Maybe I'm too cynical, but I don't think the car manufacturer Toyota is likely to build a city that doesn't focus on demonstrating how cars will continue to be a significant part of our, and their, future.
The irony here being that Japan already looks like this. It has wonderful public transportation and cars are almost non-existent in Tokyo and Osaka.
You see a lot more cars in the outskirts and in smaller cities (like Kyoto) where they haven't hit critical mass, or there has been mismanagement of the transit infrastructure.
They're looking to use it to research the possibilities of integrating autonomous vehicles into cities more tightly I suspect. It makes sense that they're in no hurry to deprecate their own core business.
What I find interesting is there wasn't really any illustrations of the reported three layer road system, and the majority of the illustrations are of huge, open walkable areas. I would love to see how they're looking to address separating slow speed traffic from high speed traffic while keeping them both useful.
I don't understand why cars are bad. ICE are bad because they contribute to global warming, sure. But things that move small numbers of people to exactly where they want to go -- are those bad?
In fact, a lot of science fiction I can think of describe Disney-style people mover things that quickly and efficiently take you exactly where you want to go. I guess they aren't exactly cars, but they aren't exactly trains either.
Not if it's built by a carmaker. Perhaps the point is to show that we'll never separate ourselves from personal transportation vehicles (cars) but the future of the symbiosis will be far smarter and efficient.
Walking around doesn't scale indefinitely. No form of transportation does, but walking scales significantly less. Plus, designing with public transit in mind makes it more accessible, which becomes a serious concern if you want anyone over sixty to live in your city.
These kinds of announcements are always full of hype. Panasonic has a similar concept in Denver. Google / Sidewalk Labs in Toronto. The practicalities of executing on real estate development at scale is always underestimated or neglected. Between regulations, the labor force, and tastes of eventual residents, the end result ends up close to the mean because the stakes (amount of capital involved) are so high and many decisions are prohibitively expensive to reverse.
This reminds me of when blogger Mr Money Moustache proposed a car free city in Colorado, and then was flooded with media requests about when he was building it and how.
I want this so badly it hurts. I ache for it. I _hate_ the fact that I'm too terrified to let my kids cycle on city streets, or suburban streets, or country roads, and they're completely trapped on a small patch of land surrounded by asphalt ribbons of death on all sides.
Prior art from HST's 1971 campaign for sheriff of Aspen, CO:
"Rip up all city streets with jackhammers" and "sod the streets at once ... All public movement would be by foot and a fleet of bicycles, maintained by the city police force."
I am writing a futuristic version of Italo Calvino’esque Impossible Cities. I started with coming up with designs of fully automated farms and then figured it was also fun to imagine cities and towns and futuristic village.
I have so far written 17 chapters of Jellicles farms, villages and cities. I am doing city design now. Any inspirational material to read would be much appreciated.
During farming season, I spend most of my time writing about imaginary future automated farms as I am in the zone already. Off season now and I have more time to read and write about new cities. I have been reading old archeology finding reports, JBS haldane and Sci fi..old will be new again. Only better.
I’ve been rereading that book over the last couple of weeks and recently did some consulting in the ag space - so I’m really intrigued by what you’re writing! Hope to see it up here one day.
It's called a "danchi". Basically a company builds a little town and settles its employees in it. Usually they are pretty boring, but I guess Toyota decided to spice it up.
Historically related, reminds me of Futurama, an exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair, sponsored by General Motors, which included multi-lane highways within a futuristic looking city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama_(New_York_World%27s_F...
Disney tried this too, as well as other companies. They don't tend to turn out well because when things get complicated the profit motive tends to win for these companies serving as shepherds of the communities.
I feel like the only way for this to work is for an individual with the rights connections and background to pull together an all-star team for all of the areas of expertise needed for city designed. Then combine all of these experts with some strict policy barring corporations over a certain size from doing business there, and limiting the number of properties a singular entity, individual, or groups of entities can control. Add in some actual infrastructure design choices that physically limit the ability for large scale businesses to operate efficiently and maybe it would work? So basically combine physical infrastructure limitations with policy limitations to influence culture.
Promoting only small lifestyle type businesses and limiting the ability for one person or business to dominate the landscape might be able to deter the city from becoming just like any other.
Obviously designing and running a city is incredibly complex with an unknown number of variables so the probability of success if very low. Still something I like to daydream about occasionally.
Disney didn't actually try. Walt had plans and died. The Walt Disney Company board couldn't see the endeavor as profitable and so changed EPCOT plans into another theme park.
Car manufacturer's vision of the future seems likely to be something less than wholesome given what people need. My guess is this will be a city where everything is made to measure the environment, and the consequence will be that everything, including its occupants, will be managed in a way few other cities ever have been.
Aboard Axiom: "Leave The Flying To US! AUTOPILOT", also "Hoverchair!", and "Family Values! Because at BnL we know that the family that 'Pays Together, Stays Together'".
These things almost never end well. Real cities evolve gradually over time, because they're impossible to plan out to a finished state. But hey, maybe we'll learn some stuff along the way, so good to see experiments.
I'm really leery of the whole idea of living in housing provided by your employer. We've tried this, with mining company towns and such, turns out it's terrible for workers' rights.
Not everywhere I assume, my grandfather worked 20 years as a miner in Belgium and his employer left the housing to the city only if they will let the miners stay there for a symbolic some (+-50€). Once the owner died the city immediately tried to change the rent to 500€, but the local miners union fought it and kept the old rent until the union chief died also of old age. There were no one capable of Fighting the legal battle. Basically the city ignored the owner's will to profit from coal miners.
Is anyone living in Masdar City yet? This was supposed to be a planned city in the Abu Dahbi, using all kinds of fancy tech, while also being "green". Haven't seen any updates re that in ages, so I'm assuming it got canned?
Not sure if there are (m)any examples of prototype cities or planned cities that ever amounted to anything?
Cities are some of the biggest capital outlays that humans create, and they generally sprout up naturally in prime locations of some sort.
There are exceptions, like Las Vegas, of course. Or many newer Chinese cities.
To acquire hundreds of acres of prime land suitable for an urban environment is generally something only a government can do. And to additionally provide for the infrastructure and/or buildings would send the cost into the stratosphere.
Masdar has been canned, yes, but they have talked about replacing it with a new city called NEOM. It is projected to cost at least 500 billion dollars, assuming they stay within budget. No private actor has that kind of cash to spend.
Smaller private company towns have been commonplace, though. And many existing towns meet that definition.
Disneyland, Disneyworld, and Celebration, Florida are more obvious examples.
Lesser known examples would include Pullman, Illinois or Columbus, Indiana (no relation to the capital of Ohio)
I wish Walt Disney had lived long enough to complete his vision for EPCOT (turning it into a real community) instead of it becoming just another theme park.
I have dreamed of building the city of the future for more than 20 years now. My last startup even tried to do something about it (then pivoted to something else in real estate).
To everyone reading this topic: I would love to work on a project like this. Really, doesn't matter if it is this one, or Google SideWalk, or Microsoft secret project. IF any of you are working on this already, I'd love to chat!
Seems like a lot of deep-pocket tech cos are investing in building "future cities". What does it look like when tech companies start burring lines with government? What does "privacy" look like in this future?
[+] [-] jmg8766|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onion2k|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Patrick_Devine|6 years ago|reply
You see a lot more cars in the outskirts and in smaller cities (like Kyoto) where they haven't hit critical mass, or there has been mismanagement of the transit infrastructure.
[+] [-] ehnto|6 years ago|reply
What I find interesting is there wasn't really any illustrations of the reported three layer road system, and the majority of the illustrations are of huge, open walkable areas. I would love to see how they're looking to address separating slow speed traffic from high speed traffic while keeping them both useful.
[+] [-] flippyhead|6 years ago|reply
In fact, a lot of science fiction I can think of describe Disney-style people mover things that quickly and efficiently take you exactly where you want to go. I guess they aren't exactly cars, but they aren't exactly trains either.
[+] [-] quotha|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arjie|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikece|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmkni|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] big_chungus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikefivedeuce|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dumblydorr|6 years ago|reply
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/02/27/how-to-create-rea...
[+] [-] CalRobert|6 years ago|reply
https://culdesac.com/ is close, but only in Arizona I believe
[+] [-] splatcollision|6 years ago|reply
"Rip up all city streets with jackhammers" and "sod the streets at once ... All public movement would be by foot and a fleet of bicycles, maintained by the city police force."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Aspen
[+] [-] JKCalhoun|6 years ago|reply
How ironic if the utopian, factory-city for Toyota is one free of cars.
[+] [-] kiliantics|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jelliclesfarm|6 years ago|reply
I have so far written 17 chapters of Jellicles farms, villages and cities. I am doing city design now. Any inspirational material to read would be much appreciated.
During farming season, I spend most of my time writing about imaginary future automated farms as I am in the zone already. Off season now and I have more time to read and write about new cities. I have been reading old archeology finding reports, JBS haldane and Sci fi..old will be new again. Only better.
[+] [-] masona|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bpiche|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekianjo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Grue3|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danchi
[+] [-] jhoechtl|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia
[+] [-] leoc|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] francisofascii|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomrod|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsaavy|6 years ago|reply
Promoting only small lifestyle type businesses and limiting the ability for one person or business to dominate the landscape might be able to deter the city from becoming just like any other.
Obviously designing and running a city is incredibly complex with an unknown number of variables so the probability of success if very low. Still something I like to daydream about occasionally.
[+] [-] jagged-chisel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hkt|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dredds|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidw|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walrus01|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mustaflex|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thdrdt|6 years ago|reply
But overall this is just an announcement that BIG will design employee housing for Toyota.
[+] [-] elric|6 years ago|reply
Not sure if there are (m)any examples of prototype cities or planned cities that ever amounted to anything?
[+] [-] nwah1|6 years ago|reply
There are exceptions, like Las Vegas, of course. Or many newer Chinese cities.
To acquire hundreds of acres of prime land suitable for an urban environment is generally something only a government can do. And to additionally provide for the infrastructure and/or buildings would send the cost into the stratosphere.
Masdar has been canned, yes, but they have talked about replacing it with a new city called NEOM. It is projected to cost at least 500 billion dollars, assuming they stay within budget. No private actor has that kind of cash to spend.
Smaller private company towns have been commonplace, though. And many existing towns meet that definition.
Disneyland, Disneyworld, and Celebration, Florida are more obvious examples.
Lesser known examples would include Pullman, Illinois or Columbus, Indiana (no relation to the capital of Ohio)
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Johnny555|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept)
[+] [-] taywrobel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kipchak|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|6 years ago|reply
I will keep dreaming.
[+] [-] sebastianconcpt|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snickmy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bndw|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jagged-chisel|6 years ago|reply
If we want that, we need to write plans, find residents to invest (?), buy land, and build it. Who's with me?
[+] [-] ghaff|6 years ago|reply
1. Try to drive change by local involvement. Many US cities have become incrementally more bike and pedestrian friendly over time
2. Make an effort to move somewhere that's closer to their ideal even if it means giving up salary and other aspects of where they're living today