Places for people: A vision for inclusive new communities

Future working

Spurred on by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020-2021, the number of people commuting daily into central business districts has declined. Many in the knowledge economy are going to company offices only one or two days a week, working the rest of their time from home or in local co-working and meeting spaces.

These shared workplaces have been developed by transportation agencies at or close to local transportation hubs. Alongside them, space for small service businesses, shops, restaurants, health centers, leisure facilities, and homes have been created. Schools, healthcare facilities, and entertainment venues are at most a 15-minute trip away by public transportation.

The shift in working patterns has created thriving local economies, generating jobs for local people. Direct and indirect taxes on the greater number of burgeoning local businesses generate additional revenue for local authorities and landowners.

Low-carbon living

Buildings and infrastructure are net-zero carbon, making the new developments eligible for green bonds and loans, and financial support from the world’s largest institutional investors — all of which are committed to climate-responsible investment.

Smart building management systems optimize energy consumption and comfort, while passive measures such as natural lighting and shading reduce energy demand. Solar panels in roofs, windows, and facades generate power, with surpluses stored for future consumption. Renewable energy from the national grid tops up supplies as necessary.

Countries are fast decarbonizing their heat networks. Hydrogen boilers, ground source heat pumps, and electric power meet thermal comfort needs in new developments. District heat networks, powered by renewable electricity and hydrogen, are beginning to supply heat in densely populated urban areas, following the introduction of policies and regulations in 2025 to protect consumers and accelerate investment in the infrastructure.

In some locations, heat networks enable "waste" heat to be captured from city tunnels or data centers, for example, and transferred to schools and hospitals. Interseasonal thermal energy storage, using underground boreholes, is starting to prove its worth for both heating and cooling.

Digitally empowered

Everyone is digitally connected. High-speed broadband is supplied to every household, with the cost of connection and a web-capable device covered by government for the poorest.

Home working is practical for many people. This is particularly beneficial for employees with who are caregivers and those with restricted mobility, but it is appreciated by all. It is easier to access essential services, from social support to healthcare and banking. Seeking employment is simpler. Students regularly attend lessons and submit work online.

Digitalization has also transformed the infrastructure industry by enabling data to be used for improved decision-making, which in turn delivers better outcomes and value for clients and society. Known in the industry as "Infrastructure 4.0," the shift encompasses the following:

• Digital planning, modeling, and design, encompassing augmented and virtual reality — which enables rapid optioneering, stakeholder engagement and feedback, and design optimization
• Digitally enabled collaboration, which enables the creation of integrated teams to deliver and manage buildings and infrastructure, focusing on common goals and desired outcomes
• Robotics and design for manufacture and assembly — creating buildings and infrastructure more efficiently and safely, with high quality and lower carbon emissions
• Digital twins (digital representations of the real world) supported by artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation, sensors, and real-time data streaming — which together enable performance improvements in asset delivery and through-life operation and management

Landowners, architects, planners, designers, and engineers are using sophisticated geospatial tools and data to map, design, and enhance sites, streets, neighborhoods, and even cities.

Digital tools and solutions enable spatial modeling, analysis, and visualization, helping inform decisions about everything from how to balance social, economic, and environmental needs across a site, to where solar panels should be installed for maximum energy yield, to planning walking and cycling routes for greatest convenience and safety.

Digital twins are produced as a matter of course for all major new buildings and infrastructure. The data in digital twins provides asset owners and operators with insight into performance and condition, and how users feel. It enables them to make better interventions that produce better outcomes for people and communities.

Inspiring change: How can we spearhead city-scale digital twins?

Building better

From the mid-2020s, buildings and infrastructure have been assembled onsite using design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA). Designs are based on modular, standardized components, built in a factory and then assembled when they arrive on site.

For the people who live and work in buildings created using DfMA, the benefits come from design and build quality: they’re warmer in winter and cooler in summer, saving money on energy bills and providing better comfort. They provide better noise insulation, and they’re adaptable. Modular buildings created using DfMA are easy to alter by adding or removing components to suit changing purposes, lifestyles, and demands for space. Ultimately, they are also easy to disassemble.

As a result of incentives and corporate social purpose, DfMA manufacturing hubs are located in areas of high socioeconomic deprivation. They support thousands of high-value jobs in different parts of the country, helping to address regional inequalities. Those jobs are safer than traditional construction.

Further benefits include reductions in time, cost, materials, and waste. On-site activities are limited to access, foundations, assembly of manufactured components, finishing, and landscaping. This means there is far less construction-related disruption to those living or working next to a project site.

All projects delivered using DfMA are digitally equipped, enabling building and infrastructure owners and managers to monitor performance and condition, and to plan repairs, maintenance, or improvements to best meet the needs of end users.

At one with nature

Regenerative design principles have been widely adopted and are increasingly encouraged by local planning policy, regulation, and legislation, and by financial incentives.

Regenerative design goes beyond sustainability: it is about building back healthy, biodiverse, and vital ecosystems, rather than merely doing no harm. "Urban regeneration," sparked by the creation of new neighborhoods and the improvement of existing ones, takes on new meaning.

Better social and economic outcomes go hand in hand with better outcomes for the environment. Semi-wild public spaces, green roofs and walls, urban gardening, streetscape planting, and natural drainage solutions — along with a dramatic decline in transportation-related air pollution and noise are encouraging the return of plant, animal, and insect species not seen in cities for decades.

Steel and concrete are still used in construction. Both materials are energy-intensive to produce and therefore have high embodied carbon footprints. However, this can be offset by using timber and biomaterials in addition to steel and concrete, and growing vegetation. Research and investment in plant-based and bio-fabricated construction materials has brought a number of carbon-neutral and carbon-negative products to market. Standards and specifications are being adapted to encourage their use, and the supply chain is expanding.

Advances in construction mean that new buildings and infrastructure consume fewer virgin materials. Waste has been eliminated from both construction and demolition by a flourishing circular economy, with new specialist companies working to enable the effective reduction, recovery, reuse, and recycling of almost everything.

New buildings and infrastructure are designed to generate and store energy for the community and capture rainwater for reuse.

Green and blue, not always gray

Nature-based solutions can be found in most new developments, supplementing and replacing conventional gray infrastructure — the piped systems used to collect and dispose of rainwater and wastewater for the past century and more.

Green and blue infrastructure consists of parks and wild land, and features to collect and dissipate water: for example, swales, ditches, ponds, lakes, streams, and rivers. This is often less costly to deliver than conventional drainage infrastructure and requires less maintenance. And it offers much wider benefits: it brings people a little closer to nature. Green and blue infrastructure enhances the urban environment, filtering pollution from the air as well as in rainwater runoff, encouraging biodiversity, and making a dramatic contribution to people’s health and well-being.

Natural drainage and flood management provides protection and improves resilience against intense rainfall, which is becoming more frequent and severe as a consequence of climate change. Wetlands are used in urban spaces to capture and clean stormwater, replenishing underground aquifers. Trees provide shade and help to reduce the urban heat island effect. Without abundant green space, a city of a million people can be up to 3°C warmer than its surroundings.

Innovative design and engineering are making the most of limited space, with vegetated drainage channels and planted corridors along streets, green roofs and walls on buildings, small "pocket parks" between buildings, and safe routes for active travel.

Green and blue infrastructure has made neighborhoods better and healthier places to live and work.

Inspiring change: Green versus gray infrastructure — what's best?

Financial models

National infrastructure investment banks are channeling money into projects that support inclusive economic growth and tackle climate change, providing a long-term source of capital at low cost in the form of equity. Housing is a priority in most developed countries and transcends short political cycles. This has created policy stability and encourages private-sector investment and collaboration with the public sector.

Local planning controls and taxes ensure that the gains from urban development undertaken by private landowners deliver a wider public benefit. The money raised repays loans taken out by public agencies to provide infrastructure and public services, including transportation.

Long-term political commitment, the alignment of public, institutional, and private-sector investment, supporting controls and equitable taxes create the right conditions for landowners to put underutilized sites to better use, adding to the amount of land available and increasing the density of new developments. The result is less urban sprawl, less land speculation, and reduced financial risk for developers.

Giving everyone a voice

Places are only great if they succeed for everyone, providing the conditions for every person to thrive. To ensure this happens, planning authorities and developers are legally required to involve community stakeholders in shaping plans and choosing designs. But stakeholder engagement goes far beyond "compliance." People from local communities are consulted to help define the outcomes that new neighborhoods should deliver, right at the start. Social outcomes are the primary focus of city regeneration projects and developments.

This is because policymakers, planners, landowners, developers, and the construction and infrastructure industries all recognize that engaging and listening to communities is key to achieving projects that perform better for all — community and industry alike. It enables them to do all this:

• Gain vital insight into community needs and goals, how people connect with each other and their neighborhoods, and how to use public spaces — allowing the needs of all members of society to be understood and addressed, achieving neighborhoods that are accessible, inclusive, and resilient, that empower citizens and promote well-being
• Achieve greater community buy-in and a sense of ownership
• Build trust and establish dialogue
• Gain clarity on exactly what is required, resulting in "right the first time" delivery and reduced need for retrofit solutions to meet community needs
• Reduce objections, change, and the risk of delays to projects
• Improve cost certainty
• Create sustainable communities, supported by sustainable and resilient infrastructure and businesses
• Achieve financial sustainability through stable long-term revenues

Digital tools are widely used, overcoming physical and cultural obstacles that can exclude hard-to-reach, disadvantaged, and marginalized groups from attending traditional public meetings. The result is a more socially inclusive consultation and engagement process.

Living well

From 2020 to 2030, all those involved in creating and managing the built environment have awoken to the importance of creating the social, environmental, and economic conditions that enable people to live well. In practical terms, that means buildings and infrastructure meet the needs of end users and are sustainable, secure, and resilient to future shocks — such as floods, droughts, and pandemics. Digital technology plays a key role in achieving this.