Major Urban Planning Trends to Watch in 2020

According to a recent United Nations study, by the year 2050, two out of three people will be living in cities or urban areas.

The study also states that over the next 30 years, over 2.5 trillion square feet of new space will have to be built to accommodate rapid urbanization.

Additionally at this scale, everything from the way we plan, design, build, and operate our cities will need to be addressed.

In this article, we will cover the major urban planning trends to watch in 2020. Read on to learn what growing trends will shape the future of our cities.

Sustainability Urban

Another In the face of a rapidly growing population, climate change and urbanization, living buildings have become a big trend in urban planning.

Living Buildings are environmentally sound structures that produce at least as much water, electricity, and power as they consume, and oftentimes even more.

In the year 2016, more than 200 commercial buildings in the U.S. were certified as Living Buildings, meaning all the energy the buildings used was generated through on-site sources.

In another case one of the most known Living Buildings that incorporate net-zero energy systems is Seattle’s Bullitt Center.  The building has a rooftop rainwater harvesting system that can capture and treat 12 months worth of water.

Finished in 2016, Shanghai Tower is another poster child for sustainable city planning. The building is equipped with smart controls that monitor everything from energy consumption to ventilation. With other sustainability features combined, the building’s carbon footprint is reduced by 34,000 metric tons annually.

Walkability

Cars no longer define urban planning. The cities of the future are being built with pedestrians in mind.

In other words enough, some of the most economically advantaged and livable cities on the planet, including Barcelona, Vancouver and Paris, have really high walkability scores.

A city’s walkability is the degree to which it is comfortable and safe for people to walk to school, work, entertainment, dining and shopping venues.

In addition In the past, walkability was viewed as a static fact – a city is either walkable or not. The good news is, walkability can be improved with people-oriented urban planning. 

Basically In his famous Ted Talk, city planner and author of the book “Walkable City,” Jeff Speck summarises that a good walkable city of the future will offer four key things:

1. A reason to walk – grocery stores, schools, hospitals and office buildings should all be accessible in a walking distance

2. A safe walk – crosswalks, sidewalks, street lights and proximity to one another.

3. A comfortable walk – how easy it is to walk around the neighborhood, navigate through the city on public transport, designated spaces for bicycles, pedestrians, cars, etc.

4. An interesting walk – nature weaved into the city landscape is one of many ways to make a walk more pleasant for a pedestrian.

Urban Planners have already started implementing these four core principles into their work to soon transform “cars-first” sprawling megapolises into walkable oases full of pedestrians and tree-lined streets.

Digitalisation

From LCD screens that replace traditional billboards to utilizing 3d rendering services for urban planning, from Augmented Reality embedded into public spaces to digitally connected transportation – digitalization is definitely changing the way we perceive and design cities.

Over at MIT, for example, researchers are using machine-learning to confirm or disprove some long-standing theories about the cities we live in.

Generally By digitally analyzing complex crowdsourced data, urbanists can get the answers to questions like why do certain neighborhoods feel safe while others feel dangerous, why are some areas are more desirable than others, what makes cities more livable, etc.

But most importantly, this data is being used to develop more efficient and affordable cities for even more people!