The news went around the world: a group of Big Tech companies acquired about 52,000 acres of farmland northeast of San Francisco, US, to design and build a new urban utopia. The future city will have tens of thousands of new homes, over ten thousand acres of new parks and open spaces with over a million new trees. Flannery Associates, the venture company under the visionary project, also plans to establish a large solar energy farm and smart public services for residents and visitors.
Although this is not the first project of this kind (remember Woven City by Toyota in Japan?), the idea of building a totally smart and environment-friendly city from scratch sounds fascinating. A very few city leaders are asked to build their communities from the ground up. In most cases, they are called to shape safer, greener, and more efficient urban spaces through incremental changes, with a step-by-step approach that mirrors actual people’s needs and available resources.
However, it’s interesting to notice that utopia projects and real-life cities have something in common: collaboration, ethical tech, common good, and environmental sensitivity are the inspiring principles of the new Urban Era, when cities are taking action for a more sustainable and inclusive future.
“Welcome to the new Urban Era” is the theme of Smart City Expo World Congress 2023, the leading international event on cities and smart urban solutions taking place in Barcelona, Spain, from November 7th to 9th.
As Paradox Engineering and MinebeaMitsumi Group, we are pleased to be once again Industry Partners of the exhibition and ready to welcome cities and utilities willing to start or accelerate their smart journeys.