Cities of Future and the Challenges Ahead

As the days unfold and we make our way into the future, various ambiguities still persist regarding the future of cities. It is thought that whether the cities are going to represent dystopia or the cities will become more inclusive in future. Various efforts are underway for including every stratum of the society in the development of the cities. However, slums in urban centres are expanding along with urban sprawl posing unprecedented challenges. Against this backdrop, cities, particularly in the developed part of the world are focusing on the use of technology and metaverse has also become a talk of the town.

Graana.com through this blog concentrates on the challenges that cities can face in the future. Cities represent our lifestyles, the way we interact, and the things around which we organize our lives; as we are heading towards the future certain behaviours and operations in the cities will need to be altered.

Blue Urbanism

Blue Urbanism is a phenomenon in urban planning which is about creating harmony between the oceans and life in cities. Timothy Beatley in the book ‘Blue Urbanism’ has described that how the activities that take place in the cities have a direct impact on marine lives. From the literature review of the urban policies, Beatley has argued that the policies of the cities do not cater to the lives in oceans. In the book, he has given various examples that how cities are damaging the ecosystem of the marine economy. For example, the non-treated sewage water falling in the oceans and the waste being dumped in the oceans are common demonstrations. Similarly, the author has argued that urban planning and the designs of our abodes reflect the biases towards oceans and the marine world.

Impeding Environment

Certainly, the environment of our world is deteriorating. The major challenge which future cities can face in the upcoming time pertains to the changing environment and its direct consequences on the populations. As the phenomenon of rural-urban migration is expanding at a rapid pace, the next mass migration within cities can be anticipated owing to the consequences of the environment. The environmental threats have the capacity to incur heavy losses on the material possessions as well as their lives. Therefore, bringing climate-resilient infrastructure and planning is the major challenge that future cities will face. Against this backdrop, whole new thinking needs to be incorporated in the development of cities that can foresee the upcoming challenges.

Managing Resources

As the population is booming and the resources are getting scarcer, the cities in the future will have to be efficient in the management of the resources. Since cities are already under criticism for not ensuring equity and the equal division of resources resource management should be at the forefront in the future course of the cities. Contemporarily, resource exhaustion whether in terms of exploiting natural resources or consumption of commodities is high in the cities which makes the cities a hotspot of garbage. Owing to the low management of resources and lack of attention towards this issue, the situation in the cities is going to become more intricate in the upcoming days.

Reinvigorating Urban Planning

The cities of the future will have to reinvigorate urban planning and probably the new principles of urban planning will have to be adopted in order to tackle the emerging problems. Future cities will have to be developed keeping in mind the new realities which include the structures developed around biophilia – that is bringing cities closer to nature, an element that has been forgotten in the development discourse. Since sustainable development will be at the helm of affairs of the future cities hence, the new urban planning will have to be sensitive regarding the environment. A factor that has a great influence on our urban planning is transportation, and most of our urban planning is done from the perspective of cars. If we anticipate flying cars in future then surely, we can expect the cities of a new kind.

Artificial Intelligence

In the future cities, there will be new beings existing around humans and those will be the entities powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Our planet has started to experience the marvels of AI and it can be easily said that our roles will be duplicated in the coming future. The cities of the future will be the residence of these new beings powered by technology and AI.