Future Smart Cities Planned By 2050

With the world population ballooning at a rapid pace, traditional and aging city designs are beginning to struggle to support everyone that relies on them. And this means planners are going back to the drawing board to develop urban spaces of the future by incorporating the latest technologies and reducing the overall environmental impact. Development is already underway on a number of them, so in this video we'll be taking a look at seven incredible futuristic cities that are planned by 2050. Before we dive in, if you haven't already, subscribe to Most Extreme and ring the bell to get notified of our latest videos. Net City, China Tencent is China's answer to Google, having dominated the country's online space for years. Just like its American counterpart, it has generated a huge fortune that is now being reinvested into developing technologies and ideas for the future. One of which is Net City, a space that will begin as a futuristic city campus for the company's employees. Located on 320 acres of empty space in Shenzhen, China, work is already underway to build Net City, and the plan is for the first people to be able to move in by 2027. The size of midtown Manhattan, the company will, of course, benefit from having its employees so close to where they work. But the idea is far wider than just that, with the hope that it'll provide a blueprint for future urban designs around the world. At the center of the development will be the new corporate offices for the company, but surrounding these will be everything residents need for a fulfilled lifestyle. There will be homes, schools, recreational areas, and stores, all of which will be arranged in a way that makes them easily accessible by foot or public transport, with no need at all for personal transportation like cars. The significantly reduced pollution will maintain a much higher air quality than any other urban environment, and this will be taken a step further by the inclusion of grass-covered rooftops on every building, and systems that will collect water for use by residents, while at the same time managing the runoff and preventing flooding. Green energy will make up the vast majority of the city's power requirements too, with the intent being that the entire place will be carbon neutral. If this project proves to be successful, we could well see large companies following in their footsteps, and building cities of their own, which would completely change the way we see our work and home-life balance. With cities around the world looking for new technologies to help reduce pollution and increase efficiency and living conditions, companies are developing new ways to test their designs in a real-world setting. Toyota is currently building Woven City, which is being envisaged as a prototype city that will be used to prove the viability of new ideas before they are deployed elsewhere. Covering an area of 175 acres on the former site of a car manufacturing facility, and at the base of Mount Fuji, the city will be able to house up to 2,000 people, most of whom will be Toyota employees. Everything will be powered by hydrogen fuel technology, and it'll be there that the company tests new autonomous vehicles, smart home technologies, robotics, and other creations, making it the most futuristic city in the world. One of the cleverest parts of the city is that it will use three different types of street or pathway that are woven together. The first type of street will be solely for fast vehicles, the second will be for slower ones like mobility scooters, bicycles, scooters, and pedestrians, while the third type will be like promenades which can only be used by pedestrians. Due to be ready within the next few years, Woven City will show how a changed view towards urban planning, in combination with new advances with technology, will completely change the way we look at cities, and what life in them should be like. The city of Lagos in Nigeria is one of the fastest expanding urban areas in the world, and planners have been looking for ways to redesign regions fit for the future, while at the same time helping to preserve what's already there. Eco-Atlantic City is one of the most ambitious developments taking place anywhere on earth, and will create an incredible space to supercharge the local economy for decades to come. Covering an area of almost four square miles, the entire city is actually being built on a newly created peninsula attached to the Victoria Island District of Lagos, which has required millions of cubic yards worth of materials, and tens of thousands of tons worth of rocks to be reclaimed from the Atlantic to form it. Surrounded by a five-mile wall designed to protect the land from being eroded by the ocean, its presence is also expected to slow down erosion further along the coast, which will protect other parts of Lagos too. Split into 10 separate districts, once it's complete, Eco-Atlantic City is expected to be home to a quarter of a million residents, most of whom will commute into Lagos each day for work. All structures will be built with environmental standards in mind, with the plan being that the power usage will be provided by green sources on the peninsula itself, and there are hopes that it will also become a tourist destination in its own right. Acon City, Senegal. It takes a visionary to get an ambitious project off the ground, and in the case of Acon City in Senegal, the man behind the plan is none other than Acon, the internationally renowned recording artist and entrepreneur. According to the man himself, the idea for the city was inspired by the Black Panther movie, and this is his attempt to create a real-life Wakanda. Planned to cover an area of 2,000 acres around 62 miles from Dakar, it'll be a mixed-use development comprised of huge skyscrapers, shopping malls, tourist resorts, entertainment venues, a technology hub, and a large music recording complex. With an estimated price tag of six billion dollars, all energy that's used will be derived from green sources, and the hope is that it'll massively stimulate the local economy. The buildings will all have an otherworldly aesthetic, with sketches showing they'll look like they've come straight out of a movie. But the most futuristic thing of all will be the economy. Rather than using cash or any traditional fiat currencies, everything in Acon City will revolve around the use of its own cryptocurrency, called the Akoin. Mazdar, United Arab Emirates. With the world trying to move on to alternatives to fossil fuels, countries like the United Arab Emirates are using their vast wealth that has been derived from oil to invest in strategies to keep their economies just as vibrant in the future, and one of the ways they're doing this is the development of new futuristic cities like Mazdar. Construction is already underway on a 2.3 square mile site around 11 miles to the southeast of Abu Dhabi, and despite a number of delays, it's hoped that it'll be complete by 2030. At an approximate cost of 22 billion dollars, the idea is that it'll be fully powered by renewable energy, will employ novel water collection and recycling techniques, and will become a hub for companies working in green industries. It's already home to the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency, and has also attracted scientific and technology institutes to set up there too. Eventually, it's expected to be home to up to 50,000 people, with a further 60,000 commuting to the city each day to support the 1,500 businesses that will be based there, all of whom will use the public mass transit system instead of personal vehicles. Starbase, Texas. Cities of the past were built around sources of natural resources, such as rivers or important structures like churches, and it's likely that the cities of the future will follow this principle too, although around more modern structures. Starbase in Texas will become one of the best connected places in our solar system, because at the center will be the main launch facility being operated by SpaceX. The rocket launch base has already been constructed in Boca Chica village at the southern tip of Texas, and Elon Musk hopes that the presence of his company will encourage the place to regenerate and expand around it, creating the world's premier technology center with access to outer space, as well as fast connections with elsewhere around the world. To do this will require a huge investment in infrastructure, with Musk already committed to developing a public water provision system and the development of a natural gas plant, as well as overcoming local resistance to his grand plans. While Starbase may well be a pipe dream right now, the billionaire visionary shouldn't ever be counted out, and if anyone's able to create a spaceport city then it surely will be him. Neom, Saudi Arabia. We normally think of cities as being huge developments, based around a central point, but what if we completely rethought this idea and built them in a linear fashion instead? That's exactly what's happening with Neom, a 500 billion dollar cross-border project that's underway in eastern Saudi Arabia. At its core will be a 105 mile long linear city that will become home to a million residents, around which the rest of the city will be built. No cars will be used there, with a green energy mass transit system being the main means of moving people around, and the plan is that every daily service needed by residents will be accessible within five minutes walking distance from where they live. It'll be powered by green hydrogen energy plants, be designed to conserve energy as much as possible, and will focus on being a hub for international companies to drive further investment in the region. To make this possible, huge advances in technology are needed, such as faster trains that will run underground, and an artificial intelligence system that will be used to monitor what's happening in the city, to react to developing issues, and improve overall efficiency. Could you imagine yourself living in any of these cities within the next few decades? And do you have any predictions of your own about what the future of urban spaces will be like? Make sure to let us know in the comments section below. Don't forget to subscribe to Most Extreme, and ring the bell to get notified of our latest releases. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.