Creative minds are constantly dreaming up amazing, fantastical things. Some of them even make it past the drawing board to help change our lives and lifestyles. Such is the case with CityScope -the city of the future created by innovator Kent Larson.
Larson, part of the MIT Media Lab, has created prototypes for such amazing things as City Home, a 200 sq. ft. modern home filled with roboticly enabled furniture that can change configuration at the whim of the urban dweller, and the Persuasive Electric Vehicle (PEV) – a three-wheeled electric vehicle with a cover that would vie with the likes of Uber. His CityScope responsive city completely rethinks the city of the future. Incorporating new models of urban architecture and connectivity, it imagines a city’s important systems in such as way as to make future cities more responsive to the needs of human residents, environmental conditions and market dynamics.
Larson’s futuristic city, the model of which is built with Legos, takes into account social media use, traffic and transportation and other vital city needs such as changing city density.CityScope is beginning trials in such places as Boston, Europe and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Will communities accept these innovations? Time will tell. But Larson just may have his fingers on the pulse of at least millennials who may be more likely to embrace futuristic changes such as he’s dreamed up. One thing’s clear: cities of tomorrow will look nothing like we’re familiar with. And in this case, change is definitely good.