Future Cities
Future Cities

Author: Paul Dobraszczyk

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 2025-03-15

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1789141044

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Brings together architecture, fiction, film, and visual art to reconnect the imaginary city with the real, proposing a future for humanity that is firmly grounded in the present and the diverse creative practices already at our fingertips. Though reaching ever further toward the skies, today’s cities are overshadowed by multiple threats: climate change, overpopulation, social division, and urban warfare all endanger our metropolitan way of life. The fundamental tool we use to make sense of these uncertain city futures is the imagination. Architects, artists, filmmakers, and fiction writers have long been inspired to imagine cities of the future, but their speculative visions tend to be seen very differently from scientific predictions: flights of fancy on the one hand versus practical reasoning on the other. In a digital age when the real and the fantastic coexist as near equals, it is especially important to know how these two forces are entangled, and how together they may help us best conceive of cities yet to come. Exploring a breathtaking range of imagined cities—submerged, floating, flying, vertical, underground, ruined, and salvaged—Future Cities teases out the links between speculation and reality, arguing that there is no clear separation between the two. In the Netherlands, prototype floating cities are already being built; Dubai’s recent skyscrapers resemble those of science-fiction cities of the past; while makeshift settlements built by the urban poor in the developing world are already like the dystopian cities of cyberpunk.

Inventing Future Cities
Inventing Future Cities

Author: Michael Batty

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2024-05-07

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0262548658

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How we can invent—but not predict—the future of cities. We cannot predict future cities, but we can invent them. Cities are largely unpredictable because they are complex systems that are more like organisms than machines. Neither the laws of economics nor the laws of mechanics apply; cities are the product of countless individual and collective decisions that do not conform to any grand plan. They are the product of our inventions; they evolve. In Inventing Future Cities, Michael Batty explores what we need to understand about cities in order to invent their future. Batty outlines certain themes—principles—that apply to all cities. He investigates not the invention of artifacts but inventive processes. Today form is becoming ever more divorced from function; information networks now shape the traditional functions of cities as places of exchange and innovation. By the end of this century, most of the world's population will live in cities, large or small, sometimes contiguous, and always connected; in an urbanized world, it will be increasingly difficult to define a city by its physical boundaries. Batty discusses the coming great transition from a world with few cities to a world of all cities; argues that future cities will be defined as clusters in a hierarchy; describes the future “high-frequency,” real-time streaming city; considers urban sprawl and urban renewal; and maps the waves of technological change, which grow ever more intense and lead to continuous innovation—an unending process of creative destruction out of which future cities will emerge.

A History of Future Cities
A History of Future Cities

Author: Daniel Brook

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2013-02-12

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 0393078124

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A pioneering exploration of four cities where East meets West and past becomes future: St. Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Dubai.

Closer Together
Closer Together

Author: Alexander Ståhle

Publisher: SCB Distributors

Published: 2017-03-08

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 9188369080

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Cities are growing faster than ever before, but why? Because they foster proximity. Nearness to work, friends and culture has always been a driving force in urban development, from the first cities in which people walked everywhere to today’s car-powered cities with their scattered suburbs, highways and narrow pavements. Many scholars, politicians and civic groups are beginning to question the way cities are adapted to car traffic as it causes distance rather than proximity. As a result, a radical urban transformation has begun. What will the cities of the future look like? How will we live our lives and how will new technologies – self-driving cars for example – and new city planning ideals affect urban development? What would happen in the event of a major fuel shortage or climate change? Closer Together presents a unique future study and trend analysis developed by 400 experts and scholars. Three potential scenarios selected by 5,000 people through their vote in the media are presented via text and images. The result of their vote is as clear as the emerging trend: cities will have to change. They will need to be more condensed and user-friendly for pedestrians and people who travel by bike. Alexander Ståhle’s book Closer Together explains the political and economic forces and the subcultures that drive change in terms of urban environment and transport, as well as the way cities need to transform in order to bring people closer together and, not least, the way it will bring about greater equality and prosperity.

Future Cities
Future Cities

Author: Kenneth Gatland

Publisher:

Published: 1979

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 9780860202387

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This heavily illustrated book shows what "homes and living might be in the 21st century."

Future Cities
Future Cities

Author: Nick Dunn

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-12-10

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1350011665

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What might our cities look like in ten, twenty or fifty years? How may future cities face global challenges? Imagining the city of the future has long been an inspiration for many architects, artists and designers. This book examines how cities of the future have been visualised, what these projects sought to communicate and what the implications may be for us now. It provides a visual history of the future and explores the relationships between different visualisation techniques and ideologies for cities. Thinking about what futures are, who they are for, why they are desirable, and how and when they are to be brought into being is central to this book. Through visualisation we are able to experiment in ways that would be impractical and potentially hazardous in the real world, and this book, therefore, aims to contribute toward a better understanding of the power and agency of visualisations for future cities. In this lavishly illustrated text, the authors apply several critical lenses to consider the subject in different ways: technological futures, social futures, and global futures, providing a comprehensive survey and analysis of visions for future cities, and engaging creatively with how we perceive tomorrow's world and future studies more widely.

Designing Future Cities for Wellbeing
Designing Future Cities for Wellbeing

Author: Christopher T. Boyko

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-09-17

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 0429894465

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Designing Future Cities for Wellbeing draws on original research that brings together dimensions of cities we know have a bearing on our health and wellbeing – including transportation, housing, energy, and foodways – and illustrates the role of design in delivering cities in the future that can enhance our health and wellbeing. It aims to demonstrate that cities are a complex interplay of these various dimensions that both shape and are shaped by existing and emerging city structures, governance, design, and planning. Explaining how to consider these interconnecting dimensions in the way in which professionals and citizens think about and design the city for future generations’ health and wellbeing, therefore, is key. The chapters draw on UK case and research examples and make comparison to international cities and examples. This book will be of great interest to researchers and students in planning, public policy, public health, and design.

The Smart Enough City
The Smart Enough City

Author: Ben Green

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2019-04-09

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0262352257

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Why technology is not an end in itself, and how cities can be “smart enough,” using technology to promote democracy and equity. Smart cities, where technology is used to solve every problem, are hailed as futuristic urban utopias. We are promised that apps, algorithms, and artificial intelligence will relieve congestion, restore democracy, prevent crime, and improve public services. In The Smart Enough City, Ben Green warns against seeing the city only through the lens of technology; taking an exclusively technical view of urban life will lead to cities that appear smart but under the surface are rife with injustice and inequality. He proposes instead that cities strive to be “smart enough”: to embrace technology as a powerful tool when used in conjunction with other forms of social change—but not to value technology as an end in itself. In a technology-centric smart city, self-driving cars have the run of downtown and force out pedestrians, civic engagement is limited to requesting services through an app, police use algorithms to justify and perpetuate racist practices, and governments and private companies surveil public space to control behavior. Green describes smart city efforts gone wrong but also smart enough alternatives, attainable with the help of technology but not reducible to technology: a livable city, a democratic city, a just city, a responsible city, and an innovative city. By recognizing the complexity of urban life rather than merely seeing the city as something to optimize, these Smart Enough Cities successfully incorporate technology into a holistic vision of justice and equity.

Resilient Sustainable Cities
Resilient Sustainable Cities

Author: Leonie Pearson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-01-10

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1135071454

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Urbanization is occurring at an unprecedented rate; by 2050 three quarters of the world’s people will live in urban environments. The cars we drive, products we consume, houses we live in and technology we use will all determine how sustainable our cities will be. Bridging the increasing divide between cross-disciplinary academic insights and the latest practical innovations, Resilient Sustainable Cities provides an integrated approach for long term future planning within the context of the city as a whole system. In the next 30 years cities will face their biggest challenges yet, as a result of long term, or ‘slow burn’ issues: population growth will stretch to the breaking point urban infrastructure and service capacity; resource scarcity, such as peak oil; potable water and food security, will dramatically change what we consume and how; environmental pressures will change how we live and where and; shifting demographic preferences will exacerbate urban pressures. Cities can’t keep doing what they’ve always done and cope – we need to change current urban development to achieve resilient, sustainable cities. Resilient Sustainable Cities provides practical and conceptual insights for practitioners, researchers and students on how to deliver cities which are resilient to ‘slow burn’ issues and achieve sustainability. The book is organized around three overarching themes: pathways to the future innovation to deliver the future leadership and governance issues The book includes a variety of perspectives conveyed through international case studies and examples of cities that have transformed for a sustainable future, exploring their successes and failures to ensure that readers are left with ideas on how to turn their city into a resilient sustainable city for the future.

Foundries of the Future
Foundries of the Future

Author: Ben Croxford

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 9789463662475

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Since the 1970s, cities world-wide have been witness to radical de-industrialisation. Manufacturing was considered incompatible with urban life and was actively pushed out. As economies have grown, public officials and developers have instinctively shifted their priorities to short-term, high-yielding land uses such as offices, retail space and housing. Inner-city growth from New York to London and even Seoul have generally come at the expense of land uses such as manufacturing or logistics. Despite the odds, manufacturing is not in terminal decay in western cities. On the contrary, it is at the opening of a new chapter. Urban manufacturing can help cities to be more innovative, circular, inclusive and resilient. Recently, with increasing interest in the circular economy, with cleaner and more compact technology, with more progressive building codes for mixed use, with increasing awareness of the impacts of social inequality and with a clearer understanding of the value chains between the trade of material and immaterial goods, cities across the world are realising that manufacturing has an important place in the 21st century urban economy. While both enthusiasm for making is increasing and the value of manufacturing is becoming increasingly evident in cities, the topic remains extremely complex and challenging to manage. This book attempts to shed light on the ways manufacturing can address urban challenges, it exposes constraints for the manufacturing sector and provides fifty patterns for working with urban manufacturing. This book has been written as a manual to help politicians, public authorities, planners, designers and community organisations to be able to plan, discuss and collaborate by developing more productive urban manufacturing. The book is split into two parts. "