I happened to come across this old WordPress prompt only recently and it made me wonder. Having spent most of my working life as a Chartered Town Planner, I should have a view on this.
It’s an interesting and topical subject because almost everywhere you look, someone is building a brand new city.
For example……..
- Gelephu Mindfulness City, Bhutan (1,000 sq km)
- Nusantara, Indonesia (2,561 sq km)
- Dholera Smart City, India (920 sq km)
- New Administrative Capital, Egypt (714 sq km)
- Belmont, USA (101 sq km)
- California Forever, USA (202 sq km)
- The Line, Neom, Saudi Arabia (34 sq km)
What will these new cities of the future look like?
Of course, the big new ‘eco’ or ‘smart’ cities will incorporate a plethora of sustainability features and cutting edge technology. They will include car-free streets, cater for electric and self driving vehicles, and will incorporate mass community transit. We will see drone travel and deliveries. They will be planned to accommodate 10 or 15 minute communities so that everyone can access the places they need to go within a 15-minute walk or bike ride in order to reduce travel and commuting. Buildings will be higher and bigger with bridges in the sky. Underground developments will be commonplace.
These ‘smart’ cities will use digital technology and data to make them safer, healthier, and more efficient urban environments. They may have their own waste water and supply and management systems. They will use renewable energy and use low carbon technologies for more sustainable living. They will have built-in flood management and will be resilient to climate change. They will have greenspace networks and corridors built in, along with urban farms, recreational open space and wildlife habitats.
Etc. etc.
These things, done correctly, are clearly good and sustainable (and hopefully, won’t be restricted to big cities).
Will these brand new cities be better than the attempts of the past?
When recently established new cities were conceived, they seemed exciting and the answer to so many population, social and economic problems.
Take Brasilia. It was an example of how modernist architecture could forge a futuristic utopian society. It was planned for a population of just 500,000, but today this has risen to 2.8 million and more than four million including satellite towns. The centre has stunning architecture, transport links, smart plazas, green networks and the necessary big city facilities. But the majority of the metro area’s residents live in the unplanned surrounding urban sprawl that it attracted. The city is now seen by many as antiquated, unsustainable and soulless.
Look at Dubai. Dubai’s population is expected to increase by around 2 million to reach 5.8 million by 2040. This expansion is supposed to be guided by a sustainable masterplan with technology and greenspace at the forefront. But for all its planning so far, it seems to me to be one of the most unsustainable places on earth. The Emiratis don’t have much choice where to live city-wise but if you ask ex-pats why they like living and working in Dubai, the reasons they will give are: it is safe (you don’t mess with the Emirates), there are big tax benefits, jobs are well paid, there are great leisure opportunities and good healthcare (provided you have a well paid job). I’ve never heard anyone saying they like living there because of its integrated communities, its connection with nature and wildlife, its culture or because its a great balanced place to bring up a family.
So, yes, new cities of the future should be better.
But will they be successful?
They may be more smart and sustainable but the indications are that they will also be high density, high rise, and designed to reduce unnecessary movement in the interests of the economy and sustainability. Will these cities be designed to give us freedom or control our freedom? There are human rights concerns that the so called ‘smart cities’ will have the ability to track and control our every move and activity and could collect more of our personal data than we would like.
Will new cities sustain the necessary funding and investment to make their visions a reality? Will they become too big to manage and adapt? Will they be built to satisfy the visions of megalomaniacs rather the needs of those people who are going to live and work in them? Will they be compromised by stupid politicians, pompous architects, greedy developers and bureaucratic obstacles? Hopefully not.
Would I live in one?
The thought of living in any big new city doesn’t excite me. I like to visit the attractive parts of cities that have history, culture and vibrancy, but I don’t want to live in one however well-planned it appears to be. The thing is, I don’t like big. And most big cities keep getting bigger. They attract wealth and employment opportunities but also inequality and poverty. They also generate more pollution and more crime than small towns.
Its probably an age thing but I feel more comfortable, more safe and more social in a small town. I want a low-rise urban environment with local greenspace and spaces for social interaction. I want good strategic connections to other towns and countryside. I want to be able to walk to a local area of countryside and to every day facilities such as shops, pubs, leisure and health facilities. There are reasons why the residents of so many small market towns in England are the happiest. They like human scale, compactness, a close knit community, familiarity, legibility and the feeling of having less anonymity. They feel less stress and anxiety than city dwellers.
Small towns are already sustainable in many ways and have relatively high density living but with liveable spaces. With strong planning controls they can stay that way and get better and more sustainable.
Conclusion: Lets design ‘small towns’ for the Future!
We can’t just keep expanding our current big cities incrementally and expect them to function properly. Conversely, the financial cost of a building a new supercity is mind-boggling and they will no doubt be designed with economic returns in mind so one wonders how sustainable they will actually be. Also, in these uncertain times they present a massive risk for private and public investors.
So this is my suggestion. Instead of building big new cities of the future, think ‘new small towns of the future’. There is land to build them, even in the UK. We just ensure that Green Belts surround them so they can’t extend or merge with other towns or swallow up the countryside. We need to ensure that they have essential facilities, have land allocated for jobs and essential uses, and are connected by strategic transport links to other parts of the region and other regions. We need to ensure that peripheral strategic transport routes do not become an excuse to target expansion through more unplanned housing estates, business parks or retail parks. We need to ensure they are innovative, attractive, safe and embrace culture and learning. They need to be planned by town planners, environmental experts and infrastructure providers. Architects should design the buildings and spaces.
This might just work in other countries but, in the UK, I feel it’s just pie in the sky. The countryside lobby and the Nimbys (the not in my backyard brigade) will fight against new towns and cities even in areas that have no special open land value. They would rather see existing ones expand incrementally and continually to the point they lose their identity, their setting, their valued local natural assets, and the good will of residents. The Government won’t go for it because it would be too difficult and the Nimbys wont vote for them.
So there we are.
Have you any thoughts on how you would design your town or city of the future?
The Bloggler 