Supertrends

8.THE TRANSPORT, HOUSES, AND CITIES OF THE FUTURE

Housing, local environment, and transport play a major role in everyone's lives – in mine too. Even as a student at the Danish Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University and Copenhagen Business School, in my spare time I would often construct cardboard models of my dream houses and, to stop myself from falling asleep in my lectures, I frequently sat drawing houses. A number of years later, when I could finally afford something resembling what I had dreamed about, I spent a lot of time on interior design. Similarly, I have a great love of cars. So, I am equally interested in how these areas will develop in the future. What I think is especially interesting is that new modes of transport often help shape new structures in terms of housing and urbanisation. For example, cars created opportunities for detached houses in suburbs, and it is micromobility that now reduces the number of cars in metropolitan areas, freeing up space for pavement cafés, just as electric cars will reduce urban noise. Together, this will make cities more attractive as places to live and, as a result, people will move back to cities. Then funnily enough, when autonomous cars later make their breakthrough, they will once again lead to detached-house living, just as the first cars did. After all, there is certainly nothing wrong with snuggling up at night in a home close to nature.

The transport of the future – faster and more flexible

While we continue ...