The concentration of companies and industry in large cities, the depopulation of rural areas and our current lifestyle will determine how the cities of the future will be or should be.
At the beginning of the last century, only 12% of the world’s population lived in cities. In the year 1900 Madrid had about 775,000 inhabitants and Barcelona 533,000; Currently both have several million registered.
The great challenge of large cities will be to organize space, resources, traffic and security; therefore technology, sustainability and self-sufficiency will be the keys to the future.
Mobility.
Without a doubt, in the cities of the future it will be less common to use private vehicles and residents will bet on sharing them or using public transport. Pedestrians and cyclists will be the protagonists along with the moving walkways and the bike lane.
Environmental sustainability.
Electricity is the second largest contributor to carbon emissions. Lighting and air conditioning in buildings use a large amount of energy and resources. The buildings of the future will be self-sufficient, will incorporate photovoltaic panels and intelligent solar tracking systems.
Technology
In the not too distant future we will be able to control practically everything from our smartphones and other devices. In the cities of the future, everything will be connected, they will have measurement sensors that will be used to obtain noise, humidity or traffic levels, among others. With this data you can predict a situation or solve certain problems. It seems very futuristic, but in cities like Santander this type of technology is already being used, they also have applications that inform them of the state of the beaches, the occupation of libraries or public car parks.
Space and Architecture.
Probably by 2050 the world population will exceed 10 billion people, the vast majority will live in large cities. To solve the problems of population density, new materials are studied, to grow in height and even in underground levels. Cities like Seoul, Tokyo or Singapore portray very well what new cities could be like, very tall buildings in line with the urbanization process that we have experienced in recent decades. Single-family homes and low-rise buildings will take a backseat.
