Utopian Living or Dystopian Nightmare

Utopian living – that is the first thing that comes to mind when talking about the future of cities. Our society has long been obsessed with what the future of cities would look like. While the aesthetics of this vision would vary from person to person, anybody who is asked this question would have envisioned a utopian life. On the other hand, some people would imagine the opposite. Some would imagine a Mad Max-esque landscape where everything is scarce and the towering skyscrapers and massive megacities that once stood are now reduced to ruins. While both scenarios remain equally valid until we get to that point, that begs the question, what is the most realistic scenario regarding the future of cities? 

 

When we think on the utopian side of the future of cities, we imagine hyper-advanced technologies with a far-flung sci-fi-esque aesthetic. On the dystopian side, we imagine barren wastelands that are devastated by whatever negative machinations mankind has unleashed on the planet. Thought experiments aside, neither of these scenarios are the most realistic ones regarding the future of cities. Nobody truly wants to live on the dystopian side of things, so it’s safe to assume that, realistically, people tend to gravitate towards the utopian side of things. After all, almost every vision of the future of cities (and of the world, for that matter) are always idyllic and present a utopian society.  While pushes to create a realistic answer to this question are currently underway, there is still much to be desired from these efforts if we are to achieve our goal of utopian living. 

 

Take NEOM, for example. NEOM, and to an extent all the city sectors within NEOM (The Line, Oxagon, etc.), is a perfect example of a utopian vision for the future of cities. It contains all of the fancy bells and whistles that hyper-technology enthusiasts desperately want, but it begs the question, is this truly the end all be all of the future of cities? Is this truly what it means to live in the utopian future that we so desperately want? The answer is a mixed bag. There are people for it and people against it. If you research online, you’ll find that people have varying and deeply contrasting views on the subject matter. While some find it a perfect utopian city, others find it the pinnacle of tokenism designed to feed the ego of its designers and developers. While both sides of the opinion spectrum have valid points, the reality of the situation is that it’s truly anybody’s guess as to the exact future and validity of the project. Conceptually, it sounds like a utopian dream, but on the other hand, there are realities at play that cause a bit of dystopian concern. I, for one, think that marketing NEOM as a model city for the future is exactly that - it’s marketing, meaning there is no true guarantee that it will be a model city for the future. Realistically speaking, spending that amount of money ($500 bn) to construct something that is marketed to be sustainable and a model city is nothing short of a big gamble. In the realm of architecture and urban design, there are a lot more practical designs for cities and megacities alike that could nudge sustainability forward, and in my opinion, this project is not one of them. 

 

Take Singapore, for example. Singapore is a token of modern sustainability and advancement. Speaking out of the realm of architecture and urban design, there are a lot of problems that Singaporeans are faced with, living in a city as prized as theirs. There are rooted social and economic problems within a city like Singapore, that unlike NEOM (and The Line), has evolved through time. NEOM, in my opinion, is like an expensive fish tank and all the cities in the world that have evolved through time that aim for varying levels and approaches to sustainability are natural ecosystems. While the fish tank that is NEOM is appealing to the general masses (and is analogically nice to have in your house) it doesn’t accurately portray what the future city should look like, and that is the irrevocable case because every other sustainable city in the world has had problems with sustainability even though they have created contextualized solutions to answer the question. Take Copenhagen, for example. Copenhagen is often regarded as the most sustainable city in the world and is a model of utopian living in the modern era (that isn’t to say that it is the end all be all of utopian living). Now, look at the aesthetic difference between NEOM (and The Line) and Copenhagen. Consider the technological advancements between NEOM and Copenhagen. You’ll find that Copenhagen is a proven and prime example of sustainability while NEOM still holds a huge questions mark over its head. All the fancy bells and whistles that exist in NEOM don’t necessarily exist in Copenhagen. The hyper-advanced mass transit system in The Line (that promises a commute of 20 mins from end to end) also exists in Copenhagen, although to a lesser degree, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. My main point is that hyper-technology will be the future of sustainability when our technological advancements can match our wild-eyed concepts and aspirations, but that is not the solution right now. 

 

Right now, we need a global initiative to shift our focus to sustainability. While the United Nations has created an initiative such as this, token efforts like NEOM are not the answer to the question, “what is the future of cities?”. NEOM markets itself as the new model but how can we adhere to it as a model if it will definitively disrupt the ecosystems in place. It will not bend the current ecosystem in place, it will adhere to the vision of the designers and developers - which ultimately beg the question, how is it sustainable if it will disrupt the ecosystem? How will it be a model for the future of cities if we will just use the ecosystem for its land and abandon the natural order? 

 

If future megacities like NEOM are designed closer to nature, truly closer to nature, as opposed to the tokenist philosophy, then yes, the future of cities can be more hyper-advanced. If they advanced biomimetics to a degree of utopian hyper-advanced technologies, then that might be the end-all-be-all answer to the question. 

 

The truth is that the future of cities is unknown. While we can create thought experiments and even waste resources creating experimental cities, the solutions to these problems have been founded in the past. Patrick Geddes’ Live, Work, Play model has been one of the conceptual sources of many theories on conceptual urban plans and even on building concepts. The realistic future of cities isn’t yet rooted in a sci-fi-esque landscape, it is rooted in cities like Copenhagen, and to an extent, Singapore, not cities like NEOM. While the appeal of hyper-advanced cities is universal, it isn’t the most practical or cost-efficient solution. Places of work adjacent to living spaces still should be a focus to help create a more practical solution as opposed to flashy ones. Bicycles over cars and walking over mass transport should be the way to go. It is ultimately fun to imagine Earth with a sci-fi-esque aesthetic but the novelty of the aesthetic will wear off almost immediately ones the reality of the situation settles in.

 

In Filipino, there is a word called “bayanihan” meaning community building or to be a community. While the original intent of this word has been lost in our culture, I do believe that ‘Bayanihan’ or community building is a closer solution to the future of cities than hyper-advanced tech. In architecture, we always focus on contextualizing our work to the context and confines of the project, and I believe that we should approach cities the same way. Instead of creating flashy solutions, we have to dig deep within the context of cities and promote community building (Bayanihan) to create a more well-rounded reality. Hyper-advanced tech only appeases the 1% and our profession must not be so arrogant to dismiss the fact that the future of cities is not just an architecture or urban planning problem – it’s a societal problem. So instead of focusing on what we don’t have let’s focus on what we do have and what we can do. We have to focus on promoting public space for societal building and we have to focus on contextualized solutions for everybody, not just the 1%. If we focus more on practicality over flash, and people over aesthetics, then we can truly begin to work towards that utopian ideal and not the dystopian nightmare.