Cities of future
Disney World started out as a plan to build a futuristic city, but such grand visions can go astray, writes Jane Bradley
Ihave a number of friends who have recently moved to large new-build estates in towns close to Edinburgh in a bid to assuage the demand for housing outside of Scotland’s main cities.
Although the comfortable housing on the outskirts of places such as Ratho and North Berwick is arguably less characterful than the draughty Victorian flats my mates previously inhabited in the city centre, they argue that the community is actually stronger. “It is like being back in first year at university,” one of them tells me. “Everyone is new as they have just moved in – most of them from the city – and they all want to make friends.”
Although these estates have attached themselves to existing towns or villages, the idea of creating entirely new communities, even cities, from scratch is growing across the world. Last week, the Philippines government announced plans to create a “twin city” to its capital Manila, to help relieve congestion in a place said to have one of the worst pollution problems in the world.
New Clark, to be constructed over the next 30 years, will be a city of the future, including drones, driverless cars, technologies that will reduce buildings’ water and energy usage, and a giant sports complex. Twothirds of the footprint of the city is to be dedicated to green space in a bid to reduce carbon emissions, while all parking will be underground. It sounds like something out of a sci-fi film and a way of living which residents of ancient cities such as Edinburgh would find it hard to envisage.
It is not a new idea. Bizarrely, Walt Disney had a similar plan in the early 20th century. Worried about the future of the world his children and grandchildren would inhabit, he unveiled a blueprint for a “experimental prototype community of tomorrow”: a city of 20,000 residents with a central business district and futuristic public transport. But it was not