As global populations increase, the same urban capacity will need to be built in the next 40 years as in the previous 4,000, according to Jens Martin Skibsted in an article for the World Economic Forum. A partner at the sustainable Danish design company Manyone, he highlights that cities must also be built in an eco-friendly way. The solution to these problems, he says, lies in so-called Vertical Urban Mobility.
While skyscrapers alone do not improve the carbon footprint, they offer efficiencies of scale, increased innovation and economic output, and a reduced sprawl. “By living, working, and hanging out in spaces that are farther from the ground, we end up sharing more energy overall as a collective city and thereby dispensing less energy per person on average,” writes Skibsted.
He continues that the architecture of urban buildings is just one part of the solution. “How our transportation systems integrate the vertical movement of people is another,” he explains, citing solutions such as Hong Kong’s Central Mid-Level Escalator, the Chinese ‘Straddle Busses’ and Wuppertal’s suspensiontrains. The biggest question, underlines Skibsted, will be which of these enables a green future.
According to the author, the key is holistically viewing cities as dynamic entities on and above the ground. “For generations, city planners have held a horizontal ‘flat-earth’ view of the movement of people. Now we need to seriously consider how to navigate our cities upwards and sideways,” he concludes.
