6 Global Trends That Propel Cities
Our world is constantly changing, including in terms of our society, the environment, and technology. These changes can create both challenges and opportunities that directly affect urban development and unavoidably impact urban residents.
This article invites everyone to understand global trends and, by doing so, prepare for the rapid and unforeseen changes that may occur.
Trend #1: A Quality Aging Society
While advances in healthcare technology have allowed people to live longer, many cities around the world are struggling with falling birth rates, resulting in an aging demographic. The World Health Organization (WHO) has projected that the global elderly population will reach 1.4 billion by 2030. Thailand has estimated that over 28% of its population will be aged 60 and above by 2033.
An aging society presents new economic challenges, with the working-age population forced to bear the increasing burden of family care. This situation could lead to labor shortages in the future. At the same time, urban infrastructure must adapt to accommodate the daily lives of the elderly, making cities more friendly, safe, and able to provide everyone with a good quality of life.
Trend #2: Smart Living
Innovations are emerging every day and are being integrated into our lives more and more. Today, many households employ Internet of Things (IoT) technology that allows residents to control household appliances from their mobile phones or the latest AI-equipped car models, which make automated systems possible.
It’s said that in the future, robots may replace people in performing certain work. This would constitute a major societal change that impacts our way of life, not only in terms of the way we do business but transportation and public healthcare. It’s important that we keep up with these tools and technologies, learning to use them to make our lives easier and more convenient.
Trend #3: Sustainable Energy
Cities consume a lot of energy to drive economic and social activities, such as the electricity consumed by corporate buildings and the fossil fuels consumed by city transportation and logistics. These energy-intensive activities take a heavy environmental toll. One way to mitigate the environmental issues we are currently facing is to take into consideration the use of sustainable energy in urban development.
Developing an eco-friendly city requires providing people with more environmentally responsible options to conduct their everyday activities. Examples include energy-efficient buildings and green structures that incorporate innovations to help reduce electricity and water consumption. Other ideas include expanding green areas as well as developing roads that support the use of electric vehicles (EVs) and encourage people to adopt EVs.
Trend #4: Urban Sprawl
Large cities often act as a hub of prosperity within a country and attract people who are looking to live and work there. This results in a dense population that comes with its own set of problems and challenges, such as high cost of living and low public space per capita.
Studying a city’s unique context and comprehensively planning its development to accommodate future growth is a challenge for the development of large cities. This includes addressing issues such as establishing efficient public transport systems, reducing inequality, providing an affordable high quality of life, and increasing public parks and recreational spaces.
Trend #5: Resilient Cities
Amid climate change, urban infrastructure must be able to cope with unforeseen natural disasters. Coastal cities, in particular, are threatened by rising sea levels, and all cities must be able to contend with challenges such as heavy rainfall, flash flooding, and severe drought, which impact the agriculture sector.
Urban development must be adaptable enough to handle these issues, such as by enhancing the city’s rainwater drainage system or increasing urban vegetable gardens to support food security. It’s essential that cities are resilient enough to respond to future disasters and mitigate their risks.
Trend #6: New (Unforeseen) Lifestyles
Urban development requires the collaboration of a diverse group of people with new, flexible ideas and an understanding of global trends, which include existing problems that are growing worse and new, unforeseen problems that may suddenly appear.
The most alarming trends are those we cannot anticipate, such as economic crises, societal or environmental changes, or even outbreaks of infectious diseases. A new normal can emerge one day and change our way of life overnight. A well-developed city will play an important part in helping people overcome these challenges and restore the bonds of our society once again.
