Anders Bekeken

By the year 2050, we will be interconnected with our planet, our communities, and our resources. Today though, it feels like an ambitious goal to change how we live and how we design our urban environments. But, this new city is possible, and it all starts with a vision.

Think of this vision as a compass, not a map. We believe that providing a tangible and positive image of what a city could look like in the future can bring different groups together to build the right conditions and drive the actions to achieve it.

During a global pandemic, now more than ever, we are feeling the consequences of a flawed global economy characterized by the destruction and exploitation of nature, overuse of our global commons, wealth and income inequality, fragile supply chains, and governance failures. This has contributed to a fundamental breakdown in how we connect to each other, and how we connect to the natural ecosystems that we depend on. Global urbanization trends show that cities will not only house more humans, but they will also require more land, resources, and energy. Cities are powerfully positioned to break this pattern of uncoordinated, unregulated, and extractive linear economies that put us in this mess. They are high-impact ‘leverage points.’ Transforming the way we live in cities has the potential to not only improve the quality of life of the majority of the planet’s (future) urban population, but will also help bring our global economy within planetary boundaries.

At Metabolic, we have reimagined futures with sustainability leaders, governments, urban designers, titans in the construction sector, community members rooted in their neighborhoods, and experts on critical urban systems, including food, energy, and water. Building on our experiences working in 50 cities around the world, we have created this vision of what our world will look like in 30 years. Now, let’s explore our own interconnected urban future.