Time travel may be the stuff of science fiction, but if you're curious to know how we'll be living years from now, look no further. From Malaysia to Mexico and the Maldives, all-new cutting-edge smart cities with outstanding green credentials are providing a blueprint for urban development. As the effects of climate change become increasingly devastating, these carbon-neutral utopias may be key to our species' chance of survival, if they're as virtuous as they appear.
Billionaires seem to spend so much time blasting into space or spending time on their superyachts that it's a wonder they manage to find the time to helm some of the world's most successful companies. However, there's one mega-wealthy entrepreneur whose vision for the future takes place right here on planet Earth. Let's meet Marc Lore and discover his plans to build a city of the future – including flying cars!
A desert utopia with sustainability, equality and diversity at its heart, Telosa is the brainchild of former Walmart executive and serial entrepreneur Marc Lore, who unveiled the grand project after quitting his role at the retailer in 2021. The New York Post called it "America's first woke city" and the plan is to house a population of five million within 40 years. Of course, Utopia doesn't come cheap and building costs are predicted to reach an eye-watering $400 billion (£314.8bn), funded by private investors, philanthropists and government grants and subsidies.
Marc Lore might be best known for buying a stake in the Minnesota Timberwolves basketball team alongside J.Lo's ex-husband, Alex Rodriguez, but he made his money through some very high-profile business deals. Perhaps ironically for someone who "doesn't really shop online", Lore's estimated $4 billion (£3.1bn) fortune comes mainly from e-commerce. After selling a number of companies, including Diapers.com, to Amazon for a cool $545 million (£428.8m) in 2011, the entrepreneur went on to launch Jet.com, yet another online shopping experience, which he sold to Walmart in 2016 for $3.3 billion (£2.5bn). The father-of-two became CEO of Walmart US's e-commerce arm but stepped down in early 2021 after sales slumped, which is when he announced his vision for Telosa, his city of the future.
Lore has hired Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) to plan the project and the top architecture firm hasn't disappointed. They've created wow-factor renderings of the futuristic city, which will eventually occupy a 150,000-acre site somewhere in the arid west of the US. Telosa's centrepiece is a lattice-like skyscraper called the Equitism Tower. Located in the middle of a sprawling park dotted with vibrant public spaces, this “beacon of the city” will serve as a social hub, a water storage and solar-power facility, and a vertical farm producing food for the denizens.
This ultra-progressive idyll is designed with abundant green spaces, premium 'diverse housing', cultural institutions, wellness centres and bountiful other first-class amenities, all accessible by residents within 15 minutes. Telosa aims to be the world's most sustainable city. Wind turbines and solar panels will take care of most of its energy needs, water use is predicted to be 92% less than in conventional cities and 20% of Telosa's food will be grown on-site in an array of greenhouses. Perhaps most ambitious of all, the city plans include self-flying electric cars, with petrol vehicles strictly prohibited.
Lore's goal is to create "the most open, fair and inclusive city in the world" based on what he calls 'Equitism', a "reformed version of capitalism" inspired by the 19th-century economic philosophy known as Georgism. Land in Telosa will be owned by a public trust and all profits generated will be distributed equally in the community, funding the city's (hopefully) exemplary public services. The first phase is due for completion in 2030 and is poised to house 50,000 “diverse” residents.
Interestingly, Telosa's designers are taking inspiration from places around the world that have "used outdoor spaces to bring people together", such as New York's Central Park, Reston in Virginia and the UK city of Milton Keynes. The latter boasts the most open space available to residents in the whole of the UK and is home to Campbell Park, which was said by famed architectural historian, Nikolaus Pevsner, to be "the largest and most imaginative park to have been laid out in Britain in the 20th century."
Although he currently helms food delivery app Wonder, Lore says the "lifelong" Telosa project is what he's "most passionate" about. “We have a chance to prove a new model for society that offers people a higher quality of life and greater opportunity," he says. He wants the utopia to have the "vibrancy, diversity and culture" of New York City, the "efficiency, safety and innovation" of Tokyo and the "sustainability, governance, and social services" of Sweden. Lore's 'New City' isn't without its critics, however, with some dismissing the project as a billionaire's vanity project or a "greenwashed Las Vegas", according to The Week.
Read on to discover nine more visionary projects that could save the future of mankind...
Another development making headlines is The Line, the sci-fi-worthy megacity taking shape in the Saudi desert. Consisting of a pair of hollow twin 'groundscrapers' measuring 1,640 feet tall, 656 feet wide and a staggering 106 miles long, The Line will be one of 10 'regions' that make up the $500 billion (£391bn) state and privately funded Neom zone, which according to Dezeen is "arguably the world's... most controversial architecture project." Located in northwestern Saudi Arabia, Neom encompasses a vast area around the size of Albania.
In addition to The Line, three other Neom regions have so far been announced: Oxagon, an advanced port city with floating infrastructure, eco mountain resort Trojena and Sindalah, a sustainable luxury island resort destination in the Red Sea. Rumoured to have been designed by US architectural studio Morphosis, The Line is the most jaw-dropping of the planned regions and will have a population of nine million by 2045 living more or less vertically, if everything goes to plan. All local amenities will be accessed within a five-minute walk, while residents will never be further than two minutes away from nature.
The Line is so futuristic, it makes Telosa look dated. AI Is helping to design the city, which will be assembled in modular-style blocks, while robotics, holograms and other state-of-the-art smart tech will be integrated into all aspects of residents' lives. Fully climate-controlled for pleasant year-round weather, the carbon-neutral city will be powered by 100% renewable energy sources and residents will be able to travel end to end in just 20 minutes via an ultra-fast hyperloop or similar high-speed transportation system.
The Line could very well be a model for future cities but its detractors beg to differ. The gigaproject has been criticised for its apparent lack of feasibility and the possibility that the carbon footprint of its construction could reportedly cancel out any environmental benefits. Concerns have also been expressed about the city's potential to become a mass surveillance dystopia and the alleged human rights abuses that have characterised its construction to date, including the purported forced eviction of the local Howeitat tribe and killings of its members by the Saudi security services, as reported by the United Nations.
In 2020, Telosa designer BIG, together with architectural firms Hijjas and Ramboll, won an international competition launched by the Penang State Government to come up with a sustainable master plan for three completely new isles off the south coast of Penang Island. Fittingly called BiodiverCity, the winning entry imagines the isles as mixed-use 'lilypads' with acres of public beaches, parks and waterfront.
Each isle was to have up to 18,000 residents. The first set to be built, the Channels, would feature a 'Civic Heart' with government and research institutions, a hi-tech digital park, cultural and leisure facilities and residential areas. The second, which was called the Mangroves, would serve as a venue for large-scale events and the third, the Laguna, would be a hub for eco-living.
To minimise its carbon footprint and promote biodiversity in keeping with its name, BiodiverCity would be powered by renewable energy and blessed with a 'nature buffer' of mangroves, artificial reefs and green spaces. Buildings would be super-low energy and made from natural materials such as bamboo and timber as well as 'green' concrete, while self-driving cars and pilotless helicopters would ferry residents and visitors around.
Despite its purported eco benefits, BiodiverCity has been met with fierce opposition from environmentalists and the local fishing industry. As a consequence, the Malaysian government announced in May 2023 that it would be scaling down the project from 4,500 acres to 2,300 acres. The Channels, which has been renamed Silicon Island, will go ahead in what appears to be a modified form, but the other two isles have been unceremoniously scrapped. The revised cost of the project is estimated at $1.8 billion (£1.4bn) and it's expected to be 20 years in the making.
The Vertical Forest concept was pioneered by Italian architect Stefano Boeri, who designed the world's first plant-covered high-rise or 'garden skyscraper' in Milan, which was completed in 2014. The idea has since caught on big-time around the world and Boeri has expanded his biophilic vision to encompass entire urban areas. Cue the master plan for Smart Forest City near Cancún in Mexico, which was unveiled in 2019.
Boeri describes Smart Forest City as “a botanical garden within a contemporary city, based on Mayan heritage and in its relationship with the natural and sacred world.” Over 60% of the 1,376-acre city, which will be built on land previously earmarked for a shopping centre, will feature green spaces resplendent with an incredible 120,000 plants from 350 species.
Smart Forest City will be brimming with agricultural fields, solar panels and smart eco-tech, making it extremely food-secure and energy efficient, while water will be intelligently recycled via an underground system. Transport will consist of electric vehicles, including eco-watercraft, which will navigate the irrigation canals within the bucolic community. But the city won't just be carbon-neutral. It'll actually absorb 116,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year.
Up to an impressive 130,000 people will live and work in Smart Forest City's vegetation-clad buildings. The community will feature an advanced research centre developing smart tech, precision farming, robotics, bio-healthcare and other leading-edge technologies, and much of the population is expected to be made up of students, researchers and other staff from the institution. As for when construction will begin, the project is, rather frustratingly, still in the approval stage.
Boeri is having a lot more luck thankfully with Forest City Liuzhou, his urban project in China's Guangxi Province. Conceived in 2016, the master plan has been given the green light and the city is currently under construction. Situated on a 434-acre site along the Liujiang River, the leafy locale will accommodate 30,000 people and feature 40,000 trees, plus a million plants from more than 100 species.
Pollution is a big problem in the surrounding area and Forest City Liuzhou is designed to be an air-purifying sponge, absorbing 57 tons of micro-particles a year. The abundant foliage will also suck up 10,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually, while the city is projected to produce just 900 tons of the greenhouse gas per year, with solar and geothermal sources providing most of its energy needs.
The city will be respectful of the surrounding environment in aesthetic ways too, with undulating edifices cascading with foliage that mimic the contours of the adjacent hills, harmonising perfectly with the natural backdrop. More than 70 buildings feature in the master plan, from homes to offices, schools and a hospital. The city will be connected to central Liuzhou via a fast rail link and only electric vehicles will be allowed on its road network.
On top of its smog-busting and carbon-munching prowess, Forest City Liuzhou will minimise noise pollution and cool stifling summer temperatures, while its greenery-covered buildings and external spaces are going to provide a wonderfully rich environment for local wildlife. As far as the cost and completion date of the project are concerned, that information hasn't been divulged as yet.
The first sustainable floating city prototype, the United Nations-backed Oceanix Busan is an ingenious answer to climate change-induced rising sea levels. BIG, which is clearly doing a roaring trade dreaming up futuristic urban wonders, is working with Samsung subsidiary Samoo and floating city startup Oceanix to deliver the ambitious project located just off the coast of Busan in South Korea.
Construction on the marvel is due to begin in 2025 and wrap up in 2028 according to El País, comfortably in time for the 2030 World Expo, which Busan is hoping to host. Stretching over 14 acres, the showpiece floating city comprises three interconnected hexagonal platforms, one for research, another for living and a third dedicated to lodging visitors. All in all, 12,000 people will call Oceanix Busan home but the prototype can be expanded to house up to 100,000 on 20 platforms. It's thought that it could cost up to $600 million (£469m) to bring to life.
The Research Platform is the city's co-working and maritime study hub and will feature a climate-controlled central atrium and vertical forest farm. The Living Platform is where inhabitants will reside, as you might have guessed. It's set to consist of low-rise residential towers made from bamboo, characterful alleys with local food sellers and stores, and a public park that will host regular cultural activities. The Lodging Platform will complement its two siblings with an eco-hotel and retail stores, organic restaurants and greenhouses and several communal terraces.
Residents and visitors will travel around the zero-carbon, zero-waste city by foot, bike or self-driving electric vehicle, while goods will be delivered by robots. Adding to its green credentials, Oceanix Busan will sit on super-strong, self-repairing Biorock formulated to regenerate the surrounding ecosystem and encourage coral reef formation. If the floating city does turn out to be as amazing as it sounds, clones will no doubt be springing up globally going into the 2030s and beyond.
The very existence of the low-lying Maldives is threatened due to rising sea levels, so it's unsurprising that the island nation is planning to complete the world's first true floating city. Construction or more accurately assembly of the project began earlier in 2023 and could wrap up as soon as 2027, a year before Oceanix Busan is scheduled for completion.
A billion-dollar joint venture between the Maldives government and developer Dutch Docklands, with fellow Netherlands firm Waterstudio taking care of design, Maldives Floating City will comprise 5,000 floating units tethered to the floor of a 500-acre lagoon. The brightly coloured units will serve as homes, restaurants, hotels, retail stores, schools and other amenities catering to a population of up to 20,000 people.
The modular units are being built off-site, with the first prototype floating home towed into place in February 2023. Great pains are being taken to protect the fragile marine ecosystem, with plans to stimulate coral growth under the city. Petrol cars will be forbidden. Instead, residents and visitors will navigate the city's waterways in electric boats and get around its natural sand roads by foot, on bike or in electric buggies and scooters.
Resistant to rising sea levels, cyclones and other natural threats, the city is robustly future-proof. Prices are set to range from $150,000 (£116k) for a studio apartment to $250,000 (£193k) for a family home. The city's real estate will be open to foreign nationals – the Maldives government is even offering international buyers residence permits with the purchase of property.
Billed as the world's most walkable city, XZero City is a flower-shaped carbon-neutral community planned for a 3,953-acre site in southern Kuwait that will be home to 100,000 residents. Dubai-based developer URB is behind the trailblazing megaproject, which it promises will set a new benchmark for the next generation of sustainable cities.
Imbued with smart tech to improve liveability and efficiency, the pedestrian-friendly city will be a petrol-free zone, with bikes, electric buggies, an electric shuttle and autonomous electric vehicles the only modes of transport. Everything about the community has been designed to promote health, well-being and biodiversity. At its heart will be a wadi oasis – a channel that helps with stormwater management – surrounded by various amenity-packed hubs.
They include a green-tech hub, a medical hub with holistic healthcare facilities, an education hub with a nursery, school and learning institute, as well as a commercial hub featuring an indoor shopping centre, office space, educational attractions, a sports complex and a five-star eco-resort with eco-lodges. Other notable draws include an equestrian centre and a six-mile horseriding track. A hive of activity, XZero City is expected to create a total of 30,000 jobs.
More than 65% of the city will be green space and community gardens. Vertical farms and biodomes will abound, enabling the metropolis to offer self-sufficient food production. All energy will come from renewable sources, with a solar farm taking advantage of Kuwait's sunshine, and water will be 100% recycled and used in the most efficient ways possible, plus the city will be zero-waste to boot. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2024, with the project likely to be completed in 2034. As you might imagine, XZero City won't come cheap. According to URB, the community is projected to cost $15 billion (£11.6bn).
A green energy powerhouse in the desert just to the east of Cairo, Nexgen Sustainable City is another groundbreaking future city from URB. Sharing many design elements with XZero City, the community will produce more energy and food than it consumes the developer has assured, which would make Nexgen the world's first climate-positive city.
Around a third smaller than XZero City with a footprint of 1,433 acres and a projected population of 35,000, Nexgen Sustainable City will nonetheless pack a serious eco punch. There's significant space given over to solar power generation, as well as high-tech farms that promote innovative agriculture practices.
Like XZero City, the megaproject will have a wadi oasis at its heart and feature several hubs. It too will include a green-tech hub, a medical and wellness hub, an education hub, a five-star eco-resort and so on, but obviously on a smaller scale to fit its acreage. Water management will be just as scrupulous, while the city will also be zero-waste.
Around 10,000 jobs are expected to be created, with the lion's share of roles related to green tech. URB hasn't revealed the estimated cost of the megaproject but it could potentially be around a third of XZero City's budget, so around $5 billion (£3.9bn). Moreover, URB has yet to announce when construction work will begin, let alone Nexgen Sustainable City's projected completion date. Watch this space.
Toyota has teamed up with BIG to create a remarkable living laboratory on the site of its old factory in Susono at the base of Mount Fuji. Spanning 175 acres, Toyota Woven City will eventually have a population of 2,000, including employers of the firm, who will test exciting new forms of mobility, advanced logistics solutions, AI, robots, smart homes and other novel technologies across 12 categories in a real-world environment.
As well as offering a testing ground for futuristic tech, the prototype incubator city will run entirely on renewable energy and feature carbon-neutral wooden buildings, with sustainability a major priority. But the city's key focus will be on mobility. Toyota is transitioning from a legacy automaker to an innovative mobility company and the Woven City will provide its scientists and engineers with the optimum environment to experiment to their hearts' content.
Weaving together a new urban fabric, hence the name, the city will have three types of street interlaced at ground level. Wider thoroughfares for autonomous vehicles will connect seamlessly with smaller roads for personal mobility vehicles and pedestrians. An underground tunnel will also be built to transport goods, which will be delivered by robots.
Everything from residents to the buildings and vehicles will be connected through real-time data and embedded sensors, which does raise privacy concerns, but Toyota has vowed to handle the residents' personal data with “integrity and trust”. In any case, they'll benefit no end from constant AI health monitoring and other services, while sensor-based technology will "take care of basic needs and enhance daily life”. The first phase of the project, which will see an initial 360 residents move in, kicked off in 2021 and is due for completion in the summer of 2024. In terms of price, the smart city is expected to set Toyota back upwards of a billion dollars, though costs are reportedly mounting and proving to be a huge drain on the firm's finances. Only time will tell if this AI city will come to fruition.
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