What is a City of the Future?

This article by Bill Becker, published in Worldchanging, explores some innovative initiatives that help shaping the forms and outlines of what could be our future sustainable communities.

According to Bill becker, "there’s no lack of vision or help for cities that want to build for the future. With the stimulus package, there’s also some money. And with the imperative that we reduce our reliance on foreign oil and our greenhouse gas emissions, there is no shortage of critical milestones. The cities that help America create its new energy economy will be tomorrow’s prosperity places, where people will want to live and businesses will want to build."

Read more on Worldchanging

A "Future tense" program, presented by Antony Funnell on the Australian ABC Radio national

The 21st century will see ever increasing levels of urbanisation. In this program we look at the way we engage with the city. What do we need to take into account to ensure greater harmony between our future needs as individuals and the needs of the metropolis.

"I'd like to see a kind of a mega region, a concentrated, a creative and a sustainable economy all go hand in hand, but we're going to have to make our mega regions much more sustainable in the future if we want to grow and prosper, and have a great quality of life."
Professor Richard Florida
Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and Professor of Business and Creativity, University of Toronto

To listen, download or see transcript

The IT sector seems interested by the issue of instrumented and interconnected core systems, which are providing new levels of intelligence that allow for synergistic interaction and operation.

Instrumentation and interconnection are at the heart of the IBM 2008 report on 'a vision of smarter cities'. This approach toward prosperous and sustainable future for urban regions is definitely in line with the IMAGINE vision.

The report can be downloaded at IBM - A vision of smarter cities: How cities can lead the way into a prosperous and sustainable future - PCMH

The French public radio, France Inter, broadcast a program focusing on impertinence and irreverence approaches within economy and sustainable development at the territorial level. Many issues are related to urban settings, energy networks and local development.

france inter > Emissions > rue des entrepreneurs in French.

The british council has developed and manage the Future City Game. Future City Games have been played in different European Cities with diverse results.

"The Future City Game enables people to find solutions to the long-term challenges facing cities. It is played during a two-day event by city inhabitants from diverse backgrounds, representing various disciplines and led by a trained games-master. The aim of the game is to generate the best idea on how to improve the quality of life either in a specific area within a city, the city as a whole, or in response to the common challenges facing cities around the world. "

Creative cities - British Council