Tech

Here's what cities will look like in 2050

Danielle Muoio

2016-03-01T13:31:00Z

Cities are bound to change in the coming years as populations grow and technology improves the quality of how we live.

Many reports have been written on the subject, including a recent one by Samsung titled the SmartThings Future of Living Report that looks at how the urban landscape will alter in the next century.

But we got a glimpse closer into the future about how our cities will look from futurist Ian Pearson, a fellow at the World Academy for Arts and Science. Here are 6 ways you can expect cities to change by 2050.

Buildings will reach new heights, and could be as tall as 18 miles, Pearson claims. For reference, that's more than 8,000 stories high!

The current record holder for tallest building is Dubai's Burj Khalifa at 163 stories.

Our ability to create taller buildings means we will have massive space ports that will decrease travel time to the galaxy.

A space port is a super tall building that would support a rocket launch.

Pearson said launching a rocket from a space port would result in a shorter trip and would require less fuel, hence its appeal.

The Samsung report reasons that massive autonomous drones will transport people to different floors because elevators will be difficult in buildings this tall.

"We might have... thousands of people living in a single building as a self-contained city," Pearson said.

Because buildings will have never before seen infrastructures, they could serve as individual mini cities. This could be a good thing considering as people get older, overpopulation becomes a bigger problem.

There will be underwater hotels and tourist attractions.

samsung smarthings report underwater home

While the Samsung Report argues that aquatic homes will exist in the future, Pearson does not buy into that premise.

"There's also quite a lot of nonsense about cities under the sea or floating cities, but they would be extremely expensive," he said.

But he said he can see these things existing as tourist attractions, as opposed to permanent living situations.

Buildings will be able to charge your devices over radio waves, so there will be no need to plug things in.

There are a number of startups, such as Energous, racing to create such technologies, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Roads will charge self-driving cars as they travel.

Driverless, electric cars are the stuff of the future. And that comes as no surprise when considering the work done by companies like Google and Tesla to be pioneers in those fields.

Pearson imagines that by 2050, cities will build roads that can charge electric vehicles as they drive. In fact, the United Kingdom is currently testing such roads.

Internet of Things