Critical infrastructure continues to age; no significant plans are made to secure funding to repair or replace it, leading to widespread safety concerns. A mix of unhelpful policy and neglect stifle technological progress, making cities increasingly overburdened and inefficient. Longstanding trend of urbanization slows, and unhappy residents begin to leave.
Dispersed Settlements
In this scenario, degradation in the quality of urban life, driven by ineffectual policymaking and inadequate funding, leads to emigration from traditional cities into new, relatively-isolated settlements. Advances in telecommunications infrastructure enable widespread virtual commuting rather than actual transportation networks, thereby decreasing the amount of overall travel. These new settlements are especially attractive given stagnating conditions in traditional cities.
Policy & Funding
on Dispersed Settlements
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10 years from now
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25 years from now
Local groups build out new settlements away from traditional cities. Smaller governments are more effective at providing services.
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50 years from now
Populations become more evenly distributed in these new settlements. Local governments are adept at addressing their constituents' needs.
Alternative Energy
on Dispersed Settlements
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10 years from now
Energy storage becomes commercialized. A focus on emissions and climate change continues to drive alternative energy research and innovation.
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25 years from now
Advances in energy storage enable development of communities away from traditional energy grids.
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50 years from now
Advances in alternative energy technology create energy abundance in new settlements.
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10 years from now
Progress is made in combatting climate change. Progress in autonomous vehicles and construction are limited by inefficient policy and funding mechanisms. Strong cybersecurity and investments in telecom infrastructure set the stage for technology and smart city developments.
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25 years from now
Climate change impacts turn out to be far more limited than traditional models predicted. Some smart-city apps are integrated into new, local infrastructure projects. Robust telecommunications systems are built on top of existing infrastructure and manage to limit cybersecurity risk, which allows robust virtual commuting.
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50 years from now
Settlements integrate smart-city technology ubiquitously. Actual travel mostly replaced with virtual travel as communities become mostly self-sufficient.
Implications for Civil Engineers
Instead of planning for megacities, civil engineers will need to plan and design hyper-efficient, isolated, self-contained, smaller cities.
Civil engineers will need to take a leadership position in advocating for protecting and supporting the increasingly important digital communications infrastructure.
Energy networks will look very different as these new settlements adopt solar and new solar storage technology. Instead of one-way distribution grids, grids will need to be able to adapt to surplus and droughts in different locations. Civil engineers will be involved in developing this technology and planning how to best and most efficiently lay out a small community with fully-distributed energy generation and predominantly pedestrian transportation.