National CRE News In Your Inbox.
Sign up for Connect emails to stay informed with CRE stories that are 150 words or less.
The Making of “Future-Ready” Cities
It’s not news that most global cities are working toward sustainability and resilience. There are good reasons for this, including environmental changes, social shifts and technology advancements. ThoughtLab took this concept one step further, conducting a global study of 250 cities to determine the attributes that create a “future-ready” metro.
The result was a report, “From Future Vision to Urban Reality,” which focused on cities in various locations, levels of economic development and population sizes. From this diverse data, ThoughtLab and its research partners determined the qualifications that support future-ready cities:
- Progress in safety, security and resilience; nearly three-quarters of cities studied reported making “significant progress” compared to 17% of non-future-ready cities.
- Improvements in environment and sustainability, along with citizen health, living and trust.
- Upgrades in transportation and urban infrastructure following years of inattention.
The study also named the following future-ready cities:
- North America: Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and Toronto
- Latin America: Buenos Airies, Caracas, Quito, Rosario and Salvador
- Europe: Edinburgh, Helsinki, Lyon, Madrid and Vienna
- Middle East & Africa: Ankara, Doha, Kampala, Rabat and Tehran
- Asia Pacific: Beijing, Guangzhou, Melbourne, Taipei and Tokyo
The study also explained that future-ready cities do these three things differently than others:
Create innovative operating models. Such models improve governance, boost citizen engagement and support and drive forward-looking plans. Their strategies center around healthy living, inclusiveness, and creative uses of digital technologies.
Drive continuous innovation. Future-ready cities provide comprehensive approaches focusing on sustainability, infrastructure, mobility, safety, resilience and citizen well-being. They also invest in green energy, smart infrastructure, and improvements in public transportation.
Rely on AI and other technologies. Future-ready cities lean heavily on technology to drive urban transformation. They invest in digital initiatives while leveraging advanced technologies like AI, automation, cloud infrastructure and IoT.
“Cities today face major challenges as they strive to become future-ready. The goal of this study is to equip city leadership with a data-driven blueprint to meet the shifting expectations and behaviors of their citizens, while offering benchmarking insights to help them assess their progress toward future-readiness,” said Lou Celi, CEO of ThoughtLab in a release announcing the program.
- ◦Development
- ◦Policy/Gov't
