Press/Media: Research
Article published by The Conversation on why we need to significantly rethink the way we imagine future cities, and move our focus from an overarching technological vision to other priorities, such as environmental sustainability and the need to tackle social inequalities.
| Title | Future cities: new challenges mean we need to reimagine the look of urban landscapes |
|---|---|
| Degree of recognition | International |
| Media name/outlet | The Conversation |
| Primary Media type | Web |
| Country/Territory | United Kingdom |
| Date | 16/12/20 |
| Description | Imagining future cities has long been a favourite activity for architects, artists and designers. Technology is often central in these schemes – it appears as a dynamic and seemingly unstoppable force, providing a neat solution to society’s problems. But our recent research has suggested that we need to significantly rethink the way we imagine future cities, and move our focus from an overarching technological vision to other priorities, such as environmental sustainability and the need to tackle social inequalities. We need to answer questions about what can be sustained and what cannot, where cities can be located and where they cannot, and how we might travel in and between them. Imagining these cities helps us understand how we want our future lives to look. But we must open up the opportunity to conceptualise these futures to a wider and more diverse set of people. By doing so, we will be better positioned to rethink the shifts required to safeguard our health, that of other species and the planet we share. This is the significance of visions for tomorrow’s world – and why we need to create new ones today. |
| Persons | Nick Dunn, Paul Cureton |