49 What will the cities of the future look like?

This questions has been asked so many times in the past few decades and was answered inconclusively – saying there’s only one thing we can be sure of: no one can predict with any degree of accuracy what cities will look like in 50 or 100 years from now. The reason is simple, cities are in a continual state of change. Many of the older residents today might feel 50 years ago their city belonged not just to another era but to a different dimension. This phenomenon is true of both planned and unplanned cities. Planned cities (e.g. New York) and unplanned cities (e.g. London or Tokyo) are expanding at such a rate that they are bursting at the seams. Their centres remain pretty much the same but their suburbs are spreading like the tentacles of an octopus. Economists say this is actually a good sign, as expanding cities attract international investment, which is a sign of a healthy economy.