Your city has completely changed. We are writing 2050 and you are looking out the window. Between the buildings there are swamps and lakes. The traffic noise that once filled the streets has subsided. And the distant suburbs have given way to the forest.
You might even shed a tear over the loss of your parental home, but it really couldn’t be otherwise.
This is what reality might look like for a large part of the world’s population in a few decades.
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Today, 55 percent of Earth’s 8 billion people live in cities. By 2050, according to the United Nations, it will be 68% and cities will host 2.5 billion more inhabitants than today.
This presents us with challenges, because living conditions in cities get worse when it rains more, gets warmer and sea levels rise due to climate change.
But it also creates opportunities. Larger, more populous cities might make you think of more pollution, but that’s not the case. The cities of the future, in fact, offer us a golden opportunity to repair the damage we have done to the planet.
Cities struggle with the heat
The temperature rises, and according to VN-ratio from 2022 mainly in the city.
The report describes how cities have been exposed to the heat island effect, which could cause it to become 2 ° C warmer in addition to the 4-5 ° C temperature rise we already expect before 2100 due to global warming.
The heat island effect occurs because the asphalt absorbs the sun’s heat. At the same time, the wind cannot discharge the warm air on the leeward side of the buildings.
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Climate change is also bringing more rain, especially in cities. Tall buildings amplify the turbulence in the skies that generate the heaviest storms. And tiles, concrete and asphalt prevent water from flowing out.
Water can only escape through the sewer system, which is often not large enough to store a large amount of it, causing devastating floods.
But the problems of heat and water can be solved with a simple trick: the construction of parks.
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In Chinese Research in 2021, scientists found Wuhan city parks were cooler than built-up areas. In some places the temperature difference was greater than 7 ° C.
Strategically placed green zones can therefore help cities cool down. Rainwater also flows better through it, so as to prevent flooding.
In parks, the large amount of rainwater can also be used to increase the cooling effect: ponds further lower the temperature, according to the Wuhan study.
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The cooling effect of parks doesn’t just benefit public space. In homes and offices, vertical facade gardens can maintain the temperature indoors 4 ° C to reduce.
An additional advantage is that gardens purify the air, among other things, of nitrogen compounds in the exhaust gases.
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Anyone can do anything
However, pollution from cars will be less of a problem in the future if it depends on scientists. Fossil fuels such as diesel and gasoline will gradually disappear from cities.
The aim is not only to improve air quality, but also to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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An important step towards reducing emissions is reducing the need for transport. Cities should be designed in such a way that all daily activities, such as work, shopping, health care, education and leisure, can be carried out with the maximum 15 minutes walk.
At the same time, the suburbs have to leave, because the transport distances are longer due to their widespread buildings.
When people from the suburbs come to live close together in the city, they travel shorter distances. At the same time, suburban areas are cleared for forest growth, which can remove greenhouse gases from the air.
The electric car stores energy
The transport that is still there must run on green energy. The transition to electric transport is already underway. In Norway, for example, in 2021, 64.5% of new cars were electric.
Not only do they emit less carbon dioxide than gasoline cars, they also play another important role in the cities of the future: they can store energy from the sun and wind and transfer it to the grid.
At the moment we cannot be satisfied with the energy of the wind or the sun. It’s too fickle: energy production depends on time and time of day.
But if we can store excess energy from the sun and wind and use it when there is a shortage of green energy, we can get rid of fossil fuels completely.
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However, the cities of the future must not only store green energy, but also generate it themselves.
The best high-voltage cables lose at least 0.5 percent and often a lot more energy per 100 kilometers of cable, so the closer the power is generated to the consumer, the better.
That’s why architects are already designing buildings with wind turbines on their roofs, solar cells as facade and window cladding, and other integrated energy solutions.
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Cities must also become self-sufficient in another area: food. By growing vegetables in the cities, we are left with agricultural land, which can then become wild.
At the same time, the products are already close to the consumer, which means we save on transport and get fresher vegetables.
The lettuce comes from the cellar
In an American she studies since 2020, researchers have looked at the climate costs of transporting fruit and vegetables.
Figures vary depending on whether transport is air, sea, truck or rail, but the trend is clear. If you bring 1 kilo of oranges from California to New York, you emit 0.3 kilo of CO2 from. If the oranges come from Mexico, the figure rises to 0.7 kilos of CO2.
The biggest profit comes from vegetables. Lettuce, for example, should not be grown on the ground – this can also be done in the floors of a former parking lot, using LED lamps.
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Lettuce grown in the city with green energy and a lot of attention to the recycling of raw materials, emits only 0.16 kilos of CO2 per kilo, according to a she studies since 2018. For comparison: the country’s lettuce produces 0.54 kilos of CO2 per kilo, of which 0.36 kilo comes from transport.
At the same time, urban vegetables require 80 to 90% less water and 95% less space.
The Finnish city shows it
Many of the technologies that could make the cities of the future climate neutral already exist, but no city is using them all yet.
But some cities are getting closer to the vision of the future. One example is the Finnish neighborhood of Kalasatama in Helsinki. Here is a plan ready to make the area carbon neutral by 2040, hosting 30,000 people.
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To this end, planners want to stimulate a development in which city dwellers can reach all daily services within walking distance.
Kalasatama is also built with a garbage truck-free garbage disposal system. Residents separate the waste and throw it down a chute, which leads to recycling or energy recovery.
Kalasatama is far from finished with his plan, but the project doesn’t have to be successful on the first try either. Rather, the district serves as a test bed for new green technologies.
If successful, the plan could be rolled out across Helsinki and possibly the rest of the world and, in the future, in the city where you live.
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