Towards the Third urban revolution

Our society has reached its limits and this requires major changes

In recent years, we have gradually witnessed a major change in human activities under the impact of digital technology, calling into question the very fundamentals of our society’s organization. 

The current sanitary crisis has just precipitated these transitions with a systemic domino effect that forces us to analyze and act very quickly. All of our activities are concerned. 

Faced with societal change, we are all subject to major challenges that threaten the balance of our society and force us to take rapid action. There is of course the environmental challenges that confront us with global warming but also the demographic challenges:

·      The North-South imbalance, 

·      The aging western populations,

·      The sanitary issues made obvious by the current pandemic,

·      The problems of air, water and soil pollution and even our entire food chain,

·      The economic challenge of an ever growing and financially precarious segment of the population, and enhanced disparities between rich and poor,

·      The identity challenge with a loss of benchmarks and a questioning of the rules and codes that have sealed our society for almost a millennia,

·      And finally, the ethical challenge with the growing risk of the loss of our individual freedom by the control of a small number of actors of our individual data. 

Each of these challenges taken individually is potentially a source of major social disorder with, in many cases, the risk of significant population migration. Tackling a challenge without a comprehensive approach can be counterproductive, as the subject of the carbon tax has demonstrated with the yellow vests’ movement in France. Wanting to tackle these challenges requires taking a holistic vision accompanied by a global and systemic approach to the various subjects by placing humans at the center of all reflection.   

Cities must adapt to changes in human activities and respond to climate challenges

All the signs show that we have reached the limits of a system that is no longer tenable or sustainable. This requires radical changes in our models and lifestyles. We too long considered that energy resources were inexhaustible. Over the last 150 years cities have develop recklessly. This led to the development of ghettos that are no more sustainable. Today, with more than 70% of the Greenhous Gas Emission, cities cannot develop as they have in the past. The model of metropolitan areas such as New York (the showcase of 20thcentury cities) is no longer valid and needs to be reviewed at 180°. Since human activities are drastically changing, more hybrid buildings, cities, and infrastructures need to adapt to this major mutation I call ‘civilizational change’. 

As an example, it is no longer justified to have single-activity buildings used only 30% of the time or vehicles used less than 5% of their time! We must move towards a more sober and more local society, optimizing all resources. We must move towards hybrids buildings, hybrid mobility, hybrid networks, and hybrid cities for a better usage of all resources. It’s a complete change we need to operate over a very short period of time.

Energy is crucial and this requires digital network management 

In this context, energy is crucial. Therefore, we urgently need to rethink our model of energy use.

As I hope we all agree, the city of tomorrow - that we are building today - will be fully electric and primarily carbon-free. We need to put conditions in place for this transition now!

We need to integrate the deployment of electrical vehicles which, according to Deloitte, will represent 32% of the vehicle fleet by 2030.  We need also to integrate the local production of renewable energies and their storage capacity.  This will represent a major challenge to electrical networks that were not calibrated to withstand such a load increase. 

On one hand we need to reduce our global energy consumption through optimized resources and implementation of energy savings measures in every building. Today, this represents more than 40 % of energy consumption.  On the other hand, we need to move towards hybrids electrical networks with local production (renewable energies) and storage (Batteries, H2, Batteries of Vehicle (V2X)). This is what we call micro-grids. Since mobility, renewable energies, and energy storage are natively in DC (Direct Current) it makes sense to move towards DC-Microgrids that will power urban mobility and urban lighting, and partially power buildings, notably for DC equipment (especially all electronics). 

Digital Twin: A prerequisite to support this mutation

In this context, digital is unavoidable to support the monitoring of these multiple energy sources.

For example, if in the same building, a major part of residents want simultaneously to recharge their vehicle, start their household appliances (oven, dryer, washing machine, TV, ... ) there will likely be a concern for available power and they will then be forced to make choices. This problem might be also the same at the district level etc... Therefore, it becomes now urgent to deploy rapidly demand response solution at the level of every building and territory in order to adjust automatically the electricity demand to the network’s capacity, and all this in real time.  The first prerequisite for this is that all equipment, every building, and every vehicle can be monitored remotely in real time.  This requires that every building have a digital infrastructure with the ability to remotely control all equipment in real time by relying on open data and interoperable systems. Access to data must be secure and controlled locally. Each building needs to be equipped by an Operating System (BOS: Building Operating System), basically the safe collection of all data in a secured mode, enabling application to deliver services such energy management.  

While 120 years ago cities were electrified, it is now just as important to deploy this digital infrastructure on a massive scale in a controlled and secure manner.

It is no less important to manage data at the local level (building, residence, district) and to put in place appropriate governance that meets the challenges of cybersecurity and protection of personal data. That’s the challenge of the Digital Twin to insure the management in secure mode of all relevant data of the building and the district.  

Buildings become, in this context, real service platforms that will directly impact their value. A building can no longer be considered alone but at least as an integral part of a neighborhood for shared services. The Digital Twin is then positioned as the essential tool for aggregating the data at the level of buildings and district and allows the deployment of multiple services, among them energy management. In this context, data governance and energy management at all territorial scales is becoming a major issue, with the emergence of new professions such as the trusted third party for the building or the district or urban services operators.

Cities are experiencing a profound change: towards the 3rd urban revolution

We are thus witnessing a profound change in the organization of our cities.

While cities have always been a reflection of our society or even of a civilization, we cannot today keep the same organization in the face of the brutal ruptures that we are currently experiencing. The suit doesn't fit us anymore. We must indeed rethink buildings, the city, and spatial planning and their governance around fundamentals such as proximity, diversity, and sustainability. We must also rethink economic models by encouraging the emergence of a ‘usage economy’ based on local currencies as an alternative to a property economy. This is the worksite for the next 20 years to hope for a happy future. This is what I call the Third Urban Revolution. Responding to the major current societal challenges moved us through this revolution and it is now.