How we can invent—but not predict—the future of cities. We cannot predict future cities, but we can invent them. Cities are largely unpredictable because they are complex systems that are more like organisms than machines. Neither the laws of economics nor the laws of mechanics apply; cities are the product of countless individual and collective decisions that do not conform to any grand plan. They are the product of our inventions; they evolve. In Inventing Future Cities, Michael Batty explores what we need to understand about cities in order to invent their future. Batty outlines certain themes—principles—that apply to all cities. He investigates not the invention of artifacts but inventive processes. Today form is becoming ever more divorced from function; information networks now shape the traditional functions of cities as places of exchange and innovation. By the end of this century, most of the world's population will live in cities, large or small, sometimes contiguous, and always connected; in an urbanized world, it will be increasingly difficult to define a city by its physical boundaries. Batty discusses the coming great transition from a world with few cities to a world of all cities; argues that future cities will be defined as clusters in a hierarchy; describes the future “high-frequency,” real-time streaming city; considers urban sprawl and urban renewal; and maps the waves of technological change, which grow ever more intense and lead to continuous innovation—an unending process of creative destruction out of which future cities will emerge.

This heavily illustrated book shows what "homes and living might be in the 21st century."

What might our cities look like in ten, twenty or fifty years? How may future cities face global challenges? Imagining the city of the future has long been an inspiration for many architects, artists and designers. This book examines how cities of the future have been visualised, what these projects sought to communicate and what the implications may be for us now. It provides a visual history of the future and explores the relationships between different visualisation techniques and ideologies for cities. Thinking about what futures are, who they are for, why they are desirable, and how and when they are to be brought into being is central to this book. Through visualisation we are able to experiment in ways that would be impractical and potentially hazardous in the real world, and this book, therefore, aims to contribute toward a better understanding of the power and agency of visualisations for future cities. In this lavishly illustrated text, the authors apply several critical lenses to consider the subject in different ways: technological futures, social futures, and global futures, providing a comprehensive survey and analysis of visions for future cities, and engaging creatively with how we perceive tomorrow's world and future studies more widely.

Though reaching ever further toward the skies, today’s cities are overshadowed by multiple threats: climate change, overpopulation, social division, and urban warfare all endanger our metropolitan way of life. The fundamental tool we use to make sense of these uncertain city futures is the imagination. Architects, artists, filmmakers, and fiction writers have long been inspired to imagine cities of the future, but their speculative visions tend to be seen very differently from scientific predictions: flights of fancy on the one hand versus practical reasoning on the other. In a digital age when the real and the fantastic coexist as near equals, it is especially important to know how these two forces are entangled, and how together they may help us best conceive of cities yet to come. Exploring a breathtaking range of imagined cities—submerged, floating, flying, vertical, underground, ruined, and salvaged—Future Cities teases out the links between speculation and reality, arguing that there is no clear separation between the two. In the Netherlands, prototype floating cities are already being built; Dubai’s recent skyscrapers resemble those of science-fiction cities of the past; while makeshift settlements built by the urban poor in the developing world are already like the dystopian cities of cyberpunk. Bringing together architecture, fiction, film, and visual art, Paul Dobraszczyk reconnects the imaginary city with the real, proposing a future for humanity that is firmly grounded in the present and in the diverse creative practices already at our fingertips.

This book contains a selection of the best papers presented at the Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management (CUPUM) conference, held in June 2023 at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Major themes of this book are smart cities, urban big data, and shared mobility. This book also contains chapters with cutting-edge research on urban modeling, walkability and bikeability analysis, and planning support systems (PSS).

This publication delivers an interdisciplinary approach from professionals and scholars working in government, the United Nations, academia, scientific research, and private sector. The purpose of this publication is (1) to raise awareness on new technological innovations and how these changes affect urban infrastructure and the quality of living of urban dwellers; (2) to enhance collective knowledge on different user cases of new technologies in cities and the potential benefits and risks; and (3) to call for collaboration and collective actions from all cities to smartly use and govern new tech solutions for a safer, more inclusive, and more prosperous urban environment. The launch of this publication coincided with the 10th World Urban Forum (WUF10), Abu Dhabi, 2020. Principal authors: Michael Keith, Jian Gao, Tao Zhou, Quanhui Liu, Hui Zeng, Mingxiao Zhao, Baolin Cao, Gerhard Schmitt, Jaideep Gupte, Saiful Ridwan, Harrison Simotwo, Pietro Visetti, Keli Zhu, Hongshan Zhang, Shudong Cui, Yifan Li, He Jia, George Economides, Zhiyong Fu, Peter Scupelli, Jiajun Xu, Xinyue Wu, Haishan Wu, Lei Yin, Shantian Cheng, Deyi Wu, and Bingnan Yin

Smart Cities and the UN's SDGs explores how smart cities initiatives intersect with the global goal of making urbanization inclusive, resilient, and sustainable. Topics explored include digital governance, e-democracy, health care access, public-private partnerships, well-being, and more. Examining smart cities concepts, tools, strategies, and obstacles and their applicability to sustainability, the book exposes key structural problems that cities face and how the imperative of sustainability can bypass them. It shows how smart city technological innovation can boost citizens' well-being, serving as a key reference for those seeking to make sense of the issues and challenges of smart cities and SDGs. Includes numerous case studies from around the world Features interdisciplinary insights from academic and practitioner experts Offers an extensive literature review