Topic 18

Future Cities

We are living in the age of urbanization, where the majority of the global population lives in cities instead of rural areas. This of course creates new challenges for urban areas. It includes questions of energy and water supply, food production, mobility, transportation and waste management. Future and functional cities also have to deal with the provision of sufficient housing as well as high-quality public spaces.
There are many different approaches for addressing these challenges. The sustainable city concept for example states that cities should have the smallest possible ecological footprint. Other conceptions also include the societal dimension, aiming to provide everyone with affordable housing and the "right to the city".
Whereas some of the upcoming issues have to be addressed by urban policy and decision makers, other problems can be solved through engineering and technology.

Challenges

Energy Efficiency: Many European cities are a mosaic of buildings that were constructed in different decades and centuries. To upgrade the energy efficiency of old buildings and to equip new buildings with high energy efficient standards is an important measure against climate change.

Smart Mobility: Larger cities also mean more traffic, which results in more pollution. In order to reduce the traffic and its implications, new systems and approaches for regulating transportation in large cities need to be developed.

Urban Food Production: A lot of food is travelling long distances, before it arrives in our stores and on our plates. Although one might think that food production in cities is not possible due to limited space, there are already experiments with farming in urban areas.

Keywords

Future cities, Smart cities, Sustainable cities, Eco-cities, Low energy building, Smart urban mobility systems, Urban food production, Vertical farming