By 2040 most of us will live in cities, but they’ll probably look radically different to the ones we have today. Yesterday Forum for the Future launched ‘Megacities on the Move’ which imagines four scenarios for urban life by 2040. ‘Renew-abad’ (embedded above) looks best to me – not that I relish the idea of socialising by hologram. You can watch the other three here.
Moving away from car ownership, using real-time traffic information to help plan journeys and having more virtual meetings will be vital to having livable cities for the future the report says.
But the alternative they paint is grim – bouncers outside food shops and dystopian “non-transition zones”. The report argues that if we don’t start future-proofing our cities, they risk becoming dysfunctional places with shortages of food, water and energy, and severe deprivation.
