Urbanization in the future faces some serious and difficult challenges, and those challenges and directions that urbanization take are very dependent upon the politics of the region under question. Technology, culture, language, personal preferences, innovation, trends, and whatever all take second place to politics and politics can change radically within short time spans at times. An engineer is constrained by politics (the will of the city council, the will of regional law, the requirements of building codes, etc). Engineers, developers, planners, etc are not free agents in the sense that they only limited by imagination. They are heavily limited and constrained and some even argue that having an imagination is a waste of time as you'll almost never be allowed to use it. To a great degree structures are already conceptually designed based on location (politics of the region, geography of the land, geology, etc). The only thing to imagine is the athletics of the structure (architectural qualities). The nature of design, under today’s constraints doesn’t leave for a lot of imagination anyway, especially in urban environments where those constraints are plenty. There are many factors at play here and far too numerous to cover in a simple post. However, if I were going to go out on a limb and predict the future I would probably generalize a lot and say something along the lines of; The future will suck big time. As is the general trend line for the past 50 to 100 years in most places. Your personal living space will grow smaller and smaller until you basically live in a cereal box that costs an unbelievable amount of money. You lifestyle will have to incorporate thinking about resource allocation. For example, how much water are you using? And this won’t be purely due to watching your bills. It will also encompass severe penalties and threat of prosecution and jail time. So, water, food, electricity, gas (natural gas – methane), and any fuels you need for whatever reasons (if cars still run on petroleum based fuels or some other type of fuel) will be heavily controlled. It may not be recognizable to the current generation, but to a generation or two or three already past, if you were to bring them to today’s way of living, they would tell you that you are already in a tyranny. So, each generation will learn (in school, on television, through social media, and through other forms of media) to live a more and more rationed lifestyle. This will be perpetuated and brought about as the ‘cool’ way to live, when in actuality, it is simply driving people more and more into resource tyranny and control. The two main reasons for this will be lack of resources (such as water in many parts of the world, or cost of water in many parts of the world [transportation, desalinization, filtration, treatment, and so forth]), and Agenda 21 (which basically comes down to the super elite of the world who control trillions upon trillions of dollars worth of wealth, want to reduce world population). So, in urban environments, things will become much more compact and vertical, if the region allows for it (politics, geology, seismic activity, and so forth) and they will become much more slum like in many parts of the world, including the US and other developed nations. However, don’t confuse ‘slum like’ for cheap. These will not be cheap slums. They will in fact be technologically advanced ghettos that cost tremendous amounts of money. That’s that how you manipulate people into acceptance of such a lifestyle and is contrary to their physical and mental health. The cost of upkeep of infrastructure will become, and already is, prohibitively expensive. The United States for example averages between a C and D grade for most of its infrastructure and much of it is outdated and near or beyond its design life. So, look forward to a dangerous future with very high rates of taxation. Many countries are in similar situations as well. In addition, most developed nations are very deep in debt without any reasonable means of escaping that debt. The current trend of gentrification will continue for some time and is the direct result of cost of living as many people no longer want a family (due to cost of having and raising children) and due to lack of time for family (due to needing to work so much) as they are rarely ever really off the clock (thanks to technology such as cell phones, email, texting, etc). Those who manage to obtain enough wealth will drive up prices, eventually in extra-urban areas (areas beyond the suburbs) and this is already being seen in many areas where rural choice locations are prohibitively expensive already. International competition for housing will become a massive factor in the future as foreigners compete with locals for housing and other properties. There will be many factors that influence this. Technology won’t make things better as it is not in the nature of those who run and control the world to make anyone’s life better. It is in their nature to control you and tax you as a commodity or resource. If you fail to be useful you will find yourself struggling, homeless or dead. Which brings up the next issue. The future will be hordes of homeless people, hungry people, thirsty people, struggling people filling these cities full of hipsters and autonomous morons who dedicate themselves to corporations in exchange for housing, and internet enabled vacuum cleaners and dildos. Cars will be a thing of that past and reserve only for the upper class. I don’t really care if they are gas or electric or cow $%&^! powered. It makes no difference. The issue here isn’t pollution, although that will be the reasoning used upon the people to convince them to stay away from cars. The real issue is two fold; 1) control (confined people’s movement to less than a 5 mile radius on average) and 2) infrastructure is ungodly expensive and why spend your tax money on infrastructure when it can be stolen instead? After a generation or two or three or whatever of this, people will attempt to escape to the rural locations, however, than will become prohibitively expensive and likely very difficult. You see, an engineer can design almost anything and a contractor and build it. Your real issue here is will the local government give you permission to do it? And the trend line has shown us that gaining permission to build never gets easier… it always gets harder and harder and harder and more and more and more expensive. Government simply only has to set in place a national policy to grant building permission for extremely high density construction in existing city locations whilst, at the same time, curtailing granting building permission in rural areas in the name of conservation, global warming, feeling green and whatever the hell you want to call it. Most people, in the future, will be stuck in these hell hole cities eventually. The elite know this, that is why they own vast tracks of undeveloped rural land already and keep acquiring more and more of it. Much of it is deemed as working farms, preserves, conservation areas, and so on. Even if you have funds and permission to travel it likely will be from urban hell hole to urban hell hole. You can argue the merits of conservation all day long, and there are some valid merits. But, that doesn’t stop it from being used as a means to compact people into urban hells like sardines. And this situation exists already in many parts of the world, and is eventually coming to every part of the world. So, the really smart people are not moving to cities, they simply buy up the cities and rent them to the masses of idiots who want to live there to get jobs. The smart people collect money and live in rural locations or at least keep estates in rural locations and they can be grandfathered in once moratoriums and other legislation come in. Now, about that technology that so many consider great. Really just mass distraction from the life you are really living instead of the life you should be living. Expect that trend to continue as technology serves two important purposes; 1) pacification of masses of idiots, and 2) easy big-brother monitoring of masses of idiots. Soon, big brother will know many slices of toast you eat and what degree of browning you prefer on that toast with your new internet enabled smart toaster that talks to the rest of your home network. Then there is the issue of robotic continually replacing people and this will become much more a problem in the future. Robotics coupled with software is a very bad situation for the population at large and creates redundancy at unprecedented rates. Someone in here mentioned war… and that will, unfortunately, continue to be a problem and will likely increase as it is a very good means of destroying human liability (notice I didn’t say human capital and humans are very rarely viewed as capital anymore). That’s the future. So let’s summarize; 1) Urban areas grow ever expensive (barring those points in the economic cycle of recession/depression, etc). 2) People in urban areas will be compacted both horizontally and vertically. 3) People in urban areas will be heavily legislated. 4) Urban areas will become futuristic high-technology urban slums. Techno-ghettos. 5) Technology will become pervasive into everything. 6) Technology will become (already is) the networked mass surveillance system. 7) Rural areas will become difficult to get building permission for in the name of conservation and preservation. Leading to an elite class that enjoys space and freedom outside the urban hell holes. 6) Infrastructure will continue to be neglected while your tax money is continually stolen. 9) Education (indoctrination) and media will be used as a means to train people to like or at least accept their urban hell. 10) Pharmaceuticals and psychological counseling will become a major part of urban living to counteract the natural negative psychological and physiological effects of urban living. 11) Population levels will be minimized, or at least maintained with little or no growth, through various means (economic being a major one). 12) Your job will go bye-bye to software and robots. 13) Homelessness will be a major problem all over the world.
