Four Visions Of City Life In 2040

By 2040, two thirds of Earth's population will be living in or around cities. If you think rush hour sucks now, it's only going to get worse, and food and energy and space are all going to be at a premium. The outlook may be bleak, but with a little planning, we just might be able to make it work.

As cities expand, getting everyone from point A to point B without relying on a hyperspatial bypass or two is going to be a serious challenge. A group called Forum for the Future has partnered with companies like Vodafone and GM to consider what the future might imply for transportation and urban living, and they've created four conceptual videos exploring different ideas of how things might turn out.

1. Sprawl-ville

There are a few different scenarios explored here. The first is "Sprawl-ville," which is basically the worst-case. Most people still use fossil fuel cars, and traffic gets so bad that everyone is pretty much forced to drive giant motor homes. Building more roads doesn't really solve the problem.

2. Planned-opolis

The second scenario is "Planned-opolis," where individual cars are made to be super expensive to encourage individuals to use much more efficient communal autonomous cars that they can schedule to take them where they need to go. City centers are mostly reserved for electric bicycles.

3. Renew-abad

Third, "Renew-abad," is a bit more optimistic. Most people work (and vacation!) through virtual reality and telepresence, cutting down on transportation needs. Power production is decentralized and local, and services are taking the place of products. Conventional cars don't exist anymore, and eco-friendly mass transit combines with small electric cars for individual transport.

4. Communi-city

Finally comes scenario four, "Communi-city." The emphasis here is on individual neighborhoods rather than cities, lessening transportation issues since people don't have to travel as far. Robotic cars have completely taken over from mass transit. Also, "Facebook votes to disband UN!"

2040 seems like it's a long ways away, but part of the point of this study is to suggest ways in which we can start planning for the future now, at least in terms of infrastructure. As far as which scenario is more realistic, I imagine it's going to be some combination of the four, I just hope it's more fast trains and robot cars and less perpetual traffic jams.