Futures Insights: from Facial Recognition to Floating Cities

Every week I share a futures insight based on something I’ve seen in the past few days. Every month I post the set of Friday Future Insights on Medium for reference. Here’s the insights from March.

WILL WE LIVE IN FLOATING CITIES?

Are you buoyed-up by the idea of living in a floating city? Given the global housing crisis, the multiple pressures on land-use, and the expected impacts of climate change, this may become a more attractive proposition. Reclaiming land from the sea for urban development has, of course, been happening for centuries. I’ve stood on reclaimed land in cities as diverse as Amsterdam, Hong Kong, New York, Singapore and Rio. I remember when I visited Macau, realising that the sweep of the Portuguese bay-front was now decidedly inland.

Floating neighbourhoods take this logic one stage further. Oceanix, plans to open a prototype in Busan, South Korea, with islands anchored to the seabed. The experiment, backed by UN Habitat would be made up of a setof interconnected platforms and might eventually be able to accommodate 10,000 people.

Just how expensive developing these floating communities will be remains to be seen. And I would be a little worried about natural disasters such as tsunamis and severe storms. However, floating neighbourhoods are an intriguing response to the impacts of climate change.

Throughout history, we’ve built our towns and cities on low-lying land next to water. Rising sea levels and severe weather events mean cities and their residents will be particularly vulnerable to flooding. Floating neighbourhoods should be more flood-resilient; they may provide homes for people displaced by climate impacts; and because they can be built adjacent to existing cities, they can use existing urban infrastructure and services which makes sense economically and environmentally.

The future may just see my kids zipping on an electric jet-ski from their floating home offshore to meet-up with friends on the mainland.

I’LL HAVE SOME LECCY WITH THAT

I remember 30 years ago when petrol stations became supermarkets and supermarkets started selling petrol. It seemed kind of topsy-turvy.

According to this article in Fast Company, Starbucks now wants to become the gas station of the future for EVs. With 15,000 sites across the United State, the tax-dodging chain wants to be the place where customers charge their electric vehicles.

This might work better in the US, where people routinely drive miles to get a cup of coffee. Thankfully, we’re more likely to walk to a café here, but the need to charge electric vehicles remains. A couple of years ago, Innovate UK funded a demonstrator for Gridserve’s Electric Forecourt. While fast-charging their vehicles, drivers can shop, relax or hold business meetings. These Forecourts are now being rolled out nationwide, the latest evolution of the filling-station.

So what other changes of role will we see in the future? We’ve already seen coffee-shops switch to workspaces, retail parks to delivery hubs, and empty offices to apartments. What do you think will be next change of use?

FRIDAY FUTURES INSIGHT — BYE BYE CAR

This week the Brussels city authorities announced that they would give residents up to 900 Euros (£750) to ditch their cars. They can spend the cash on cycling equipment, public transport, or car or bike-sharing services.

The move will help tackle climate change. It should also improve the health of citizens by improving air quality and increasing active travel.

Will we see more city administrations deciding it makes good economic and environmental sense to pay citizens to relinquish their cars? They could split the cost with health service providers. A recent major research review by the University of Toronto concluded that pedestrian-friendly cities have lower rates of diabetes and obesity. (According to Diabetes UK, the NHS spends £10bn a year treating diabetes. The costs of obesity are growing.)

Getting people to drop the car would not only be a good health investment. There’s lots of ways that land could be used more productively. In US cities, as much as 50% of the land in US is dedicated to the automobile; think of all the affordable housing that could be built on the parking lots. In UK cities, will we see property developers paying residents to give up their cars, so they can free up more valuable space on which to build?

EVERY FACE TELLS A STORY

Wandering round a trade show this week, I chanced upon a facial recognition stand. The software analysed basic characteristics and tracked my emotions as I gurned my way through a medley of expressions.

Facial recognition does raise thorny issues around privacy and consent. It will also impact how we use the built environment.

It will change access, getting in and out of buildings. No more plastic passes and fewer barriers. It could help make buildings more accessible, for example for elderly people, or those with disabilities, who have difficulties with keys or key pads.

Ticketing for trains, movement through stations, or access to big music or sporting events could change, particularly when there are concerns about speedy ingress, physical transactions, or security and safety.

It could allow more responsive infrastructure and services, with providers getting intelligence — and instant feedback — about how people actually use services and how happy or frustrated they are.

When I was in China, just before lockdown, facial recognition was everywhere. With greater privacy concerns, adoption has been patchy elsewhere. I suspect it is coming and the questions — as with all new technologies — are which boundaries society should set and how do we harness it for the public good?