How We’ll Live, Work & Shop in the City of the Future
At our LIGAlounge at the IAA Mobility, we hosted an exclusive insight talk with future researcher Oona Horx Strathern, to explore the intersection of mobility and the urban landscape of tomorrow. Honing in on some of the fundamental megatrends of our time — individualisation, mobility, connectivity, neo-ecology and urbanization — Oona shared her expert insight on how we’ll live, work and shop in the city of tomorrow.
Here are our top six takeaways from her fascinating presentation.
1. The Paradox of Individualization
As we become more individualistic, the more we need the support from other people: factors such as neighborhood, cooperation and community, diversity, and each others’ safety are becoming more important.
2. Connectivity
Society, residents and municipalities will collaborate on a human scale with a shared goal of promoting sustainable, low cost, vibrant and healthy spaces. In future we will choose spaces and places not so much for the square metres, but for the quality of the shared metres.
3. Micro-Mobility
In the city of the future, we will be able to reach all essential services within 15 minutes by bike or foot. This includes markets, shops, healthcare centers, workplaces, sports facilities, parks, council offices and cultural centres.
4. Smart Cities
Real smartness is not about the level of digitization, but the knowledge and ability citizens have about how to use the technology to enhance their lives and make their city more sustainable.
5. Conscious Consumption
In the words of retail consultant Mary Portas, “we are moving away from the vacuous world of status symbols to the deeper world of status sentience.”
6. Kindness Economy
In the kindness economy of the future our priorities will be first people, then planet, then profit. By increasingly focusing on the environmental and social impact of their products and processes, companies are moving beyond authenticity to activism.
Oona Horx-Strathern has been a trend and future researcher for more than 25 years, works as an author and consultant, and is a renowned housing expert on international stages. In her Home Report series and on zukunftsinstitut, she regularly names and analyzes the relevant trends for living, building and architecture. Horx-Strathern sees herself as an explorer of the new, but above all of the better. She is concerned with a fresh (female) optimism regarding our living spaces of the future.
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