What will the megacities of the future look like?
More than 70% of our global CO2 emissions come from cities and that number might just keep rising. Today, 55% of us live in urban areas but the UN projects that by 2050, we will be 9.7 billion people on this planet, and 6.6 billion of us will live in cities. That’s 68% — almost 7 out of 10. If this projection is right, we will grow our cities by 2.4 billion people during the next 32 years. By 2050, I’ll be old, grey and retired, but hopefully I’ll be exploring the new megacities of this world, and finding that they are using their resources better than we are today. I hope they’ll look like something that came right out of Star Trek, but that they’ll be inclusive, and have plenty of green spaces for all of us to gather. I hope they will have made good use of all of the cool, sustainable technologies developed during the 4th industrial revolution, and that they will have applied a new formula to the concept of living — a more resource efficient and social one.
In a recent report from C40 (a network of the world’s megacities committed to addressing climate change) our consumption based emissions are broken down into categories, based on data from 79 cities around the world. Not surprisingly, it is housing, utilities and construction that make up for the biggest chunk, while transportation, clothing, furniture and household equipment follow a little further down the line (see below figure).
What does this tell us? Well, if we want to reduce emissions, we need to look at how we can reduce consumption in the before-mentioned categories. First and foremost, this means rethinking ‘living’. And when I say living, I mean the very way we have organised ourselves and our lives in buildings, such as our homes, offices and the hotels we visit when we travel, to mention a few. So let’s have a closer look at modern life today, and what it means in terms of resource consumption:
Modern life in the developed world not only means that most of us have a roof over our heads, it means district heating and cooling to keep comfortable when the temperatures outside fluctuate. It means access to running water, but not only that. The expectation that if we want hot water, it will flow from the tap or shower head within seconds, with a reasonable amount of pressure and flow, even if we’re 50 stories up in a hotel room in Dubai. We expect our new apartment to be furnished with dishwasher, laundry and dryer — necessities to optimize house work and allow us to spend more time with our loved ones. Or at work. And speaking of work. Our offices are equipped with the newest electronics to allow worldwide, seamless communication, and when we’re not staring into a computer screen, or on our phones, we stuff ourselves with the dish of the day, served in the canteen, or fill ourselves with cups of half decent coffee in the office kitchen.
We spend the majority of our time in buildings. Sometimes we go outside, but not if it’s too cold. Or too hot. We have come to expect a certain standard of living, in fact, most of us believe we are entitled to it because we have worked hard for it.
We forget; that not so long ago, it was very different. My grandparents did not have heating, cooling or a laundromat for that matter. They had a fireplace in the living room, but the rest of the rooms in the house were cold and we would have to bring hot water bottles with us to bed, to stay just a little bit warm during the winter months. Most people in the city did not have showers in their apartments either. That’s why there are so many public swimming pools from the 40s and 50s — at least here in Copenhagen, Denmark. People used to meet up on Sundays, go to the pools, clean up and socialize with everyone else around. Now that every single home has a shower, public pools are mostly for kids and people who actually want to swim.
The above is my own personal example, and I realize it does not apply to everyone, but for many in the developed world, modern living has been dramatically redefined in less than 2 generations. And there is no doubt that technology and the development of proper utility infrastructure have made our lives easier. But have they made it better?
What if you were appointed to be the architect of a future megacity? What if you were asked to sit down at the drawing table and develop a concept city that can house millions; allow flexibility to meet the different needs citizens might have throughout their lives, and that lowers our emissions by looking at new, intelligent ways to change consumption patterns? If you could clean the slate, start over and introduce your concept for the perfect, livable city; what would it be?
Personally, I hope that our future megacities will be designed for inclusion, meaning more co-living spaces, more of both indoor and outdoor spaces, where people can come together to enjoy a meal, sports or just a walk with a friend. By embracing our social nature, and going (back) to co-living, we might just resolve one of the unknowns in the equation called ‘sustainable living in future megacities’. When done right, co-living spaces can be a powerful instrument to cut emissions as some of the most resource intensive elements, such as buying, preparing and disposing foods, is centralised. The UN Food & Agriculture Organisation estimates that around ⅓ of global food production is wasted and that fruit, vegetables and roots are the top produce to get disposed because of its relative short expiration, according to human quality standards. Imagine a city where most of us lived in co-living spaces, where we would dine with our community and where shopping and preparation of the food would be coordinated centrally to decrease food waste. You could reserve your seat at the dinner table via the community app, and add a few friends if, at the end at the day, it turns out there are a few open seats. Your friends get a free meal, and the kitchen staff will not have to throw away perfectly good food.
Co-living spaces are popping up everywhere. Especially in old, historic cities where the key challenge is preserving original buildings while meeting an ever increasing demand for living spaces in the city centres. In London, The Collective is offering inclusive co-living spaces, that are all about convenience. Events, communal and work spaces are part of the package, along with their own community gym, laundry, cleaning and 24/7 concierge services. Don’t take a look at their instagram — it will make you want to sell your house, family and dog immediately, and move to London.New technologies, such as hydroponic farming, allow co-living spaces or hotels to seamlessly grow, maintain and harvest sustainable fruit, veggies and roots for their meals, on-site. This hydropod by Dunya is a self-contained habitat, which uses solar power and sensors to supply the right amount of light, heat, humidity, watering and ventilation for all-year-round growing — even in cold climates. You’ll only have to plant the veggies you want, and the technology takes care of the rest. What was once a very time time consuming hobby is now a possibility for both you and I — and we don’t even need to rely on rain, sun or green fingers. An app will tell us when our potatoes, cilantro, blueberries or tomatoes are ripe and ready to be picked. If the future is vegetarian — and for the climate’s sake, I really hope it is — these hydropods could potentially feed whole communities, thus avoiding carbon intensive industrial farming, shipping and packaging of foods.
In the future, showering is still as much a hygienic ritual as it is about wellbeing. There is just something about hot, running water embracing us, cleaning us, calming us. But with more and more cities experiencing severe water shortage, and with Cape Town facing an actual expiration date on its water supply, our cities are now, more than ever, in need of technologies to help us lower water consumption. In the developed world, we use on average 200 liters of water every day. Around 40% of that is used in the shower. More and more technology companies are picking up on this, and are developing solutions for this challenge. Swedish Orbital Systems has developed a smart shower, that saves up to 90% water and 80% energy by recirculating, filtering and UV treating the water in real-time. Sensor technology analyses the water quality and reuses as much of it as possible, thus helping the user to lower their consumption without sacrificing comfort. Danish Flow Loop and Dutch Hamwells are also delivering sustainable showering solutions to cut water consumption.
When we use less water or electricity, and we produce less waste, we automatically change the game for utilities. Less water down the drain in our sinks, showers or toilets, could enable a capacity decrease of municipal water purification plants, lowering cost of operation and freeing up space for the growing number of new citizens. By meeting the majority of the food demand with local, hydroponic farming, we decrease the need for long-distance, polluting transportation of foods as well as packaging. By shrinking the transportation time from harvest site to mouth, we might even increase the consumption span of the fruits, veggies and roots that we so often throw away because they go rotten 2 days after we bought them in the supermarket. By making use of all of these fascinating new technologies, we can re-engineer living as we know it, to make it more inclusive, sustainable and convenient to be a megacity citizen of the future.
If you think that recirculating showers, hydroponic farming and the convenience of co-living spaces sounds good — but you’re disappointed with the lack of Star Trek-y references in this article — here is something for you: imagine that your future home in one of the world’s megacities is made of fungus — not concrete, or bricks. London based BIOHM has made a business out of experimenting with bio based materials for the built environment. They create adaptive, intelligent living spaces with these materials, with the aim of making the construction industry more sustainable. Apart from the consumption in our homes, it is the construction of homes, and especially the materials used for this construction, that are the biggest city emitters, which is why research and experimentation with alternative materials is an important part in the quest for the future, sustainable megacity.
Last, but not least, imagine the future of transportation. You might close your eyes and see a Tesla popping up, but we have already moved far beyond that. The future of transportation might be electric, but it will also be about changing consumption patterns and our ‘usual ways’. Transportation in the city is mainly about getting from A to B, which means convenience is yet again at the centre of it all. The German company, Lilium, has developed the world’s first electrical vehicle take off and landing jet to accommodate for just that. Flying cars will take our cities from a horizontal to a vertical stage, where roads are no longer a space requiring necessity for transportation, and you can go straight from your 77th floor apartment to your your grandmas on the 92nd floor, at the other end of the city. No need to take the elevator down to ground level. No need to find a bus stop. No need to…
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