The future of cities, major problems to be solved

We as humans are fascinated by cities. Cities act as an attraction magnet for people and they leverage some of our very own unique humankind characteristics such as social interaction, cooperation, and belonging. Cities offer in essence a path for people to improve economically and socially, two main drivers for humans.

The problems associated with cities’ overpopulation are not new. Ancient Rome was in fact the first city that had more than one million inhabitants and suffered very similar problems that cities are facing currently. Rome suffered problems such as providing affordable housing to migrants coming from rural areas, land and property concentration, and being able to feed the lower classes just to name a few of these problems.

When I think about the future of cities I normally think in terms of three main problems.

• Housing or the ability to provide shelter to millions of people with very different needs, and budgets, and under different contractual schemes.
• Food supply or the capacity to feed everyone at affordable prices.
• Mobility and the need to create fast and secure transportation hubs that can allow the city to grow more.

This is also my framework in terms of potential solutions.

• More smart housing and new ownership and sharing living approaches

How to build faster and with very low carbon dioxide emissions becomes critical. 3D printing house techniques developed by companies such as Azure Printed Homes (where I am a small investor) are radically changing the construction paradigm by allowing fast and low-emission production of houses. I am also an investor in Boxabl, a company that is able to use manufacturing techniques to ship homes. As much as these technologies are shaping traditional construction methods, they are suited for larger land extensions and address mainly single-family units but they still have a hard application in most cities where land is constrained. An alternative to making this work will be to find land that can be easily connected to the cities via hyperloop or similar technologies. This will allow us to benefit from bigger land extensions that can be connected in 30-minute rides to downtowns.

Vertical construction and compact housing are two other alternatives that should be explored more. Blokable is an interesting start-up that is shifting toward modular development in multi-family units.

Another big bucket that can help alleviate housing pressures in big populated urban areas is related to how we think about concepts such as ownership and sharing. An example of this will be to combine fractional ownership of a unit and share the living experience with other owners/tenants. This combination addresses problems such as affordability, wealth creation as well as reducing energy consumption per person. This type of approach will also have a positive impact on the underwriting and repayment capacity of tenants and future owners so it will make it accessible to more people. This could be structured via owning individual rooms or different chunks of the same unit. Increasing the optionality and flexibility in how we legally structure these relations is also a field that needs to be worked on.?This is a big category in itself that I am keen on exploring further. There are many start-ups working in the fields of fractional ownership, flexible living, and co-ownership but the key will be in my opinion how we adapt these concepts to long-term residents of cities.

• Cheaper and closer access to food

In order to secure food supply initiatives such as rooftop gardens, underground and vertical farming, and community gardens become important. I mentioned Plenty in this post as a start-up I am following in the vertical farming space. All these techniques should incorporate sustainable practices such as LED lighting, efficient water usage, and recycling systems for nutrient-rich wastewater.?Strategies to minimize food and water waste at all stages will also be much more relevant.?Finally, infrastructure facilities for storing, processing, and distribution will be key in urban planning. How we think about producing and storing could also have phenomenal effects on reducing gas emissions associated with food transportation. Imagine a building that incorporates a facility that produces on-demand lab-grown food and is capable of feeding the residents. This food supply autonomous building will reduce dramatically food transportation but could become a small business in itself catering to nearby residents or just people that cannot afford to pay for it.?Then again this is interlinked with real estate design and we plan our future buildings.

• Faster and cleaner means of transportation

When it comes to mobility, electric and autonomous vehicles, shared mobility services, and mobility as a service (MaaS) platforms are just some categories that are already shaping how we move around cities. I mentioned already how bigger infrastructure projects such as the Hyperloop can enlarge cities and allow people to live within a 30-minute time span from city centers.

There are solutions that solve mobility and housing problems all at once such as what experts call transit-oriented development and also mixed-used communities where new neighborhoods integrate residential, commercial, and recreational spaces. A great example of this is Barrio la Pinada en Valencia where new residents are an integral part on its conception and development. Another example of a company exploring new urban planning will be Sidewalk Labs from Google.

As much as events such as COVID have changed some housing and lifestyle habits, still 70% of the world population is expected to live in cities by 2050. This is 7 billion people. For some of the reasons mentioned at the beginning of the article cities attract more people and in fact, we are witnessing the growth of some urban areas to become the new so-called megacities. Tokyo could be probably the first example of a mega city that has more than 30 million on its domains where people live work and moves around. Just to have an idea of how big new emerging cities could be, the population by 2050 in the urban area of Delhi is expected to reach 50 million. Other examples of high-growth cities will be Cairo and Dhaka both reaching 35 million.?

There are also a new set of projects that aim to build from zero new cities already ideated to address problems such as emissions, housing capacity, food supply, and infrastructure and mobility. Great examples of these are the new Chengdu sky valley in China, and NEOM in Saudi Arabia where futuristic approaches are addressing these major problems cities are facing. As much as these projects are an inspiration we still have to address the problems in cities that are already built. And this should concentrate most of our work when conceptualizing new ventures that address challenges that cities are suffering. Then again as with any major problem, the solutions are not only interlinked but they will generate second and third-order effects that will need a proper exploration one by one.

If you have any project that addresses some of the main problems cities are facing, please reach out and I will be happy to explore further!