Signals of the Future: from Banning AirBnB to Holographic Avatars
Every week, on a Friday, I blog on Linkedin about a signal of the future relating to urban living and the built environment. June’s future insights range from Barcelona banning short-term lets to using AI to improve the public realm, from heating homes using urban wastewater to improving communication via avatars.
Barcelona Ban
Barcelona will ban short-term rentals to tourists from 2028. This will, they say, release more than 10,000 flats which are currently licensed for short-term rental for longer-term rent, sale, or other uses by local people.
Barcelona welcomed 10 million visitors last year (of which I was one), bringing lots of economic benefits. But this popularity is not welcomed by everyone, and protests have been growing around the social, cultural, and environmental impacts of mass tourism. The pain is felt sharply in housing, particularly for young people. Rents have increased by 70% over the past decade, and the cost of buying a house by nearly 40%. Local residents have been priced out in some places.
In popular tourist cities across the world, restraints are being put in place on short-term-lets: not being allowed to rent for under 30 days, the owner having to reside in the property, not owning multiple AirBnBs. Florence only allows 90 days rental in a year and has banned new AirBnB listings. Paris allows 120 days renting and only for a primary residence. While in London, AirBnB hosts are only allowed to rent out their property for fewer than 90 nights per year without applying for a change of use.
Barcelona has taken even more drastic action with this outright ban. Of course, tourism revenue needs to be balanced with local housing needs, but affordability of accommodation — especially for the young — desperately needs to be improved. This announcement may presage tougher measures across the world, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out for the economy and the housing market in these cities.
AI versus Blight
Earlier this month, the City of Stockton in California voted to use AI to tackle city blight and code violations (things like graffiti, dilapidated buildings, littered streets, and neglected public spaces). Cameras will be mounted on police vehicles and, as officers go about regular patrols, they will capture data for analysis.
The company behind the technology, City Detect, describe how their technology helps to speed up the process of identifying and addressing housing and public realm issues, assessing conditions, targeting resources, enabling efficient enforcement, and measuring impact. They also say that the system helps apply fair standards across neighbourhoods. In a pilot in Stockton this January, the City Detect AI found 4,000 violations on 2,500 different properties.
The city council are spending the money — around £190,00 a year — because of a lack of staff (half of the enforcement officer posts are vacant) and because it will enable them to target resources efficiently.
In the future, many more public authorities — strapped for cash and struggling to fill vacancies — will use AI solutions like this to drive efficiencies. Existing jobs will be replaced. And while this in not quite Robocop, it suggests a direction of travel in law enforcement.
AI monitoring of the condition of homes and public realm feels a bit big-brotherish, but resources to improve — often blighted — urban environments are scarce, and it makes sense to use them effectively.
Hot Sh*t
We were discussing future options for heating our university in a low-carbon way, when I remembered the university of Bolton is to be a beneficiary of an innovative scheme to heat the town.
The new project, with government funding, will help keep homes and businesses warm with waste heat from the sewers. The heated water from showers, dishwashers, and washing machines — along with ambient water from cisterns — goes down the drain, literally.
Heat will be transferred from sewage and the hot water from bathrooms and kitchens to fuel a new district heating network.
Urban waste-water is around 20°C, and, in the UK, we dump billions of litres into the sewers every day. This could, theoretically, provide heating and hot water to over a million homes. And recovering this heat upstream, near the sources, helps provide the hot water where it is needed.
We are gradually decarbonising the electricity grid in the UK, but heating our homes and buildings remains a major challenge. Exchanging and pumping heat (or cooling) will be a major part of the future. This can come from the ground, the air, or water but we also let too much of the heat we have already generated float or flow away. Vattenfall estimates that in London, if all the heat that is wasted could be captured, the city could heat itself.
So, what will the urban heat sources of the future be? Server farms, underground trains, body heat, or that extra spicy curry you had last night?
Shrinking Distance
I watched a movie last night at the Watershed Cinema in Bristol, where the film music composer played the score live from San Francisco, as a hologram adjacent to the screen. He then had a chat to the audience afterwards.
As I watched ‘Dust and Metal’ (beautiful film, beautiful score), I pondered this ability to be present in some kind of semi-embodied way on the other side of the world. The hologram last night was cheap and cheerful, but as those who have been to see ABBA Voyage can attest, the technology is getting better and better.
Loughborough University and Imperial College have been experimenting with holographic lectures given by experts from across the globe. And not, surprisingly, their students much prefer this than the 2-D Zoom experience.
When it scales, this avatar-future will reduce the need to travel, saving time, money, and carbon. (Think of all those flights avoided). This might mean a decline in revenue for airlines, hotels, and other travel-related businesses. The ability to convey gesture, feeling, and meaning in a three-dimensional way should make communication and understanding, in a whole variety of fields, so much richer.
