What do Future Cities Look Like?

October 11, 2017

City planning in the 21st century often requires navigating a Pandora’s Box of complicated, interconnected issues. In population-dense urban centers like San Francisco, for example, strict zoning laws clash with a need for more housing. In contrast, further south in Los Angeles, an abundance of new construction has exacerbated the city’s growing population.

One common thread that connects city building across the national landscape is the slate of environmental concerns that arise with rampant urban development. Plans for a massive housing development in Los Angeles County have raised the ire of environmental activists, while spillover from San Francisco threatens roughly 300,000 acres of open space in the Bay Area.

This modern dilemma sees enterprising architects and urban planners focusing on futuristic solutions that address multiple issues simultaneously with an eye toward sustainability. In certain instances, this has come to mean innovation centered on two sources that have long fueled development: oil and natural gas. Initiatives powered by oil and natural gas are providing city builders on the cutting edge with actionable ways to usher in a new era of responsible urban development.

Much of the discussion around the city plan of tomorrow focuses on renewable energy, from Vermont’s 100% renewable energy city to San Jose’s commitment to solar energy. As Ted Nordhaus, an environmental policy expert and co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute, notes, those ideas are actually intrinsically linked to oil and natural gas. “Renewables today depend increasingly on natural gas for backup when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing,” he said in an interview. “So without natural gas or other forms of fossil energy, there would be little, if any, solar or wind energy anywhere.”

Oil is also an integral part of one of the most promising innovations in design and construction: 3-D printing. Forward-thinking companies like Adidas already use 3-D printing technology for both consumer-facing and business-to-business products. Meanwhile, architects are applying the technology to create entire homes from a variety of materials, including plastics derived from oil. Compared to traditional development, 3D-printed homes have minimal environmental impact: an estimated three to five pounds of waste per square foot is produced...

Read entire article at Mic.  

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