TOWN PLANNING WITH NEW INVENTIONS.........

1. (DIGITALLY)RE-PROGRAMMABLE SPACE

Why..?

Demands on space in cities are constantly changing as a result of economic growth, demographics and consumer preferences. As urban populations increase from 4 billion to nearly 7 billion over the next 30 years, the world will need to almost double its urban capacity by 2050. There is neither the time nor money to produce the required infrastructure conventionally through large-scale engineering solutions; focus should be on the better use of existing infrastructure.

From intelligent street lamps to trees hooked up to social networks, the Top 10 Urban Innovations chronicles the best examples from around the world of how cities are creating innovative solutions to a variety of problems. To create the list, the Council drew on its experiences and networks working with city leaders around the world to select those that have had the most impact. Ranging from the high tech to the simple, and from the game changing to the subtle, they all have the power to transform industries, improve the environment and fundamentally change the way we interact with the urban fabric:

(Digitally) Re-Programmable Space – Less sprawl, more cool: from turning roads into cycle paths in New York to shrinking the city limits in Vancouver, clever re-purposing of urban space is breathing life into historic city centres and saving infrastructure costs.

The Waternet: An Internet of Pipes – Smart sensors in water pipes are already helping reduce water loss and manage floodwater. Soon they will be able to monitor health and detect outbreaks of infectious diseases too.
Adopt a Tree through Your Social Network: Connected Trees that Fight Climate Change – With studies suggesting that 10% more green space in a city could compensate against temperature increase caused by climate change, Melbourne’s scheme to encourage citizens to adopt trees by giving each of them their own email address is proving wildly poplar.
Augmented Humans – The Next Generation of Mobility: Small investments in cycle-friendly schemes already return $35 for every dollar invested. Schemes such as MIT’s Copenhagen Wheel, which encourages cyclists by allowing them to augment pedal power with energy captured when going down hills or braking, could get tempt even more drivers to ditch their cars.

Co-Co-Co: Co-generating, Co-heating, Co-cooling – This ‘tri-generation’ concept refers to the use of wasted heat from power plants for co-generation (re-using in electric generation) as well as heating and cooling of buildings. Next up is quadgeneration, which will do all of the above plus capture CO2 and reuse it in industrial and horticultural processes.

The Sharing City: Unleashing Spare Capacity – ‘Take, make, consume and dispose’ is out; caring and sharing is in. With Airbnb already helping reduce wasted capacity in cities, and car-sharing clubs doing the same with transportation, we’re increasingly seeing sharing of facilities and even co-locations.

Mobility-on-Demand: A Menu of Personal Mobility – Congestion carries a price tag of $60 billion a year in the US alone, but the proliferation of real time data on traffic flows is enabling new ways of managing this by routing drivers via less crowded thoroughfares. When driverless cars hit the roads, the line between public and private will be blurred further, as cars take on numerous journeys rather than sitting idle in the car park all day.

Medellin Revisited: Infrastructure for Social Integration – Progressive architecture and urban planning have transformed this Colombian city in little more than a decade. The introduction of an elevated cable car is emblematic of this revival, providing not just transport infrastructure but a vital link between the wealthy commercial and some of the town’s poorest neighbourhoods.

Smart Array: Intelligent Street Poles as a Platform for Urban Sensing – Switching to LED is just a start of the Lamp Post Revolution: next generation designs will be able to monitor crime, available parking and even air pollution.

Urban Farming: Vertical Vegetables – If 45% of vegetables are spoiled before they reach the farm in (the figure is much higher in other parts of the world), why not move the farm to the city? Advances in LED lighting mean that food can now be grown in old cargo containers. And the beauty is they can be stacked, giving farmers 100 times more yield than traditional farms.
“Cities have always been repositories of innovation. Now, innovation itself is turning its focus on cities. Experimenting with urban space is the subject of the latest batch of successful start ups across the world. As a result, cities are not just containers of innovation – but also content,” said Prof. Carlo Ratti, Director, MIT Senseable City Laboratory and a member of the Council.

2. Water net: An Internet of Pipes

Why ?

Population growth, ecological threats and climate change all make it more critical than ever to efficiently manage and protect limited freshwater resources. By 2030, it is estimated that freshwater demand could outpace supply by 40%. Currently, the average water loss due to leakage is estimated at 25-30%, with some utilities agencies allowing it to rise to over 50%.

3. Adopt a Tree through Your Social Network

Why?

The International Panel on Climate Change foresees an increase in extreme weather events that will challenge cities, especially in developing countries. The dominant engineering approach has been to build walls, bulkheads, levees and other fortifications to minimize the effects of future storms and sea level rises. A less appreciated response is planting more trees. Studies show that increasing a city’s green area by 10% could compensate for the temperature increase caused by climate change: vegetation helps to block shortwave radiation while also evaporating water, cooling the ambient air and creating more comfortable microclimates. Tree canopies and root systems can also reduce stormwater flows and balance nutrient loads.

4. Augmented Humans: The Next Generation of Mobility

Why?

Modernist visions from the 1920s and 1930s influenced the development of sprawling, tall, car-centric cities between freeways that spanned the world. These visions had no place for walking, cycling, public transport or well-planned, shared urban spaces that are human in scale, sustainable, healthy, safe and lively – elements that are now recognized as essential for cities be environmentally sustainable, lively, equitable and liveable.

5. Co-Co-Co: Co-generating, Co-heating, Co-cooling

Why?

Around three-fifths of CO2 emissions come from the generation of electricity, heat and industrial usage (IEA Statistics 2011). Due to factors including population growth, economic development, urbanization and industrialization, global energy consumption is projected to increase by around half from 2010 to 2035, reaching some 226 billion MWh (WEO 2010; EIA 2011). In the absence of technological breakthroughs, this increase in energy use will lead to a proportional increase in CO2 emissions.

6. The Sharing City: Unleashing Spare Capacity

Why?

Since the first Industrial Revolution, consumption patterns have tended to be linear – a “take, make, consume and dispose” economic model, which leads to intensive use of materials and energy. Moving towards a more circular economy will help to reduce resource use and emissions. The circular economy is closely linked to the idea of the sharing economy, in which the culture of consumption changes towards regarding products as service, ensuring they are used in the most efficient way.

7. Mobility-on-Demand

Why?

Vehicular traffic congestion – and the air pollution that results from it – comes at great monetary and human cost. In the 83 largest urban areas of the United States alone, the time and fuel wasted by congestion has been valued at 60 billion USD. The World Health Organization estimates that over one million deaths per year worldwide can be attributed to outdoor air pollution, in large part caused by vehicular traffic. Further fatalities are caused by road accidents.