The “Smart City” is not so much a concrete plan as it is a nebulous ideal, one that encompasses both environmental sustainability and human happiness in the most efficient way possible. And while it’s a matter of opinion whether a given city is designed well enough to be called “smart” there’s no question the world … Continue reading
Tag Archives: urbanization
Can Suburbia Be Sustainable?
Big houses, big lots, big SUVs – you know the drill. Suburbs create pollution, make people drive everywhere, and use up way more space than they need. Can they ever be truly sustainable? Well, I don’t know, but there’s a trend that’s moving in the right direction, and its popularity is growing. Over at the … Continue reading
The Answer to World Hunger (Hint: It’s Not Food)
The best way to solve the world’s hunger problem is a hotly debated topic. In the next few paragraphs, I’ll take a look at one fairly conventional idea, and explore another proposal that’s a bit more out of the box. But in the end, I’d like to poke at some of the assumptions underlying both … Continue reading
Bicycles Are the Future of Transportation
This may come as a surprise, but the future of transportation has been around for two centuries already. Of course, back when ol’ Baron Karl first put two wheels together and rode them around 1817 Mannheim, he just thought he’d made a kind of a re-usable horse. He certainly had no idea his invention would … Continue reading
State of the Future Roundup – April
The future, being what it is, has a tendency to become the present. And so it is that although this blog is just half a year old, many things have changed since I last discussed them. Here’s a quick look at the state of the future as it stands today. Driverless Cars and the Law … Continue reading
Welcome to the Urban Planet
In the last couple of years, our planet’s human inhabitants have crossed two major thresholds, one of which indicates major problems ahead, and the other of which offers a glimmer of hope. We’ll get back to the hopeful bit in a minute, but let’s begin with the problem, which you’ve probably seen in the news … Continue reading