned flats in multi-storeyed buildings and tower blocks are the main forms of homes.

But a revival of interest in traditional Chinese architecture is leading some of historic buildings with skywells to be restored for modern times. Meanwhile, as a government push has made low-carbon innovations in the building sector a trend in the country, some architects are drawing inspiration from skywells and other traditional Chinese architectural features to help keep new buildings cooler.

In a bid to help keep modern buildings cool, architects are drawing inspiration from skywells (Credit: Wuyuan Skywells Hotel)

A skywell, or "tian jing" (天井) in Mandarin, is a typical feature of a traditional home in southern and eastern China. Different from a northern Chinese courtyard, or "yuan zi" (院子), a skywell is smaller and less exposed to the outdoor environment.

They are commonly seen in homes dating to Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, which were designed to house different generations of relatives, according to a 2010 paper published by the Journal of Nanchang University in China.

Although a skywell's size and design vary from region to region, it is almost always rectangular and located in the core of a house. It is either enclosed by rooms on four sides or three sides plus a wall. Some large houses have more than one skywell.

They are relatively common in historic residences in large swathes of southern and eastern China, such as Sichuan, Jiangsu, Anhui and Jiangxi. Some of the best-preserved can be found in Huizhou (徽州), a historical region that spreads between modern-day Anhui and Jiangxi.

Skywells were designed to cool buildings in an era well before air-conditioning existed. When wind blows above a skywell house, it can enter the indoor space through the opening. Because outdoor air is often cooler than indoor air, the incoming breeze travels down the walls to the lower stories and create airflows by replacing warmer indoor air, which rises and leaves through the opening.
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Yu Youhong, 55, has spent more than 30 years restoring skywell homes in Wuyuan county of Jiangxi province, a part of the old Huizhou. As an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage recognised by China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, he has obtained a wealth of knowledge about skywells.

The main purposes of a skywell, he says, is to allow in light, improve ventilation and harvest rainwater. In Huizhou, a skywell is small but tall, and the rooms around it can block out sunlight on hot days, enabling the bottom of the skywell to stay cool, he adds.

Meanwhile, hot air inside the house can rise and escape through the opening above the skywell, which "works just like a chimney".

"The ground floor of old Huizhou houses normally have very high ceilings and face towards the skywell directly, which is good for ventilation," Yu says. "Some wealthy families had two or even three skywells, enabling them to have even better ventilation."

Hot air inside the house rises up and escapes through the skywell opening, which acts like a chimney (Credit: Ru Ling)

Although skywell buildings have existed in China for hundreds of years, in recent times they have often been forgotten by people who prefer modern facilities. Over the past two decades, however, due to a revival of traditional Chinese architecture, part of a broader resurgence of traditional Chinese culture, skywell buildings have been making a comeback.

One of the skywell homes restored by Yu is in the village of Yan, in Wuyuan county. The once-derelict 300-year-old house was bought by Edward Gawne, a former marketing director from the UK, and his Chinese wife, Liao Minxin, in 2015. The couple turned the three-storey house into a 14-room boutique hotel with the help of Yu.

Although Gawne and Liao had air-conditioning fitted in all their guestrooms, they kept the communal spaces surrounding the skywells in their original status: unsealed and with natural airflow. Gawne says that even without air conditioning the skywell areas are very comfortable in summer. "Everyone notes when they step into the house how naturally cool it is."

Yu says he expects skywells, as an architectural feature, to be "more and more popular" among younger generations because of their ventilation and lighting functions, especially as sustainability becomes an important element for new buildings.

Even when there is no natural wind, air circulation still takes place inside a skywell home due to the "chimney effect". The temperature difference between the top and bottom of the skywell means warm air inside the skywell rises, drawing cooler air from the rooms to the bottom of the skywell.

Traditional skywell homes further south in Lingnan (岭南), a historical region consisting of the modern-day Chinese provinces of Guangxi, Guangdong and Hainan and what is now northern and central Vietnam, have smaller and deeper skywells than other areas due to the longer and hotter summers.

As a transition space between indoor life and the outdoor environment, a skywell acts as an effective heat buffer to shield residents from the hot air outside. But the largest part of skywell's cooling effect actually comes when there are bodies of water in the enclosure.

Evaporated water cools hot air, a process known as evaporative cooling which is well-reflected in Huizhou skywells. In the past, Huizhou families collected rainwater in their skywells because they believed such an action could safeguard and boost their wealth.

Skywells here therefore have channels around them to drain rainwater coming from the roofs. According to Yu, some wealthy families had a drainage system dug under the skywell to ensure that rainwater would only leave the house after circumnavigating the front hall under the ground.

Huizhou skywells also have a large stone vat in the middle to hold water for daily use and to put out fires.

A 2021 study of skywell dwellings in two traditional Huizhou villages found that evaporative cooling was likely the main reason that average temperatures inside the skywells were 2.6-4.3C lower than the average external temperatures.

Skywells act as a heat buffer, shielding residents from hot outside air (Credit: Zhou Jie)

Today, government directives are starting to play a key role in the return of skywells in modern buildings. Since 2013, the Chinese central government has been pushing for green buildings which save resources and emit less pollution in their entire lifecycles. A 2019 government instruction required that 70% of buildings completed in 2022 should meet its " green" standard, which includes a series of specific criteria, including how good a building's insulation is and how environmentally-friendly the building materials are.

Architects are now looking towards the principles behind skywells while designing new buildings to save energy. One example is the National Heavy Vehicle Engineering Technology Research Centre in the eastern Chinese city of Jinan. The 18-storey glass-walled tower block, completed last year, has a giant interior skywell in the middle, which stretches from the fifth to the top floor. The elevators, toilets and meeting rooms are all situated around this shaft, which helps improve the lighting and ventilation of the centre and reduces the overall energy consumption, the architects, from the Shanghai-based CCDI Group say.

In the county of Jixi in Xuancheng, a part of historic Huizhou, the site of the former town hall was revamped in 2013 to be a museum. The complex pays homage to its surroundings of Huizhou-style architectures by having several skywells, which it says brings airflow to the inside and helps to preserve several ancient trees on the site.

Meanwhile, a popular tourist village in Sichuan - a province known for its hot and humid summer - has a series of round houses with skywells and large eaves.

Some skyscrapers use the ventilation principle of skywells to improve airflows without building a courtyard out of concerns of practicality. The 68-storey Dongguan TBA Tower in Guandong province, for example, brings natural airflows to every floor with internal "windpipes" that function in a similar way to skywells. The tower's general manager told a local newspaper that the aim is to keep the building's temperature comfortable in spring and autumn, using only natural ventilation.

The National Heavy Vehicle Engineering Technology Research Centre in the eastern Chinese city of Jinan features a giant skywell (Credit: CCDI Group)

Ancient "green wisdom" such as skywells continue to inspire today's climate adaptive design and innovations in passive cooling, according to Wang Zhengfeng, a postdoctoral researcher in environmental humanities at the Institute for Area Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands who previously trained as an architect. Passive cooling is a method that incorporates design and technology to cool a building without the use of power.

However, Wang points out some challenges for bringing skywells into modern designs. The mechanisms of courtyards facilitating natural lighting, ventilation and rain collection are well known, but applying these principles needs to be site-specific, she says.

Because traditional skywells had different shapes, sizes and features, which were highly dependent on their natural surroundings - for example, how much sunlight or rainfall there was in the region - adding skywells into modern buildings requires designers to be sensitive to their project's context and situation, making it difficult to apply them as a universal solution, she explains.

"Meanwhile, artificial lighting, air conditioning and water supply have become so readily available that we depend on them with little regard for the environmental cost," she adds. "It won't be easy to be sustainable by learning from the past without reflecting on our current behaviours."

When asked about why skywells have caught more attention of modern Chinese people, Wang says that the courtyard is also designed to serve as a gathering space for families or communities, and comes with ritual meanings. "Perhaps changes in the way of life could also trigger vernacular nostalgia among people living in concrete and glass forests."

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How ancient 'skywells' are keeping Chinese homes cool

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In the eras before air-conditioning, southern China's skywells played a key role in keeping people's homes cool. Could they do it again today?

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Denis Hickey - American Australian Association

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As Chief Executive Officer, since 2014, Denis Hickey oversees all aspects of the Lendlease businesses in the... Read more »

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Ten futuristic cities set to be built around the world

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As a 170-kilometre-long megacity in Saudi Arabia makes headlines around the world, here is a roundup of 10 futuristic cities being planned across the globe.

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The 6 Most Futuristic Cities Being Built Around the World

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Proposed across continents, these cities show what our world could look like in 50 years

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AMAZING Future Cities Currently Being Built

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Over the course of his entrepreneurial career, Vinit has founded, developed, and sold several successful startups. He and childhood friends Marc Lore and Lax Chandra co-founded The Pit - a 25-year-old sports stock market precursor to Mojo - which they sold to The Topps Company in 2001. Later, Vinit and Marc sold Quidsi (Diapers.com, Soap.com, etc.) to Amazon in 2011, in what was then its largest cash transaction ever, at $550M.

Vinit and his brother Preet Bharara (former US Attorney of the Southern District of New York) later co-founded the nation's leading law-centered podcast media company, Cafe, which they sold to Vox Media. Most recently, Vinit founded the largest US parenting publisher, Some Spider Studios, which he sold to Bustle Digital Group, in their biggest transaction to date.

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Vinit Bharara - Co-Founder & CEO at Mojo | The Org

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Over the course of his entrepreneurial career, Vinit has founded, developed, and sold several successful startups.

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Cities generate 80% of gross domestic product, they are the engines of economic growth and have lifted millions out of poverty. As rural to urban migration is accelerating, sustainable cities are emerging to achieve idyllic urban settings. Here are the top five most sustainable cities in the world right now.
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UK-based company Uswitch recently came up with a list of the most sustainable cities in the world, ranking them with a score based on energy, transport infrastructure, affordability, pollution, air quality, CO2 emissions, and percentage of green space. The scores are out of 600 (600 being the best). To fully understand how technology can be beneficial, we can examine how the top smart cities in the world are making use of the latest technologies in the most practical ways to support their sustainability goals.

1. Wellington, New Zealand

It is home to organisations advancing in circular economic agendas such as Kaibosh, Powershop, Flick, and Whare Hauora, with the city regularly funding startups to assist finding new solutions to address social issues.

Wellington has adopted circular economy principles in its design of smart city infrastructure, allowing countless components to be reused, remanufactured, and replaced in ways that support continued improvement. These infrastructures are also complementing projects that help conserve the environment, such as Predator Free Wellington, which is a strategy eradicating pests from the city in order for bird life to thrive. The number of birds is counted by sensors with TensorFlow capabilities.

2. Zurich, Switzerland

Although Zurich is known for its financial powers, it is also one of the leading smart cities when it comes to sustainability. The city's smart initiatives mainly focus on education, efficient public transport, waste-reduction goals, and the use of renewable energies.

The construction of new housing and public buildings needs to comply with strict sustainable-building principles, with businesses and industries being held accountable for their energy consumption and waste-reduction goals. As of today, 70% of hotels in the city are sustainable certified.

Zurich is able to produce 80% of its electricity with renewable energy sources. Over 40% of its waste gets recycled. 94% of old glass and 81% of polyethylene terephthalate containers arrive at special collection points instead of ending up in household bins.
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3. Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen has multiple sustainability initiatives in place to achieve its goal of carbon neutrality by 2025 . Buses are making the transition from diesel to electric, while more roads are devoted to cycling. People are getting more accustomed to cycling than driving to get around, with only 29% of households owning a car .

A quarter of the city's total food sale is made up of organic produce. Even fast food options such pizzas, hot dogs, burgers, and craft beers are produced with organic ingredients here.

One of Copenhagen's significant landmarks, Copenhill, is an incredibly efficient energy plant that turns waste into energy that helps power houses and buildings. The facility is also covered by a year-round artificial snow slope - one of the longest in the world - for skiing and snowboarding,

4. Madrid, Spain

Madrid's well-publicised move to ban polluting vehicles in the urban centre is considered one of the most significant actions taken by a European city to improve air quality.

To meet the city's nitrogen reduction goals this year, diesel cars have been completely banned from the city centre. This would also make the city significantly more pedestrian-friendly. While some plans to turn car lanes into pedestrian walkways and cycling lanes are in motion, the city is also introducing more green transport options and installing more docking stations for bicycles, all so that people are encouraged to leave their cars at home. If residents do not fancy riding a bike, they can still hop on Madrid's 78 electric-powered buses.

5. Canberra, Australia

Whether it is about renewable energies, pollution levels, traffic management, affordability of property, percentage of green space, or CO2 emissions, Canberra takes the top spot among the most sustainable cities around the world. According to Uswitch, Canberra is the most sustainable city in the world due to its reliance on renewable energy and large amounts of green space. What's more, 87% of Canberra's transport infrastructure is green . The country's capital relies heavily on the use of solar power and nearby wind farms, while having ensured that 94% of its residents have access to the internet to make it a connected city.

Canberra is the first city outside of Europe to be powered by 100% renewable energy. The territory government also aims to have a net-zero carbon emission by 2045.
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Top 5 Most Sustainable Cities in the World in 2022 | Earth.Org

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Cities generate 80% of gross domestic product, they are the engines of economic growth and have lifted millions out of poverty. As rural to urban migration is accelerating, sustainable cities are emerging to achieve idyllic urban settings. Here are the top five most sustainable cities in the world right now.

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Until recently, city leaders thought of smart technologies primarily as tools for becoming more efficient behind the scenes. Now technology is being injected more directly into the lives of residents. Smartphones have become the keys to the city, putting instant information about transit, traffic, health services, safety alerts, and community news into millions of hands.

After a decade of trial and error, municipal leaders are realizing that smart-city strategies start with people, not technology. " Smartness" is not just about installing digital interfaces in traditional infrastructure or streamlining city operations. It is also about using technology and data purposefully to make better decisions and deliver a better quality of life.

Quality of life has many dimensions, from the air residents breathe to how safe they feel walking the streets. The latest report from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), Smart cities: Digital solutions for a more livable future (PDF-6MB), analyzes how dozens of digital applications address these kinds of practical and very human concerns. It finds that cities can use smart technologies to improve some key quality-of-life indicators by 10 to 30 percent-numbers that translate into lives saved, fewer crime incidents, shorter commutes, a reduced health burden, and carbon emissions averted.

1. What makes a city smart?

2. Smart-city technologies have substantial unrealized potential to improve the urban quality of life

3. A look at current deployment in 50 cities around the world shows that even the most advanced still have a long way to go

4. Smart cities change the economics of infrastructure and create room for partnerships and private-sector participation

What makes a city smart?

Smart cities put data and digital technology to work to make better decisions and improve the quality of life. More comprehensive, real-time data gives agencies the ability to watch events as they unfold, understand how demand patterns are changing, and respond with faster and lower-cost solutions.

Three layers work together to make a smart city hum (Exhibit 1). First is the technology base, which includes a critical mass of smartphones and sensors connected by high-speed communication networks. The second layer consists of specific applications. Translating raw data into alerts, insight, and action requires the right tools, and this is where technology providers and app developers come in. The third layer is usage by cities, companies, and the public. Many applications succeed only if they are widely adopted and manage to change behavior. They encourage people to use transit during off-hours, to change routes, to use less energy and water and to do so at different times of day, and to reduce strains on the healthcare system through preventive self-care.

Smart-city technologies have substantial unrealized potential to improve the urban quality of life

MGI assessed how smart-city applications could affect various quality-of-life dimensions: safety, time and convenience, health, environmental quality, social connectedness and civic participation, jobs, and the cost of living (see interactive). The wide range of outcomes reflects the fact that applications perform differently from city to city, depending on factors such as legacy infrastructure systems and on baseline starting points.

Applications can help cities fight crime and improve other aspects of public safety

Deploying a range of applications to their maximum effect could potentially reduce fatalities (from homicide, road traffic, and fires) by 8 to 10 percent. In a high-crime city with a population of five million, this could mean saving up to 300 lives each year. Incidents of assault, robbery, burglary, and auto theft could be lowered by 30 to 40 percent. On top of these metrics are the incalculable benefits of giving residents freedom of movement and peace of mind.

Technology is not a quick fix for crime, but agencies can use data to deploy scarce resources and personnel more effectively. Real-time crime mapping, for instance, utilizes statistical analysis to highlight patterns, while predictive policing goes a step further, anticipating crime to head off incidents before they occur. When incidents do occur, applications such as gunshot detection, smart surveillance, and home security systems can accelerate law-enforcement response. But data-driven policing has to be deployed in a way that protects civil liberties and avoids criminalizing specific neighborhoods or demographic groups.

Seconds count when lives are at stake, making speed critical for first responders in getting to the scene of emergencies. Smart systems can optimize call centers and field operations, while traffic-signal preemption gives emergency vehicles a clear driving path. These types of applications could cut emergency response times by 20 to 35 percent. A city with an already low response time of eight minutes could shave off almost two minutes. A city starting with an average response time of 50 minutes might be able to trim that by more than 17 minutes.

Smart-city technologies can make daily commutes faster and less frustrating

Tens of millions of people in cities worldwide begin and end every workday fuming in traffic or piling into overcrowded buses and trains. Improving the daily commute is critical to quality of life.

By 2025, cities that deploy smart-mobility applications have the potential to cut commuting times by 15 to 20 percent on average, with some people enjoying even larger reductions. The potential associated with each application is highly variable, depending on each city's density, existing transit infrastructure, and commuting patterns. In a dense city with extensive transit, smart technologies could save the average commuter almost 15 minutes a day. In a developing city with more grueling commutes, the improvement might be 20 to 30 minutes every day.

In general, cities with extensive, well-used transit systems benefit from applications that streamline the experience for riders. Using digital signage or mobile apps to deliver real-time information about delays enables riders to adjust their routes on the fly. Installing IoT sensors on existing physical infrastructure can help crews fix problems before they turn into breakdowns and delays.

Applications that ease road congestion are more effective in cities where driving is prevalent or where buses are the primary mode of transit. Intelligent syncing of traffic signals has the potential to reduce average commutes by more than 5 percent in developing cities where most people travel by bus. Real-time navigation alerts drivers to delays and helps them choose the fastest route. Smart-parking apps point them directly to available spots, eliminating time spent fruitlessly circling city blocks.

Cities can be catalysts for better health

The sheer density of cities makes them critical although currently underutilized platforms for addressing health. Recognizing that the role of technology in healthcare is broad and evolving by the day, we analyze only digital applications that offer cities room to play a role. We quantify their potential impact on disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), the primary metric used by the World Health Organization to convey the global disease burden, reflecting not only years of life lost to early death but also productive and healthy life lost to disability or incapacity. If cities deploy the applications included in our analyses to their fullest effect, we see the potential to reduce DALYs by 8 to 15 percent.

Applications that help prevent, treat, and monitor chronic conditions, such as diabetes or cardiovascular disease, could make the biggest difference in the developed world. Remote-patient-monitoring systems have the potential to reduce the health burden in high-income cities by more than 4 percent. These systems use digital devices to take vital readings, then transmit them securely to doctors in another location for assessment. This data can alert both patient and doctor when early intervention is needed, heading off complications and hospitalizations.

Cities can use data and analytics to identify demographic groups with elevated risk profiles and target interventions more precisely. So-called mHealth interventions can send out lifesaving messages about vaccinations, sanitation, safe sex, and adherence to antiretroviral therapy regimens. In low-income cities with high infant-mortality rates, data-based interventions focused on maternal and child health alone could reduce DALYs by more than 5 percent. Another 5 percent reduction is possible if developing cities use infectious-disease surveillance systems to stay a step ahead of fast-moving epidemics. Telemedicine, which provides clinical consultations by videoconference, can also be lifesaving in low-income cities with doctor shortages.

Smart cities can deliver a cleaner and more sustainable environment

As urbanization, industrialization, and consumption grow, environmental pressures multiply. Applications such as building-automation systems, dynamic electricity pricing, and some mobility applications could combine to cut emissions by 10 to 15 percent.

Water-consumption tracking, which pairs advanced metering with digital feedback messages, can nudge people toward conservation and reduce consumption by 15 percent in cities where residential water usage is high. In many parts of the developing world, the biggest source of water waste is leakage from pipes. Deploying sensors and analytics can cut those losses by up to 25 percent. Applications such as pay-as-you-throw digital tracking can reduce the volume of solid waste per capita by 10 to 20 percent. Overall, cities can save 25 to 80 liters of water per person each day and reduce unrecycled solid waste by 30 to 130 kilograms per person annually.

Air-quality sensors do not automatically address the causes of pollution, but they can identify the sources and provide the basis for further action. Beijing reduced deadly airborne pollutants by roughly 20 percent in less than a year by closely tracking the sources of pollution and regulating traffic and construction accordingly. Sharing real-time air-quality information with the public via smartphone apps enables individuals to take protective measures. This can reduce negative health effects by 3 to 15 percent, depending on current pollution levels.

Smart cities can create a new type of digital urban commons and enhance social connectedness

Community is hard to quantify, but MGI surveyed urban residents to determine if digital channels for communicating with local officials as well as digital platforms that facilitate real-world interactions (such as Meetup and Nextdoor) can have an impact. Our analysis suggests that using these types of applications could nearly double the share of residents who feel connected to the local community, and nearly triple the share who feel connected to local government.

Establishing channels for two-way communication between the public and local agencies could make city governments more responsive. Many city agencies maintain an active presence on social networks, and others have developed their own interactive citizen apps. In addition to disseminating information, these channels create vehicles for residents to report concerns, collect data, or weigh in on planning issues. Paris has implemented a participatory budget, inviting anyone to post project ideas and then holding online votes to decide which ones merit funding.

Becoming a smart city is not a strategy for job creation, but smart solutions can make local labor markets more efficient and slightly lower the cost of living

Many local officials want to know if becoming a smart city will lead to an infusion of high-paying tech jobs or accelerate a wave of automation. Our analysis finds a slightly positive net impact on formal employment. Smart technologies will directly eliminate some jobs (such as administrative and field jobs in city government) while creating others (such as maintenance, driving roles, and temporary installation jobs). E-career centers can have a modest positive impact by creating more efficient mechanisms for hiring and drawing more unemployed and inactive people into the workforce. Data-driven formal education and online retraining programs can enhance a city's pool of skills. Digitizing government functions such as business licensing, permitting, and tax filing can free local enterprises from red tape, contributing to a more entrepreneurial business climate.

Many of the world's most dynamic and desirable cities have serious housing shortages, driving up rents and home prices. Expanding the supply of housing can bring down those costs. In many places, bureaucracy bogs down land acquisition, environmental studies, design approvals, and permitting. Digitizing these processes can remove risks and delays, encouraging more construction. In addition, most cities have a surprising amount of land sitting idle that could be suitable for infill housing. Creating open-source cadastral databases can help to identify land parcels for development.

Smart applications produce savings in other areas, such as encouraging more efficient usage of utilities and the healthcare system. Products such as home-security systems, personal-alert devices, and lifestyle wearables involve consumer purchases, but they offer value that many are willing to pay for. Mobility applications offer new value as well, although e-hailing may encourage people to take more rides than they once did. However, e-hailing and other sharing applications make it possible for some people to forgo private vehicle ownership. MGI estimates that the average person could save as much as 3 percent on current annual expenditures.

A look at current deployment in 50 cities around the world shows that even the most advanced still have a long way to go

MGI took a snapshot of deployment in 50 cities around the world, not to crown the world's smartest city but to show the full sweep of activity under way around the globe. This includes assessment of each city's technology base, its current application rollout, and public adoption.

Smart cities: snapshot poster

Our view of each city's technology base looked at the extent of sensors and devices, the quality of communication networks, and the presence of open data portals. Among the most advanced are Amsterdam, New York, Seoul, Singapore, and Stockholm-but even these front-runners are only about two-thirds of the way toward what constitutes a fully comprehensive technology base today. In general, cities across China, East Asia, Europe, and North America have relatively strong tech bases, as do select cities in the Middle East. But those in Africa, India, and Latin America lag behind, particularly in installing the sensor layer, the most capital-intensive element.

We gauged each city's progress in implementation using a checklist of current smart applications. Mobility has been a top priority for most cities, but those places with the highest number of applications implemented overall-London, Los Angeles, New York, Seoul, Shenzhen, and Singapore-have branched out into multiple domains. Some cities have not yet implemented the applications with the greatest potential to address some of their priority issues.

MGI conducted online surveys in all of the cities analyzed to gauge how residents feel about the technologies already at work in their environment. We found that Asian cities are the strongest performers in awareness, usage, and satisfaction, while European cities lag. Positive adoption and awareness appear correlated with having a young population that not only accepts a more digital way of doing things but also expects it.

Smart cities change the economics of infrastructure and create room for partnerships and private-sector participation

Smart-city technologies help cities get more out of their assets, whether they have extensive legacy systems or are building from scratch. There is no getting around the need to invest in physical assets and maintenance, but smart technologies can add new capabilities as core components are upgraded.

Infrastructure investment once locked cities into capital-intensive and extremely long-term plans. Now, using the right combination of traditional construction and smart solutions, they can respond more dynamically to how demand is changing. If population growth surges in a far-flung neighborhood, adding a new subway or bus line with the accompanying fleet expansion may take years. By contrast, a privately operated on-demand minibus service could be up and running much faster.

City government does not have to be the sole funder and operator of every type of service and infrastructure system. While implementing most of the applications that we examined would fall to the public sector, the majority of the initial investment could come from private actors (Exhibit 2). Public financing may be reserved for only those public goods that must be provided by the government. Furthermore, more than half of the initial investment that needs to be made by the public sector would generate a positive financial return, which opens the door to partnerships.

Adding more actors to the mix is a positive, since it increases adoption and applies more creativity to the available data. When private-sector innovations spring up organically, the role of government may involve regulating, convening key actors, offering subsidies, or changing purchasing decisions. Rather than taking a master-planning approach, some cities position themselves as ecosystems, creating consortia and even physical collaboration spaces.

Some cities are starting their transformations with inherent advantages such as wealth, density, and existing high-tech industries. But even places that lack these ingredients can set themselves apart with vision, good management, a willingness to break with conventional ways of doing things, and a relentless commitment to meeting the needs of residents. There are many blank canvases for the private sector, not for profits, and technologists to fill-and above all, individuals should be empowered to shape the future of the cities they call home.

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Smart cities: Digital solutions for a more livable future

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Smart city technology starts with people. Here are the digital solutions to achieve higher quality of life.

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architectural design and engineering firm

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Foster + Partners / www.fosterandpartners.com

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Foster and Partners are an award-winning British architectural design and engineering firm who put forward an innovative, modern and sustainable approach.

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Future Cities Summit | 10 May 2023 | ICC Sydney

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Future Cities Summit is a dynamic one-day event exploring the megatrends shaping the future of our cities on topics ranging from transport innovation, livability, talent attraction, the influence of Indigenous Australians, global sporting and cultural events, and the metaverse.

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Currently, around half of the world's population live in cities - but by 2050 they're set to become even more crowded, with an additional 2.5 billion people!

All these extra inhabitants will need places to live, transport to get around, and energy to power their homes. This will put extra pressure on Earth's resources - which is why we need to come up with environmentally-friendly ways to construct buildings, travel and generate power.

Let's take a look at some of the high-tech sustainable solutions being developed by materials company Covestro for the cities of the future ...

Technology could make travel safer, more sustainable, and more efficient than ever before. Here's how...

Self-driving cars

In the future, our cars will be electric and they'll all be able to drive themselves - some of them won't even have steering wheels! How will it work? Well, sensors, radars and cameras will help cars coordinate - they'll whizz and weave past one another like an elegant ballet!

- Passengers can daydream while gazing out of the panoramic roof. Front seats swivel round so everyone can socialise. And interactive, animated holographic screens will be built right into car dashboards.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Do you ever have issues with buffering or slow downloads? Well, in the cities of the future, super-fast 5G internet networks will be everywhere, transforming the way we live...

'Smart' street furniture

- 5G transmitters will need to be installed every 500 metres - they could be on lamp posts, waste bins and traffic lights.

Most of the homes that will make up our future cities already exist today. And to solve the climate emergency we need to make these older buildings energy efficient ...

Innovative insulation

Covestro has come up with a material called cardyon® which is made from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide ( CO₂).
The innovative CO₂ technology could be used to make insulation, which would not only reduce CO₂ in the atmosphere, but prevent future emissions, too. Wow!

- In the USA, up to 90% of existing homes may be under insulated leaking up to 30% of the energy produced.

Pre-fab homes

Many homes of the future will be ' pre-fabricated' - meaning pre- made. Structures such as walls are created off site, and then slotted together! Covestro's PUREWall structures can be put up in half the time of regular buildings, saving energy and money.

Pre-fab homes could be used to house refugees, or after natural disasters. They could also replace the world's 200 million slums.

Touch-controlled smart lock!

Super-realistic interactive holographic visuals will appear in our urban environments. Pokémon Go is a popular example of AR today!

Glasses

Virtual reality (VR)

VR will be more commonplace, allowing us to immerse ourselves in TV and video games, visit galleries, and travel virtually to different places.

Wind power goes big!

- Experts believe we will be able to power cities with 100% renewable electricity by as early as 2040!

Covestro manager Rebecca Heil tells us about some of the exciting new ideas that the materials company is working on...
Hi Rebecca! You set up Covestro's idea.lab, where scientists come together to solve problems. What are some of the biggest challenges facing the future?
Definitely climate change and the environment! Right now, the world still relies too much on fossil fuels for our energy, and landfill for our waste. We need to become more environmentally aware, fast! Scientists across the globe, including at Covestro, are working on ways to help.
What are some recent ideas Covestro has come up with that will help the environment? Is it true you are recycling greenhouse gases? Cool! Can you tell us about more things we can expect to see in the future? What about entertainment?
Recently we worked with the Research & Development Team at Sony to create a holographic-like display - similar to the sort of thing you've probably seen in sci-fi movies! It can project floating images within a 360-degree direction while being transparent. This was possible thanks to a special photopolymer film developed by our scientists.
Wow! What do you like best about your job? Do you have any advice for kids who want to work in science?
When I was a kid, I thought all scientists wore white coats
and spent their days looking through microscopes. This isn't true at
all - there's so much variety in science. From art to marine biology, science is everywhere! Talk to as many people as you can to find out about the science that's in their lives.
Finally, if kids enter the Covestro Future Cities competition (right), what kinds of things will you be looking for in their designs?
I'm looking forward to seeing really creative ideas - I'd love to be surprised and think: 'I never thought of that!' Carefully drawn, beautiful posters will always stand out, too, especially if they're a bit different in their style - be brave and adventurous in the way you approach it!
Thanks, Rebecca!

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FUTURE CITIES - National Geographic Kids

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Discover what our cities might look like in 30 years' time and take a look at the high-tech sustainable solutions being created for them.

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Cities are the engine of the global economy and home to a growing majority of the world's population. In the face of increasing global challenges, from inequality to climate change, how can cities advance and inform more inclusive and sustainable models of urban development?

The Global Future Council on Cities 2023-2024 will focus on the urban affordability crisis - a widespread and multifaceted global challenge that highlights systemic injustices and deepens inequities. The Council will curate and advance promising interventions that catalyse impact and action to address this crisis and can be used by public, private, and civil society stakeholders to drive change.

Co-Chair
Carlo Ratti, Director, SENSEable City Laboratory, MIT - Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Undersecretary‐General of the United Nations; Executive Director, UN Habitat

Council Manager
Charlotte Boutboul, Lead, Urban Transformation, World Economic Forum

Giovanna Antoniazzi, Specialist, Urban Transformation, World Economic Forum

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Cities are the engine of the global economy and home to a growing majority of the world's population. In the face of increasing global challenges, from inequality to climate change, how can cities advance and inform more inclusive and sustainable models of urban development?

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By 2050 the world's population is expected to reach 9.8 billion. Nearly 70 percent of this booming population-6.7 billion people- is projected to live in urban areas. We asked experts at the architectural and urban planning firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) how they would design a city of the future, educated by lessons of the past and anticipating challenges of the future. Their vision is articulated on five scales, from surrounding ecosystems to building interiors, and follows 10 key principles:

Designing to scale:Urban hubs

In a densely developed hub, sustainable land use within and outside its borders helps people thrive by providing water, food,

and recreation. High-capacity transit reduces emissions and speeds commute times.

Protecting upland water systems and rigorous collection and cleansing of stormwater improve water quality. Wetland restoration and sponge-city measures revive habitats and protect against flooding and sea-level rise.

Social transit

Regional high-speed rail stations become centres of business and social activities.

Green roofs

Solar panels and roof gardens are common atop buildings, encouraging sustainable energy and small-scale farming.

In the city of the future, energy is 100 percent renewable. Enough power is produced within

or close to the city for

it to be self-sufficient.

Area buildings share energy resources, generating as much energy as they consume.

Urban farms and gardens

New communities and developments take advantage of advanced hydroponic technology for urban farming.

Waste becomes

a resource to produce energy or alternative material. Landfills and abandoned industrial areas are gradually converted to other purposes after soil remediation. Wastewater is treated for irrigation or human consumption.

According to SOM's design, all parks and infrastructure allow water to percolate through soil to recharge the water table. Such "sponge city" measures are already being tested in Shanghai.

Designing to scale:SMART BUILDINGS

Buildings incorporate natural elements and are largely modular, leading to faster production with less waste. Spaces can quickly transform to meet changing housing, industrial, or business needs.

Sustainability practices are mandated across the life cycle of a product, from food production to delivery and disposal. Global standards are established for organic farming and animal treatment; most produce is locally sourced.

Traveling in the city of the future is more affordable, safe, and convenient because of automated technology and high-speed rail. Fewer personal automobiles are on the road and more pedestrian space is available.

Solar walls and windows

Solar panels incorporated into all surfaces of the building's facade during construction capture the sun's energy.

The low glow

Low-rise buildings allow

more light and air to reach

the ground, promoting

health and well-being.

In the densely populated and diverse city of the future, historical heritage is preserved and celebrated.

Recreation, arts, and entertainment can be shared globally through virtual and augmented reality.

Green streets

Water filtration, environmental monitoring, and native landscaping are part of the streetscape.

The city of the future is designed for accessibility and safety as more people populate urban areas. Residents have healthier lives with more streamlined access to nature, services, and automated technology.

Designing to scale: social interiors

Shared spaces and amenities increase human interaction and allow for smaller and micro-size homes. Community-wide activities aim to foster a sense of belonging and social equality.

Buildings are constructed more efficiently and include technology that can improve the quality of natural resources such as water, soil, and air. Infrastructure is designed for pedestrian access with limited roads for cars.

Room to breathe

With fewer cars outside and more plants inside, air quality is improved and airborne particulates are reduced.

Intergenerational housing

Small and family-size units, as well as easy access to services and transit, welcome a range of ages in one building.

The economy of the future city must work in tandem with policies that safeguard ecological sustainability. People adapt to more flexible working hours as artificial intelligence and automation become more widespread.

Recycling and reuse

Used items-those that aren't already biodegradable-are more easily reused or recycled in dense communities.

A future city for all

Future cities are fully accessible to the disabled, giving all residents unfettered access to goods and services.

Designing to scale:

self-contained neighborhoods

Flexible buildings

Modular interiors can be "hot swapped" for other uses in response to new economic conditions or innovations.

Clean energy

Lighter and cheaper bladeless wind turbines on building rooftops provide supplementary energy.

Strategic landscaping

Only local plant species are used in a gardening style known as xeriscaping, which requires little or no irrigation.

Underground farming

Soil-free hydroponic farms grow produce under high-efficiency LED lights, directly beneath homes and offices.

Designing to scale: Resilient regions

Future cities are composed of a series of urban hubs: dense developments connected by high-speed rail. The regional ecology dictates where and how hubs grow; city centers move inland, away from rising seas.

Scaled transit

The region is connected by local rail, bus lines, and high-speed trains capable of reaching 600 miles an hour.

Gone local

Sustainable agriculture is developed close to city hubs to limit transport.

Connected employment

Compact city centers connected by high-speed rail knit together employment hubs and reduce urban sprawl.

Half wild

In line with biologist E.O. Wilson's Half-Earth Project, 50 percent of the ecosystem and its waters are protected.

From regions to rooms, SOM's designs flow from one idea: development and infrastructure complement and are shaped by ecology-letting nature regenerate and support rapidly growing urban populations.

JASON TREAT, NGM STAFF. ART & SOURCE: SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL (SOM)

Designing to scale:Urban hubs

Social transit

Green roofs

it to be self-sufficient.

Urban farms and gardens

Waste becomes

Designing to scale:SMART BUILDINGS

Solar walls and windows

The low glow

Low-rise buildings allow

the ground, promoting

health and well-being.

Green streets

Room to breathe

Intergenerational housing

Recycling and reuse

A future city for all

Designing to scale:

self-contained neighborhoods

Flexible buildings

Clean energy

Strategic landscaping

Underground farming

Scaled transit

Gone local

Connected employment

Half wild

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A next-generation metropolis will need to serve people and nature, while letting ecology guide its development. This is what the future's sustainable cities could look like.

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Cities of the Future | The World in 2050

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Cities are essential to the world economy, as they generate over 80% of the world's GDP. But they also consume most of the world's energy, and most of our cities were not built with sustainability in mind.

On top of that, cities are growing hugely, mainly in the developing world, both in number and size, and most scientists expect the world to get hotter on average.

The need for sustainable cities emerges from this complex picture. But sustainability goes beyond environmental targets, and involves other things that people need and see as important, such as jobs, health, education, safety, and a vibrant quality of life.

But what does this all mean? We've asked Richard Bellingham, Director of the Institute for Future Cities at the University of Strathclyde, to explain what a sustainable city looks like in practice.

Greener cities

There is no single environmental solution that can be applied to all cities across the world - their issues, needs and opportunities are different. But a big issue that needs to be tackled everywhere is where cities obtain their energy, and how they use it. This means the main ways cities can become greener are to:

Reduce the amount of energy and resources used through improving the efficiency of systems, for example transport, and changing citizens' behaviours

Reuse and recycle waste energy and materials

Obtain energy from cleaner sources

While there is no single technological magical bullet, cities can make significant reductions in the carbon emissions by using many different measures together. Here are some of them.

Clean energy

Many cities can create cleaner energy within their boundaries but, as they consume tons of energy, it's very unlikely that most cities could be "self-sufficient" in that respect. The good news is that they don't need to be, as they can draw in clean energy from other sources, for example offshore wind farms.

Clean ways to generate energy in a city include: converting the Sun's energy into electricity; using building design and solar thermal panels to heat buildings and water; using timber from local woodlands to generate low-carbon energy for heating, electricity generation, and transport fuels; and what is known as geothermal energy, which means generating heat from hot layers beneath the Earth's surface.

Affordability is a key issue here as the costs of clean energy can vary massively from one place to another.

Buildings and streets

Buildings often use the most energy and emit the biggest quantities of carbon in cities. There are some very interesting examples of how cities around the world have approached this issue.

For example, we know creating efficient buildings (insulating walls, windows, and roofs, and using energy-efficient lighting and heating systems) is often more cost effective and productive than generating green energy. The German Passive House design is an example of a building so highly insulated it has almost no need to be heated.

New York and Singapore have shown how tiny steps such as painting roofs white and planting trees can reduce city temperatures by up to 2C, thus reducing city energy consumption significantly.

In Scandinavian and Eastern European countries, hot water for heating is delivered to buildings through insulated pipes beneath the streets. The heat can be generated from highly efficient power stations that generate both electricity and heat, or use heat recovered from businesses such as breweries, bakeries, and distilleries.

In the UK, Glasgow is fitting smart street lights in some areas. Older yellow sodium street lights can be replaced with LED lights that can reduce emissions while making streets safer.

Transport systems

Transport systems are vital to the smooth running of a city, but they can also produce traffic jams, poor air quality, and gas emissions. Ideally we need to reduce the number of private cars on the streets, but some cities around the world have come up with some interesting ideas.

Edinburgh has one of the largest car sharing clubs in the UK, meaning households who subscribe don't necessarily own their own cars, but pay to join a club and use a car only when they need it.

Copenhagen encourages cycle commuting through cycles being given priority at traffic lights, creating a 'green wave'.

Cities like London and Singapore have created high-quality bus and underground rail systems, as well as low-emission zones where only electric vehicles are allowed.

Products and services

It's easy to forget about it - but the food we eat, the cars we drive, the concrete in our buildings, and everything we buy in shops comes with a carbon footprint. That carbon footprint is often higher when things travel thousands of miles to reach us, like the fresh food in the supermarket. Locally sourced products can have a lower carbon footprint and be more sustainable.

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Many cities have 'sustainability goals', but that goes beyond environmental targets. So what does that all mean?

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To bring NEOM to life requires the world's most forward-thinking innovators leading the way. Meet the ambitious professionals doing exactly that, and learn more about their distinguished experience.

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"All roads lead to Rome," says an old proverb. Indeed, for centuries Rome was the biggest and most important city of the Roman world. Rome was the capital, the seat of the Senate, and later, of the emperor. It was the biggest city in the ancient world, reaching around a million inhabitants during the first century CE. But for all its significance and grandeur, Rome was only the last in the line of ancient Mediterranean metropolises. Centuries before Rome imposed its dominance upon the world, those great cities were centers of culture, trade, and politics. Even after the Roman conquest, those places retained their former glory, tradition, and pride; remaining the most important cities in the Roman Empire (after Rome). This is the story of the 5 greatest ancient Roman cities.

The 5 Greatest Ancient Roman Cities

1. Alexandria - The City of the Conqueror

The ancient cities of the Hellenistic East were proud of their founders. But Alexandria could boast of a true star. The legendary conqueror, Alexander the Great, founded the Egyptian metropolis in 332 BCE. Located on the Mediterranean coast, in the Nile delta, Alexandria was to be the capital of Alexander's new empire. Alexander, however, never saw the city he had envisioned. Soon after the foundation, he embarked on a Persian campaign. Following Alexander's death in Babylon in 323 BCE, his general Ptolemy brought Alexander's body back to Alexandria and chose it as the capital of the newly founded Ptolemaic kingdom.

Under the Ptolemaic dynasty, Alexandria thrived. It supplanted Tyre (the city that Alexander had previously destroyed) as a commerce and trade center. Its world-renowned Library, started under Ptolemy I, turned Alexandria into a center of culture and learning, attracting scholars, philosophers, scientists, and artists. The lavish mausoleum of Alexander reminded the visitors of the city's famous founder and served as a source of pride for its inhabitants. The giant causeway and a harbor breakwater - Heptastadion - connected the city with the island of Pharos, a location of the majestic Lighthouse, one of the Seven wonders of the ancient world. By the third century BCE, Alexandria was the largest city in the world, a cosmopolitan metropolis with more than a half million inhabitants.

Alexandria's status as the intellectual and cultural powerhouse remained unchanged after the Roman takeover in 44 BCE. Home to the largest Jewish diaspora in the Empire, and a major center of Jewish learning, Alexandria was the birthplace of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Bible) in 132 BCE. In the fourth century, the ancient Roman city acquired new importance as a center of Christian theology and one of the most important centers of Christianity. It was during that period that the Serapeum of the Great Library (already damaged in the previous centuries) was destroyed by the Christian mob during the religious conflict within the city. The last centuries of Roman rule were marked by a gradual decline caused by the internecine struggle between various Christian factions, and the alienation of the native inhabitants in its hinterland. This instability facilitated the city's conquest by the Sassanid Persians in 619, and by the Islamic armies in 641, and 646; thus, ending the Roman rule. What was not destroyed by war, was taken by nature: a giant tsunami hit the city in 365, leaving the palace district submerged, while by the 14th century, the great lighthouse was gone, gradually destroyed by the earthquakes.

2. Antioch - The Jewel of the East

Soon after Alexander's death, his vast empire was torn apart by the wars between his generals. The most successful of the Diadochi was Seleucus I Nicator (Victor). It was Seleucus, who in 301 BCE founded Antioch. Located at the Orontes River, in a fertile valley near the Mediterranean Sea, the capital of the newly founded Seleucid Empire soon became one of the major cities of the ancient world. Antioch's wealth originated from its favorable position at the western terminus of the Silk road, attracting merchants, artists, and artisans. The resort town of Daphne built halfway between the city and its port became a favorite retreat for the wealthy and powerful, both in the Seleucid and later in the Roman period. The Daphne parks hosted the great temple of Pythian Apollo, one of the major centers of pilgrimage.

After Pompey the Great annexed Antioch in 64 BCE, the former Seleucid capital retained its importance becoming the third major ancient Roman city and the administrative center of the Roman East. During the imperial period, Antioch was further embellished with public buildings, such as the baths, amphitheater, and the majestic hippodrome which could house up to 80 000 spectators. Roman emperors often visited Antioch, preferring it over more isolated Alexandria. The vicinity of the eastern border further increased Antioch's importance, but it also placed the city and its inhabitants in danger. Antioch was conquered and sacked by the Sassanid Persians several times throughout its history.

The city was also exposed to natural disasters. Starting from the first recorded earthquake of 187 BCE, Antioch was subjected to major seismic disturbances at least five times. The damage was manageable, and by late antiquity, Antioch was one of the main centers of Christianity, with its magnificent churches attracting pilgrims from all over the Empire. The decline of the city started during the sixth century when a series of calamities - a great fire, earthquakes, a Persian invasion, and a plague - greatly diminished its population. The city was captured by the Arabs in the mid-seventh century and was contested by both the Byzantine Empire and the Arab Caliphates through the early middle ages. Antioch returned under Christian control in 1098 due to the combined efforts of the Byzantine and Crusader armies. But apart from the brief rule of the emperor Manuel Komnenos in the late 12th century, it remained out of Byzantine reach. Nowadays the place is known for its exquisite Roman mosaic floors.

3. Carthage - The Queen of Africa

Few known cities were destroyed, only to rise like a phoenix from the ashes. Carthage, built on the promontory of the Tunisian coast, was one such place. Founded in 814 BCE, by the legendary queen Dido; the city developed from a Phoenician colony into the most important trading hub of the ancient Mediterranean. The city derived its wealth primarily from trade, exporting the luxurious purple dye.

At its height in the fourth and third century BCE, the "new city" ( Kart hadašt in Phoenician), was a major city in the Western Mediterranean. The city's four residential sections, located around the citadel of Byrsa, housed a large theater, host of temples, and a vast agora - Carthage's marketplace and center of public life. A visitor arriving by sea would be stunned by the immense twin harbors, a trade port, and a circular military port, home to Carthage's naval power. The navy was the backbone of the city-state's power, and the primary vehicle of its expansion, allowing Carthage to claim control over most of North Africa, Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia. This expansionist policy brought Carthage into a conflict with another rising regional power - Rome. The three Punic wars that followed, ended with the defeat and destruction of Carthage in 146 BCE.

However, the city was refounded under Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, this time as a Roman city. Not a capital any longer, Carthage retained its grandeur and became the largest and most important ancient Roman city in Africa. The former citadel was adorned with a large temple dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. Romans built numerous public buildings, including baths, theatre, amphitheater, and a large hippodrome. Carthage's already bountiful agricultural production was intensified, with the city's hinterland becoming the breadbasket of the Empire. In the fourth century, Carthage became the most important center of Christianity in the whole of Roman Africa. The Vandal conquest in 439 CE did not diminish the city's splendor, and following the Byzantine takeover in 533, Carthage continued to prosper as a major agricultural area. The city experienced its second destruction by the Islamic armies in 698 BCE, from which it never recovered.

4. Ephesus: The Cultural Capital of of Anatolia

According to a legend, Ephesus was founded by the mythical Amazons and named after one of their queens, Ephesia. The first recorded evidence of the city's existence, however, comes from the seventh century BCE when a Greek settlement was destroyed during the Cimmerian attack. The city quickly recovered, and under the rule of the Lydian kings, Ephesus became one of the wealthiest cities in the Mediterranean world. Under King Croesus, construction of the great Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, begun. The city continued to flourish, becoming a center of trade and commerce. During the Hellenistic period, the city had to be resettled two kilometers inland to its present-day location, due to the silting of the old port and the emergence of unhealthy marshland.

In 129 BCE, Romans inherited Ephesus from the king Attalos of Pergamon. With an exception of a brief revolt in 88 BCE, the city would remain under Roman rule in the following centuries. As part of the Roman Empire, Ephesus became a regional capital, retaining its wealth and influence. The magnificent Library of Celsus (its ruins are still visible today), made Ephesus a center of learning and philosophy. The great theatre, which could accommodate 25,000 spectators, was the largest in the Roman world. The theatre was the location of the famous protest against Paul's teachings in 57 CE. Despite the initial resistance, Ephesus soon became the primary center of early Christianity, housing the largest Christian community in the empire.

In 262 CE the Goths destroyed Ephesus, including the Temple of Artemis. Despite the imperial efforts to rebuild the Roman city, Ephesus never recovered its former splendor. Its population gradually diminished while the urban area shrunk. In the sixth century, the emperor Justinian built the last monumental building, the basilica of St John. By the early Middle Ages, Ephesus port was no longer in use. When the Seljuqs took Ephesus in 1090, it was just a minor settlement. After a brief splendor in the 14th century, even this was deserted, and the true site of the once-great city remained hidden until 1869.

5. Constantinople: The Last Ancient Roman City

Of all the ancient Roman cities on the list, Constantinople is undoubtedly the most important. It is also the only city that was founded by the Romans, and which surpassed Rome. Built on the ancient site of Byzantion, Constantinople was founded in 330 CE, to be a new capital of the Roman Empire. Its founder, Constantine the Great chose an optimal location for his new city, the peninsula on the shores of Bosphorus, a vital passageway between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Located on the meeting point of Europe and Asia, Constantinople soon became a thriving metropolis.

Thanks to its natural harbor - the Golden Horn - Constantinople was a commercial hub of the Mediterranean, controlling the vital shipping routes, and the overland trade. The city was also known for its magnificent architecture. Constantine was determined for his city not only to rival but to surpass Rome. The emperor embarked on a building spree. His efforts resulted in the creation of a Hippodrome that could house 50,000 spectators, the Great Palace with its parks and courtyards, and a wide colonnaded main street - The Mese - which connected the large fora. The aqueducts provided water for the ancient Roman city's growing populace, storing it in great underground cisterns. Besides building many new ones, Constantine transferred monuments and statues from all corners of the empire into his thriving capital. His successors continued to enrich the city with new architectural masterpieces, of which the most important was the great church of Hagia Sophia, built under the emperor Justinian in the sixth century.

For more than millennia, Constantinople was widely known for its wealth, extravagance, and exotic trade markets. It was the center of the powerful Byzantine Empire, a source of pride to all the empire's subjects. Its churches dazzled the visitors so much, that a Rus embassy chose to convert its people to Orthodoxy upon seeing the splendor of Hagia Sophia. But the immense wealth made the "Queen of the Cities" one of the most coveted cities in the world. Many tried to take the city, only to be stopped by its mighty land walls, a monumental bulwark breached only once in its entire history. Incidentally, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman armies, marked the end of the medieval Roman Empire and the fall of the last ancient Roman city. Constantinople retained the status of the capital under its new rulers, and became known as Konstantinye, and later Istanbul.

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Which Were The 5 Greatest Ancient Roman Cities (After Rome)?

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From Britain to Africa, from Spain to Syria, cities embodied the Roman world. Here are the 5 greatest ancient Roman cities (after Rome).

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Nature can enhance cities - increasing resilience and improving the health and wellbeing of those who live there. Ecologist and environmental specialist, Ash Welch makes the case for nature-based approaches and biophilic spaces as long-term investment solutions to help cities secure a successful, sustainable future.

Once the vision of a futuristic city was shiny glass and high-rise architecture. But, with the threat of climate breakdown increasing, future cityscapes are now more likely to be inspired by modernised buildings, bursting with life, such as the high-rise vertical forest of Milan's Bosco Verticale.

A community of nature working together

This new vision embraces the concept of 'biophilia', the innate positive psychological and physiological response that we humans experience when interacting with the natural world. It involves implementing nature-based solutions (NBS) - which are a core component of biophilic cities. Using NBS, these cities work to protect nature and biodiversity, and improve living standards for their residents.

Nature-based solutions can include green infrastructure, such as living walls and roofs on buildings, and blue infrastructure, such as urban wetlands. These features and habitats are extremely valuable when connected at a ground level, especially with urban green spaces, such as parks. For example, woodlands, wetlands, grasslands and marshlands can effectively absorb carbon dioxide and sequester carbon, mitigating emissions.

The rise of the city

Historically, however, cities have been built for people (and increasingly, in the last century, motor vehicles), limiting room for green space, natural habitats or wildlife and, across the world, that urban pressure on natural resources continues to grow. The UN projects that there will be 43 megacities, housing over ten million residents, by 2030; and that 68 per cent of the world's population will live in urban areas by 2050.

At the same time, many of the world's cities are upgrading their infrastructure to facilitate future-proof solutions, such as smart roads and highways, connected and autonomous vehicles, and smart utilities, to help ease the day-to-day running of their city and citizen's lives. The question for many now, in response, is how do we use this digital revolution and other tools to not only connect with and protect our cities' natural capital better, but also help it thrive?

A sustainable investment opportunity

As natural capital accounting approaches - which sets out the potential value of NBS in economic terms - becomes a mainstream part of the design and construction process, and NBS becomes more innovative and affordable, there's an opportunity for biodiverse solutions to help strengthen more cities' natural resources, liveability and resilience.

Developing an internet of nature

Thinking digitally also, as a 2019 paper by Galle, Nitoslawski and Pilla argues, we need to consider the potential of an 'internet of nature', where technology and nature are integrated to provide us with real-time data about our natural environment and the essential ecosystem services it supports.

For example, average summer temperatures in Paris are typically around 20°C. In July 2019, temperatures the capital soared to 42°C - an event that is expected to become the norm in years to come. During the summer of 2019, Parisians were able to use a mobile app, Extrema, to find 'cool spots' in their city. In the future, by recording local temperatures and the transpiration rates of trees, such an app could recommend places offering shade and respite from the heat, along streets and in parks away from the crowds, using live data.

Making the case

To help city authorities make the case for NBS, here are three big reasons why biophilic design offers suitable investment opportunities:

1/ NBS can help improve health and wellbeing

As we spend more and more of our lives indoors, research shows that communities with access to the natural world, via green spaces, clean rivers, and abundant urban wildlife, experience better levels of physical and mental health.

By improving air quality, providing open recreational spaces for residents and helping to reduce stress, fatigue and anxiety, NBS approaches can ease the burden on local health services and free up resources to target the prevention of ill-health.

2/ NBS strengthens resilience against environmental threats

NBS create a natural system of resilience against the impacts of the climate crisis - for example, reducing local temperatures, lowering flood risk and defending against storms and tidal surges. Local impacts to natural habitats heavily influence ecosystem functioning, which in turn exacerbates the ferocity of severe weather events. Putting nature back into our cities provides natural protection against these issues.

For example, in areas where flooding negatively impacts residents' homes and livelihoods year on year, the use of urban wetlands as a flood-prevention measure can help deliver greater peace of mind and countless advantages to the local economy.

3/ NBS fosters biodiversity to benefit all

NBS develops vital habitats for urban biodiversity offering a safe refuge from landscapes that have been subject to habitat loss and excessive spraying of pollinator-harmful chemicals. For example, as living walls and roofs become more common sights across city centres, they both improve the aesthetic beauty of our surroundings and produce suitable and safe conditions for more diverse plant life, pollinators, birds and other wildlife to thrive.

Realising the potential

The concept of biophilic cities has been around for several decades, but its potential is only now starting to be realised as our response to climate breakdown and the biodiversity crisis increases in urgency.

Modern city design should embrace biophilia as a core idea and utilise NBS to improve the liveability and health of its residents. Natural capital approaches can drive investment into NBS and deliver green economic growth. But we also need to communicate the benefits of NBS more effectively to enable our urban natural environments and growing cities to succeed sustainably.

Singapore - the biophilic city

Singapore is the world's leading example of a biophilic city that puts NBS at the heart of its communities. As an island state with limited resources of its own, Singapore understands the value of investing in NBS, such as living walls, urban wetlands and green corridors, to help boost investment and mitigate against biodiversity loss, climate change and other environmental issues.

Across Singapore, living walls and roofs are a commonplace - within the Central Business District, on community centre buildings and even temporary construction hoardings. While artificially created, soft landscaped wetlands like those in Bishan Park function as water attenuation systems, relieving the pressures of frequent tropical thunderstorms. Other NBS, such as floating wetlands can be found throughout the nation's reservoirs, including Sengkang Park and Punggol Reservoir, purifying the water to benefit human consumption and wildlife.

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Embracing nature will transform the cities of the future | Without Limits

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Ecologist Ash Welch makes the case for nature-based approaches as long-term investment solutions to help cities secure a successful, sustainable future.

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Amid the much-mythologised graffiti that appeared around Sorbonne University during the French civil unrest in May 1968, one line still stands out as intriguing and ambiguous: "The future will only contain what we put into it now."

What appears at first utopian has more than a hint of the ominous. While augmented reality creates a city individualised for every occupant, and developments in modular architecture and nanotechnology might result in rooms that change form and function at a whim, the problem lies in the unforeseen. The smart city will also be the surveillance city.

For the moment, we remain largely wedded to superficial visual futures. The likelihood is that the prevailing chrome and chlorophyll vision of architects and urbanists will become as much an enticing, but outdated, fashion as the Raygun Gothic of The Jetsons or the cyberpunk of Blade Runner. Rather than a sudden leap into dazzling space age-style cityscapes, innovations will unfold in real-time - and so too will catastrophes. The very enormity of what cities face seems beyond the realms of believability, and encourages postponement and denial.

"Survivability" should be added to urban buzzwords like connectivity and sustainability. Three quarters of all major metropolises lie on the coastline. In China alone, 20 million people per year move to cities, with the flood-prone Pearl River Delta now the world's largest urbanised area, according to the World Bank.

A recent report by Christian Aid places more than a billion people in coastal cities vulnerable to severe flooding and extreme weather due to climate change by 2070, with Kolkata, Mumbai and Dhaka topping the list. Many more people face the knock-on effects of severe flooding such as fresh water shortages, refugee crises and political instability.

Cities would be designed to allow for a co-existence between water and civic activities

Seth McDowell

The question remains whether large-scale adaptation will be possible in the face of short electoral cycles, the abiding influence of commercial interests, and a sense of inertia beneficial to the status quo. Since Kenzō Tange's Tokyo Bay Plan (1960), one tendency has been towards proposing intriguing but as yet ephemeral "floating" cities. For real cities facing sea-level rise, Seth McDowell from Mcdowellespinosa architects identifies three strategies: "Defence, retreat and adaptation."

"Cities and populations with generous resources and engineering capacity will likely simply take the defence strategy and build mega engineering structures to keep the water away - similar to the Delta Works in the Netherlands. For those with less cultural and economic investments in the water's edge, we will likely see retreat as a strategy. However, I see retreat as both a horizontal and vertical operation. So, retreating does not just mean packing up and moving inland, but could also mean elevating above the water."

Venice is the commonly quoted model for this process, but a more recent example (though considerably less aesthetically appealing) is the platform oil city of Neft Daşhlari in Azerbaijan. "Water becomes a new datum - not so much a habitable space, but rather a fluctuating ground," McDowell explains. "Cities would be designed or reconfigured to accept rising water levels and adapt ... to allow for a co-existence between water and civic activities. You can see this strategy in projects like De Urbanisten's Water Square Benthemplein in Rotterdam, where a public square doubles as a water storage basin."

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Terreform One's Ecotarium project in the North Pole is based on the premise of massive human migration to the north to escape severe flooding and increased temperatures. Photograph: Mitchell Joachim/Terreform One

Architecture group Terreform One adopts a similarly counter-intuitive but practical approach in its Governors Hook project, where "instead of keeping the water out, the design allows the water in". The relationship between the urban and rural must be reconsidered, co-founder Mitchell Joachim suggests, to prevent cities adopting a siege mentality and fighting a losing battle with the elements.

"We need to find these much larger soft buffer zones that are accepting of these two worlds of nature and city. Before Hurricane Sandy, we were using these ghost fleets, old military vessels as artificial reefs that would be embedded into the edges of our city and allow sediment and life-forms to build up on top of them over time and create these middle zones between land and sea." The devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy made these plans seem particularly pertinent, if not prophetic.

Dealing with waste

The population explosion and advances of the industrial age have produced unprecedented levels of waste into landfill, the sea and the sky. Countering measures, such as developing nanotechnology that would see buildings alleviate pollution at a molecular level, are still in their infancy.

In the meantime, waste is as much a testament to civilisation as our urban skylines. Mcdowellespinosa proposes a shift in thinking: "Waste is just a material state," McDowell says. "Since it tends to be unwanted, it is cheap.

We need to find these much larger soft buffer zones that are accepting of these two worlds of nature and city

Mitchell Joachim

"The main issue to overcome in viewing waste as raw material is the energy required to transform the material from a state of refuse to a state of sophistication. There is also the perceptual challenge - how can waste be transformed to acceptable visual and performance standards? We've explored this idea in projects such as City of Blubber, which imagines converting Hong Kong's food waste into a productive bioplastic material."

What we might see as absurd is already happening through necessity in settings like Manshiyat Naser in Egypt, where a "Garbage City" functions on the refuse of Cairo. Mitchell Joachim agrees that our current approach is a problem. "There is no such thing as waste. Waste is supposed to go away but there is no 'away'. We look at fully 'upcyclable' cities where projects, products, concepts that we make are always intended to be cycled upwards again and again."

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The City of Blubber imagines converting Hong Kong's food waste into a productive bioplastic material. Photograph: Mcdowellespinosa

This is reflected in Terreform One's Rapid Re(f)use project - a "future city [that] makes no distinction between waste and supply".

Engaged in projects from the shifting pods of Peristaltic City to the transformed-Arctic Ecotarium of Future North, Joachim suggests a radical change in our economic and political systems to match our technological ingenuity. "They say we're in the age of the Anthropocene but really it's more accurate to say we're in the Capitalocene. Everyone has to grow and show proof of growth. And we know that is impossible. Nothing grows to infinity. There will always be stresses whether on the market or the environment that will cause it to feedback.

"At Terreform One, we're anticipating, not an endless growth system, but a state where waste doesn't exist - a steady state or closed, stable economy that cycles back and recognises the limits of the earth's metabolism and what we can take out. This would be done with footprint calculations and life-cycle analyses on anything we produce."

Rather than view the city architecturally, Joachim encourages us to see it also as a series of interconnected metabolic systems, akin to a biological organism. "In a culture of biology, you just don't design something for a single purpose. A cherry tree is servicing thousands of other forms of life. It produces thousands of cherries that get absorbed into the soil and feed all different types of flora and fauna. It's connected into a web of life."

Terreform One's ideas and designs might seem wildly visionary on first glance but looking closer, they go beyond speculative concepts into proposing functioning models. "What we do is create very detailed fictive scenarios that don't promise the future will end up this way, but rather we think about what the inherent issues are and bring these to the foreground and talk in a logical way how cities might respond."

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Story of cities #future: what will our growing megacities really look like?

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Amid the much-mythologised graffiti that appeared around Sorbonne University during the French civil unrest in May 1968, one line still stands out as intriguing and ambiguous: "The future will only contain what we put into it now." What appears at first utopian has more than a hint of the ominous.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jacque Fresco (March 13, 1916 - May 18, 2017) was an American futurist[1] and self-described social engineer.[2] Self-taught, he worked in a variety of positions related to industrial design.

Fresco wrote and lectured his views on sustainable cities, energy efficiency, natural-resource management, cybernetic technology, automation, and the role of science in society. He directed the Venus Project[5] and advocated global implementation of a socioeconomic system which he referred to as a "resource-based economy".[6][7]

Early life

Jacque Fresco was born on March 13, 1916,[8] and grew up in a Sephardi Jewish household,[9] at the family's home in Bensonhurst, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.[10] Fresco's father was an agriculturist born in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), while his mother Lena was an emigrant from Jerusalem.[11] He later turned his attention to technocracy.[12] A teenager during the Great Depression, he spent time with friends discussing Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, science, and the future.[12] Fresco attended the Young Communist League before being "physically ejected" for loudly stating that "Karl Marx was wrong!" after a discussion with the league president during a meeting.[13] He left home at the age of 14, hitchhiking and "jumping" trains as one of the so-called " Wild Boys of the Road".[11]

Career

Aircraft industry

Fresco worked at Douglas Aircraft Company in California during the late 1930s.[13][14] He presented designs including a flying wing[15] and a disk-shaped aircraft. Some of his designs were considered impractical at the time and Fresco's design ideas were not adopted.[16] Fresco resigned from Douglas because of design disagreements.[13][16]

In 1942, Fresco was drafted into the U.S. Army.[12][17] He was assigned technical design duties for the Army Air Forces at Wright Field design laboratories in Dayton, Ohio.[12][16][18][19] One design he produced was a "radical variable camber wing" with which he attempted to optimize flight control by allowing the pilot to adjust the thickness and lift of the wings during flight.[20][21] Fresco did not adjust to military life and was discharged.[12]

Trend Home

Fresco was commissioned by Earl "Madman" Muntz, to design low cost housing. Muntz invested $500,000 seed money in the project. Fresco, 32 years old at the time, along with his associates Harry Giaretto and Eli Catran conceived, designed and engineered a project house called the Trend Home.[22] Fresco came closest to traditional career success with this project. Built mostly of aluminum and glass, it was on prominent display at Stage 8 of the Warner Bros. Sunset Lot in Hollywood for three months. The home could be toured for one dollar, with proceeds going to the Cancer Prevention Society. In the summer of 1948, a Federal Housing Administration official met Muntz about the project. The official's proposal, according to Muntz, would add a bureaucratic overhead negating the low production costs. Without federal or further private funding the project did not go into mass production. This experience led Fresco to the conclusion that society would have to change for his inventions to reach their potential.[10][23]

Scientific Research Laboratories

In the late 1940s, Fresco created and was director of Scientific Research Laboratories in Los Angeles.[19][24] Here he also gave lectures, and taught technical design,[13] meanwhile researching and working on inventions as a freelance inventor and scientific consultant.[25] During this period, Fresco struggled to get his research funded[26] and faced setbacks and financial difficulties. In 1955, Fresco left California after his laboratory was removed to build the Golden State Freeway.[13][14]

Midlife

In 1955 Fresco moved to Miami, Florida. He opened a business as a psychological consultant, but had no formal schooling in the subject.[14] Receiving a "barrage of criticism" from the American Psychological Association Fresco stopped that business.[14] In a newspaper article from that time period Fresco claimed to have a degree from Sierra University, Los Angeles, California, which is unverified.[27]

Fresco described white supremacist organizations he joined to test the feasibility of changing people. He tells of joining a local Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens Council in an attempt to change their views about racial discrimination.[28]

In Miami Fresco presented designs of a circular city.[29] Fresco made his living working as an industrial designer for various companies such as Alcoa and the Major Realty Corporation.[14]

In 1961, with Pietro Belluschi and C. Frederick Wise,[30] Fresco collaborated on a project known as the Sandwich House.[14] Consisting of mostly prefabricated components, partitions, and aluminum, the project sold houses for $2,950, or $7,500 with foundation and all internal installations.[30] During this period, Fresco supported his projects by designing prefabricated aluminum devices through Jacque Fresco Enterprises Inc.[31]

From 1955 to 1969 Fresco named his social ideas "Project Americana".

Looking Forward

Looking Forward was published in 1969. Author Ken Keyes Jr., and Jacque Fresco coauthored the book. Looking Forward is a speculative look at the future. The authors picture an ideal 'cybernetic society in which want has been banished and work and personal possessions no longer exist; individual gratification is the total concern'.[32]

Sociocyberneering, Inc.

Fresco formed "Sociocyberneering", a membership organization claiming 250 members, according to an interview with Fresco.[33] He hosted lectures in Miami Beach and Coral Gables.[34][35] Fresco promoted his organization by lecturing at universities[36] and appearing on radio and television.[37][38] Although Fresco is presented as a 'Doctor' on the Larry King show there is no evidence of that being the case. Fresco did not complete high school.[39] Fresco's "sociocyberneering" as a membership group was discontinued and land was purchased at another location in rural Venus, Florida. He established his home and research center there.[40]

The Venus Project and later career

Fresco, with his partner Roxanne Meadows, founded The Venus Project in 1985 and supported it in the 1990s through freelance inventing, industrial engineering, conventional architectural modeling, and invention consultations.[10]

In 2008, Peter Joseph featured Fresco in the film Zeitgeist Addendum where his ideas of the future were given as possible alternatives. Peter Joseph, founder of the Zeitgeist Movement began advocating Fresco's approach. In April 2012, the two groups disassociated due to disagreements regarding goals and objectives.[10]

Throughout 2010, Fresco traveled with Meadows worldwide to promote interest in the Venus Project.[41][42] I In June 2012, Maja Borg screened her film, Future My Love, at the Edinburgh International Film Festival featuring the work of Fresco and Roxanne Meadows.[43][44]

Personal life and family

Fresco was born to immigrants from the Middle East, Isaac and Lena Fresco.[8] His father was born in 1880[45] and around 1905 immigrated from Istanbul to New York where he worked as a horticulturist.[8] He died in 1963.[45] Fresco's mother was born in 1887[46] in Jerusalem and also migrated to New York around 1904.[8] She died in 1988.[46] Fresco was brother to two siblings,[8] a sister, Freda, and a brother, David.

Fresco had two marriages when he lived in Los Angeles and carried his second marriage through his first couple of years in Miami.[19] He divorced his second wife in 1957 and remained unmarried thereafter.[47] His second wife, Patricia, gave birth to a son, Richard, in 1953 and a daughter, Bambi, in 1956. Richard was an army private[48] and died in 1976.[49] Bambi died of cancer in 2010.[50]

Fresco died on May 18, 2017, in his sleep at his home in Sebring, Florida, from complications of Parkinson's disease at the age of 101.[51][52]

Roxanne Meadows assisted Fresco from 1976. As Fresco's domestic partner and administrative colleague, she oversees much of the management of the Venus Project.[10]

Critical appraisals

It's a "lack of professional engagement", William Gazecki who in 2006 completed Future by Design, a feature-length profile of Jacque Fresco says, that hurt Fresco the most. "The real missing link in Jacque's world is having put Jacque to work," Gazecki says, "[It's] exemplified when people say: 'Well, show me some buildings he's built. And I don't mean the domes out in Venus. I mean, let's see an office building, let's see a manufacturing plant, let's see a circular city.' And that's where he should have been 30 years ago. He should have been applying his work, in the real world ... [but] he's not a collaborator, and I think that's why he's never had great public achievements."[53]

When asked by a reporter why he had such difficulty actualizing his many ideas, Fresco responded, "Because I can't get to anybody."[54]

Views on Fresco

Fresco's critical view of modern economics has been compared to Thorstein Veblen's concept of "the predatory phase in human development", according to an article in the journal Society and Business Review.[55][56] Grønborg has labeled other facets of Fresco's ideology a "tabula rasa approach".[57]

Synergetics theorist Arthur Coulter called Fresco's city designs "organic" and "evolutionary", rather than revolutionary.[58] Coulter posits such cities as the answer to Walter B. Cannon's idea of achieving homeostasis for society.[58]

Hypothetical form of government

Fresco described his form of governance in this way: "The aims of The Venus Project have no parallel in history, not with communism, socialism, fascism or any other political ideology. This is true because cybernation is of recent origin. With this system, the system of financial influence and control will no longer exist."[57]

Ludwig von Mises Institute scholar Robert P. Murphy has raised the economic calculation problem against a resource-based economy.[59] In a resource-based economy, Murphy believes there would be no ability to calculate the availability and desirability of resources because the price mechanism is not utilized. Addressing this aspect, another article in the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics states criticism of "central plannings" computation problem applies to the ideas of Fresco.[60]

Question of utopianism

The Venus Project states on its website that it is not utopian.[61] Writing for the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, Nikolina Olsen-Rule supports this idea, writing: "For most people, the promise of the project sounds like an unattainable utopia, but if you examine it more closely, there are surprisingly many scientifically founded arguments that open up an entire new world of possibilities."[62]

Morten Grønborg, also of Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, comments that the Venus Project is "this visionary idea of a future society has many characteristics in common with the utopia. ... the word utopia carries a double meaning, since in Greek it can mean both the good place (eutopia) and the nonexisting place (outopia). A good place is precisely what Fresco has devoted his life to describing and fighting for."[63]

Hans-Ulrich Obrist wrote that "Fresco's future may, of course, seem outmoded and his writings have been subject to critique for their fascistic undertones of order and similitude, but his contributions are etched in the popular psyche and his eco-friendly concepts continue to influence our present generation of progressive architects, city planners and designers."[64]

Fresco's work gained the attention of science fiction enthusiast and critic Forrest J Ackerman.[12] Fresco later attracted Star Trek animator, Doug Drexler, who worked with Fresco to produce several computer renderings of his designs.[65]

Commenting on Fresco, physicist Paul G. Hewitt wrote that Fresco inspired him toward a career in physical science.[34][66]

Awards

In July 2016, Jacque Fresco received a Novus Summit award for City Design/Community. Novus Summit is supported by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA).[67]

Works

Books

with Keyes, Ken (1969). Looking Forward. South Brunswick, New Jersey: A.S. Barnes. (1969). ISBN 0-498-06752-1. OCLC 21606.

Introduction to Sociocyberneering. Lidiraven Books. 1977. OCLC 6036204.

The Venus Project: The Redesign of Culture. Venus, Florida: Global Cyber-Visions. 1995. ISBN 0-9648806-0-1. OCLC 33896367.

The Best that Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty & War. Venus, Florida: Global Cyber-Visions. 2002. ISBN 0-9648806-7-9. OCLC 49931422.

Designing the Future (PDF). Venus, Florida: The Venus Project, Inc. 2007. OCLC 568770383.

See also

References

1. ^ "Looking Forward" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on April 6, 2014.

2. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2014.

3. ^ [dead YouTube link ]

4. 1930 Census (Original Document), Brooklyn, New York: U.S. Department of Commerce, April 3, 1930

5. Rolfe, Lionel (1998), "Unpopular Science", Fat Man on the Left, Los Angeles: California Classics Books, pp. 166-170, ISBN 978-1-879395-01-5

6. Rolfe, Lionel (1998), "Unpopular Science", Fat Man on the Left, Los Angeles: California Classics Books, pp. 158-161, ISBN 978-1-879395-01-5

7. Smith, Mac. (December 31, 1961). "A Look Ahead Through Fresco's Window". Florida Living Magazine. Miami. pp. 2-3.

8. I. ^ "Flying Wing", Great Lakes Technocrat, 11 (11): 34, July-August 1944

9. ^ Andreeva, Tamara. (March 6, 1950). "Advanced Plane Ideas Rejected". Abilene Reporter-News. Abilene, Texas. p. 9.

10. ^ Scully, Frank (1950), "The Aerodynamic Correction", Behind the Flying Saucers, New York: Henry Holt & Co., pp. 122-123

11. ^ "A Trip to the Moon" (PDF). Miami Herald Sunday Magazine. Miami, Florida. April 8, 1956. pp. Section G. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 27, 2013.

12. ^ Corporation, Bonnier (May 1947), "Wing Changes Its Camber", Popular Science, 150 (5): 115

13. ^ "Hydraulic Jack to Alter Airplane Wing's Camber", Science News Letter, 50 (20): 310, November 16, 1946, JSTOR 3923108

14. ^ Rolfe, Lionel (1998). Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground. California Classics Books. p. 170. ISBN 9781879395015. Trend Home Earl Muntz.

15. ^ Magazines, Hearst (December 1955), "Plastics with a Charge Have Magical Effects", Popular Mechanics, 104 (6): 149

16. ^ Andreeva, Tamara. (March 3, 1950). "Frustrated Genius". Olean Times Herald. New York. p. 13.

17. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 27, 2013.

18. "$2,950 House Shell Made of Aluminum". The New York Times. New York. May 28, 1961. pp. 1R, 8R.

19. I. ^ Corporation, Bonnier (March 1967), "We've Changed The Rules", Popular Science, 190V (3): 215

II. Watson, Ernest William; Guptill, Arthur Leighton (March 1967), "Rack 'Em Up", American Artist, 31 (3): 8

III. "Pamper Your Pipes", Esquire: 163, March 1967

IV. Jacque Fresco Enterprises Inc., Florida Department of State Division of Corporations

20. ^ Cross, Michael S. (1970), "Review: 'Looking Forward'", Library Journal, 94: 612

21. ^ Hagan, Alisa. (June 13, 1979). "Environmentalists Put City of Future on Display" (PDF). Hollywood Sun Tattler. Hollywood, Florida. p. 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 27, 2013.

22. Hewitt, Paul G. (2010), "Rotational Motion", Conceptual physics, Boston: Pearson/Addison-Wesley, p. 122, ISBN 978-0-13-137583-3

23. ^ Jenrette, David. (February 11, 1971), "Jacques Fresco", Gold Coast Free Press, 1 (1): 10

24. I. ^ The Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science Annual Report (Original Document). Miami: The University of Miami. 1970.

II. Bassett, Melanie. (March 6, 1970). "Man Need Not Fear Machine". The Carolinian. Raleigh, North Carolina. p. 4.

III. "Series to Explore Suicide or Survival". St. Petersburg Times. St. Petersburg, Florida. April 23, 1970. pp. 3B.

IV. Steigleman, Walt. (October 20, 1971). "'Jules Vernesque' City Shows Plans at USF". The Oracle. Tampa, Florida. p. 9.

25. ^ The Larry King Show (August 19, 1974). Larry King Interview (Television). Miami: WTVJ 4.

26. ^ Renick, Ralph; Abrell, Joe; Fresco, Jacque (January 26, 1974). Montage Interview (Television). Montage (WTVJ).

27. ^

28. ^ Tice, Neysa. (October 29, 1981). "Venus Is Headquarters For Sociocyberneering Research Center" (PDF). Lake Placid Journal. Lake Placid, Florida. pp. 1B. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 27, 2013.

29. ^ World Tour Lecture Dates

30. ^ Adams, Mark (June 22, 2012). "Future My Love (Review)". Screen Daily.

31. ^ EDI Film Fest, edifilmfest.org

32. Social Security Death Index Master File: Isaac Fresco, Social Security Administration

33. Social Security Death Index Master File: Lena Fresco, Social Security Administration

34. ^ Florida Divorce Index, Miami, Florida: Florida Department of Health, July 1957

35. I. ^ "2 Sikh Converts Charged By Army". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles. September 20, 1973. p. 2. Archived from the original on December 12, 2012.

36. ^ Social Security Death Index Master File: Richard Fresco, Social Security Administration

37. ^

38. ^ 7 News Features: The Venus Project (Digital Video). WSVN 7 News. 2009. Archived from the original on March 23, 2011.

39. ^ Humphries, Maria; St Jane, Michelle (2011), "Transformative Learning in Troubling Times: Investing in Hope", Society and Business Review, 6 (1): 31, doi:10.1108/17465681111105814

40. For the term "predatory phase", see also the quote from Thorstein Veblen's book ^ The Theory of the Leisure Class, Chapter One: Introductory (Gutenberg Project): "The predatory phase of culture is attained only when the predatory attitude has become the habitual and accredited spiritual attitude for the members of the group; when the fight has become the dominant note in the current theory of life; when the common-sense appreciation of men and things has come to be an appreciation with a view to combat."

41. Grønborg, Morten (2010), "The World According to Fresco", Future Orientation (1): 15-19, archived from the original on May 19, 2012

42. Coulter, Arthur. (October 1996), "The Venus Project: A Review", Journal of the Synergetic Society, No. 247: 10

43. ^ Murphy, Robert P. (August 30, 2010). "Venus Needs Some Austrians". Ludwig von Mises Institute.

44. ^ Engelhardt, Lucas (Summer 2013), "Central Planning's Computation Problem Review" (PDF), Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 16 (2): 229, archived from the original (PDF) on April 10, 2016

45. ^ Olsen-Rule, Nikolina (2010), "Utopian Spaces", Future Orientation, Issue 1: 41, archived from the original on March 31, 2013

46. ^ Grønborg, Morten (2010), "Editorial: Utopia", Future Orientation, 1: 5, archived from the original on March 31, 2013

47. ^ Obrist, Hans-Ulrich (December 2007), "Futures, Cities", Journal of Visual Culture, 6 (3): 360

48. ^ Doug Drexler (2006). Doug Drexler Interview (Digital Video). Docflix.

49. ^

External links

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Toggle the table of contents From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jacque Fresco (March 13, 1916 - May 18, 2017) was an American futurist [1] and self-described social engineer.[2] Self-taught, he worked in a variety of positions related to industrial design.

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Jacque Fresco, Futurist Who Envisioned a Society Without Money, Dies at 101 (Published 2017)

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A self-taught industrial designer, Mr. Fresco promoted an alternative society where resources would be distributed equitably by computers.

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As a leading expert in the field of recycling science, and founding Director of the Centre for Sustainable Materials Research & Technology at UNSW, Professor Veena Sahajwalla is producing a new generation of green materials, products and resources made entirely, or primarily, from waste.

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The brief for this international design competition asks for a new masterplan for the innovation industry in Chengdu in Western China. While the innovation industry is high on China's economic agenda, masterplans recently developed for the industry are hardly specific. They are based on a generic urban planning model-often defined by traditional infrastructure, a regular grid, a green axis, and independent plots-also used for masterplans for any other industry. Can urbanisation in China, driven by this generic planning model, remain sustainable, given that our ways of living, commuting, and relating to nature are vastly changing? In addition to supporting the innovation industry itself, should masterplans developed for the industry also be novel enough to challenge the generic urban planning model, offering new forms of living, working, and social spaces that meet our ever-changing needs?

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Chengdu Future Science and Technology City Launch Area Masterplan and Architecture Design

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The brief for this international design competition asks for a new masterplan for the innovation industry in Chengdu in Western China. While the innovation industry is high on China's economic agenda, masterplans recently developed for the industry are hardly specific.