Last week the Prado museum hosted the cycle of reflections on culture of Radio 3 under the name Culture 19. The second day was dedicated to architecture, with the participation of Martha Thorne, executive director of the Pritzker Prize; the doctor architect and sociologist José María Ezquiaga, the expert in Communication of Architecture and Urbanism Ariadna Cantis, and Álvaro Ardura, specialist in urban planning and urban regeneration.
From the interesting debate we were able to rescue the vision of the attendees on what the cities of the future will be like. In the first place, they invited to differentiate between two concepts, sustainable cities and resilient cities. Sustainability is the ability to use the resources we need to cover our present needs (both in the global North and South), allowing future generations to also cover theirs. On the other hand, resilience is the ability of the system (in this case of the city) to rebuild itself in the face of certain abrupt changes or imbalances within it.
That is, future cities should be; on the one hand, sustainable, capable of self-sufficiency through renewable energy and recirculating material cycles, reducing the demand for natural resources. On the other hand, they must also be resilient and have the ability to easily face and recover from climatic, economic, migratory crises, etc. All this without leaving anyone in the lurch and without allowing the urban system to collapse in the face of such crises.
To this end, the debate pointed out three fundamental pillars that will structure our cities of the future: diversity, the end of the private car and the dissolution of the urban-rural border. The cities of the future will not only be more diverse in people and needs, but will also be planned considering that diversity (of ages, genders, backgrounds and creeds). The mobility model will change radically, to the point where the need to own a private car will disappear. Finally, nature will enter the city, the renaturation of the artificialized and waterproofed urban environment will give way to urban environments more similar to the natural environment. This will allow the existence of urban agriculture that will cause the disappearance of the current gap between the countryside and the city.