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Toyota will transform 175-acre Japan site into a ‘prototype city of the future’
- mikefivedeuce 7y agoThese kinds of announcements are always full of hype. Panasonic has a similar concept in Denver. Google / Sidewalk Labs in Toronto. The practicalities of executing on real estate development at scale is always underestimated or neglected. Between regulations, the labor force, and tastes of eventual residents, the end result ends up close to the mean because the stakes (amount of capital involved) are so high and many decisions are prohibitively expensive to reverse.
- RenRav 7y agoWaste of money and space.
- focom 7y agoIt's seems like out of smart cities concept only smart grids really happened. Autonomous vehicles are still a long way off.
- mikece 7y agoIf a city (or small neighborhood) were specifically designed for autonomous vehicles (with sensors and guidance tech everywhere) then it would probably work. Ironically, I think this could backfire by showing just how much additive and connected tech -- and demarcated lanes where humans shouldn't step -- will be required for properly operating fully self-driving vehicles. Folks living in "legacy" neighborhoods will look at this and say "No way" for the most part.
- erikpukinskis 7y agoWhat kind of guidance tech would we need beyond lights, lines, and signs?
- jmg8766 7y agoShouldn't a prototype city of the future be built around walking and public transit with cars being more of an afterthought?
- mikece 7y agoNot if it's built by a carmaker. Perhaps the point is to show that we'll never separate ourselves from personal transportation vehicles (cars) but the future of the symbiosis will be far smarter and efficient.
- ehnto 7y agoThey're looking to use it to research the possibilities of integrating autonomous vehicles into cities more tightly I suspect. It makes sense that they're in no hurry to deprecate their own core business. What I find interesting is there wasn't really any illustrations of the reported three layer road system, and the majority of the illustrations are of huge, open walkable areas. I would love to see how they're looking to address separating slow speed traffic from high speed traffic while keeping them both useful.
- big_chungus 7y agoWalking around doesn't scale indefinitely. No form of transportation does, but walking scales significantly less. Plus, designing with public transit in mind makes it more accessible, which becomes a serious concern if you want anyone over sixty to live in your city.
- GolDDranks 7y agoI live in Tokyo, and for me, the combination of walking and a proper train network scales surprisingly well.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoI think that's what the parent is saying. Everybody wants to score virtue points for loving their feet or bike but at the end of the day you need to compliment that with some sort of public transit network to give them the distance covering power they need to be truly practical.
- tomrod 7y agoDisney tried this too, as well as other companies. They don't tend to turn out well because when things get complicated the profit motive tends to win for these companies serving as shepherds of the communities.
- jagged-chisel 7y agoDisney didn't actually try. Walt had plans and died. The Walt Disney Company board couldn't see the endeavor as profitable and so changed EPCOT plans into another theme park.
- shiftpgdn 7y agoDisney did take another swing at it in later years with Celebration, Florida. Unfortunately like EPCOT the Disney Board didn't see the profit in it and let the project go.
- dsaavy 7y agoI feel like the only way for this to work is for an individual with the rights connections and background to pull together an all-star team for all of the areas of expertise needed for city designed. Then combine all of these experts with some strict policy barring corporations over a certain size from doing business there, and limiting the number of properties a singular entity, individual, or groups of entities can control. Add in some actual infrastructure design choices that physically limit the ability for large scale businesses to operate efficiently and maybe it would work? So basically combine physical infrastructure limitations with policy limitations to influence culture. Promoting only small lifestyle type businesses and limiting the ability for one person or business to dominate the landscape might be able to deter the city from becoming just like any other. Obviously designing and running a city is incredibly complex with an unknown number of variables so the probability of success if very low. Still something I like to daydream about occasionally.
- elric 7y agoIs anyone living in Masdar City yet? This was supposed to be a planned city in the Abu Dahbi, using all kinds of fancy tech, while also being "green". Haven't seen any updates re that in ages, so I'm assuming it got canned? Not sure if there are (m)any examples of prototype cities or planned cities that ever amounted to anything?
- nwah1 7y agoCities are some of the biggest capital outlays that humans create, and they generally sprout up naturally in prime locations of some sort. There are exceptions, like Las Vegas, of course. Or many newer Chinese cities. To acquire hundreds of acres of prime land suitable for an urban environment is generally something only a government can do. And to additionally provide for the infrastructure and/or buildings would send the cost into the stratosphere. Masdar has been canned, yes, but they have talked about replacing it with a new city called NEOM. It is projected to cost at least 500 billion dollars, assuming they stay within budget. No private actor has that kind of cash to spend. Smaller private company towns have been commonplace, though. And many existing towns meet that definition. Disneyland, Disneyworld, and Celebration, Florida are more obvious examples. Lesser known examples would include Pullman, Illinois or Columbus, Indiana (no relation to the capital of Ohio)
- Piskvorrr 7y agoLas Vegas is also a prime location - legally in Nevada (gambling), yet close enough to the West Coast (lots of people). It doesn't have to be a natural advantage - this is what the Mississippi boat casinos were doing since forever, just several orders of magnitude larger ;)
- nwah1 7y agoTrue, but it also shares that distinction with pretty much anywhere in Southern or Western Nevada. My understanding is that the particular site was simply where the mob chose. But, having looked it up just now, apparently all the Hoover Dam construction workers created some demand for entertainment, so that seems to be the real reason for that particular spot. Also the federal government created a city called Boulder City to get the workers away from Las Vegas. Another planned city. So clearly the location of the workers was less important than the location of the mafia.
- Dumblydorr 7y agoThis reminds me of when blogger Mr Money Moustache proposed a car free city in Colorado, and then was flooded with media requests about when he was building it and how. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/02/27/how-to-create-reality/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/02/27/how-to-create-rea...
- CalRobert 7y agoI want this so badly it hurts. I ache for it. I _hate_ the fact that I'm too terrified to let my kids cycle on city streets, or suburban streets, or country roads, and they're completely trapped on a small patch of land surrounded by asphalt ribbons of death on all sides. https://culdesac.com/ https://culdesac.com/ is close, but only in Arizona I believe
- sequoia 7y agoThis is a landing page. Is there anywhere to see more info?
- zip1234 7y agoI have two friends that died while cycling. It is kind of crazy how much people put the blinders on when looking at cars. I really wish more people could envision a different future than a car-centric one.
- hodder 7y agoSeems like a strong argument against biking, not cars.
- ekianjo 7y ago2000 people is not even remotely like a 'city', it's the size of a remote island village, especially in Japan.
- Grue3 7y agoIt's called a "danchi". Basically a company builds a little town and settles its employees in it. Usually they are pretty boring, but I guess Toyota decided to spice it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danchi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danchi
- ekianjo 7y agoI know what it is, but that's not what's written in the article since they especially mention "prototype city". That's not what people understand by "city". It's a 'dormitory' in English.
- nitrogen 7y agoThe word prototype is important, and the phrase is probably supposed to invoke EPCOT.
- jhoechtl 7y agoFordlandia! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia
- leoc 7y agoKaizenland, or maybe Demingworld.
- francisofascii 7y agoHistorically related, reminds me of Futurama, an exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair, sponsored by General Motors, which included multi-lane highways within a futuristic looking city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama_(New_York_World%27s_Fair) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama_(New_York_World%27s_F...
- walrus01 7y agoI'm really leery of the whole idea of living in housing provided by your employer. We've tried this, with mining company towns and such, turns out it's terrible for workers' rights.
- mustaflex 7y agoNot everywhere I assume, my grandfather worked 20 years as a miner in Belgium and his employer left the housing to the city only if they will let the miners stay there for a symbolic some (+-50€). Once the owner died the city immediately tried to change the rent to 500€, but the local miners union fought it and kept the old rent until the union chief died also of old age. There were no one capable of Fighting the legal battle. Basically the city ignored the owner's will to profit from coal miners.
- calewis 7y agoThis is why big incumbent car companies will lose against people like Tesla. The amount of organisational energy and capital required for a project like this is huge, and it's pay off..? Not so sure.
- akerl_ 7y agoThis is exactly the kind of project that Elon would announce. Things with high upfront cost, nebulous goals of improving the state of the art for technology, and a gamble on future payoff, are essentially the checklist for Elon Musk projects. Now, there’s potentially a worthwhile discussion about why Elon has seen more success with these kinds of endeavors than larger incumbents have seen, but it’s exactly an Elon-style project.
- erikpukinskis 7y agoCan you name a big ambitious investment Tesla has made with a nebulous goal?
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoGood question, but my first thought was to ask what is nebulous about this project. It has clearly stated goals and Toyota has identified tech and capital.
- dredds 7y ago"SolarCity" ...city... “People do not understand the magnitude of the business," Musk said. "Solar will be the single largest source of electricity generation".
- Agathos 7y agoThe SolarCity acquisition.
- akerl_ 7y agoI was talking about Elon’s overall portfolio, of which Tesla and SpaceX are both examples. But if you’re specifically curious about Tesla, I’d point out that Tesla’s mission was to give everybody an electric car, and they decided to start from ~“make a crazy fast electric sports car” and go from there. Along the way, some ancillary nebulous goals ~“also become experts in building our own batteries” and ~”also solar for everybody’s homes”.
- hkt 7y agoCar manufacturer's vision of the future seems likely to be something less than wholesome given what people need. My guess is this will be a city where everything is made to measure the environment, and the consequence will be that everything, including its occupants, will be managed in a way few other cities ever have been.
- dredds 7y agoAboard Axiom: "Leave The Flying To US! AUTOPILOT", also "Hoverchair!", and "Family Values! Because at BnL we know that the family that 'Pays Together, Stays Together'".
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- simonebrunozzi 7y agoI have dreamed of building the city of the future for more than 20 years now. My last startup even tried to do something about it (then pivoted to something else in real estate). I will keep dreaming.
- jagged-chisel 7y agoSeems all the commenters here want a socially idealized city, and that's fine. Toyota's not going to build that. If we want that, we need to write plans, find residents to invest (?), buy land, and build it. Who's with me?
- ghaff 7y agoOr perhaps more practically, 1. Try to drive change by local involvement. Many US cities have become incrementally more bike and pedestrian friendly over time 2. Make an effort to move somewhere that's closer to their ideal even if it means giving up salary and other aspects of where they're living today
- davidw 7y agoThese things almost never end well. Real cities evolve gradually over time, because they're impossible to plan out to a finished state. But hey, maybe we'll learn some stuff along the way, so good to see experiments.
- thdrdt 7y agoWell I believe Bjarke Ingels (BIG) could be the right guy for the job. He already designs buildings that look like the future. But overall this is just an announcement that BIG will design employee housing for Toyota.
- sebastianconcpt 7y agoIf they make it semi-lattice instead of trees it could work https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.northwestern.edu/dist/6/2724/files/2019/01/2016-2-5-vernon_review-1rwczjj.pdf https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.northwestern.edu/dist/6/...
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoI am writing a futuristic version of Italo Calvino’esque Impossible Cities. I started with coming up with designs of fully automated farms and then figured it was also fun to imagine cities and towns and futuristic village. I have so far written 17 chapters of Jellicles farms, villages and cities. I am doing city design now. Any inspirational material to read would be much appreciated. During farming season, I spend most of my time writing about imaginary future automated farms as I am in the zone already. Off season now and I have more time to read and write about new cities. I have been reading old archeology finding reports, JBS haldane and Sci fi..old will be new again. Only better.
- bpiche 7y agoPlease keep it up. That book is a treasure. Do you have a draft copy?
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoYes, I have a work in progress draft. English is not my first language. While I don’t struggle to communicate, I find that mental images are harder to write in English. I guess I still ‘think’ in my native language when I write/think for myself. So..to write this, it is like I am translating myself for myself. When I showed it to someone, they didn’t quite see it as I did and so now I am changing how I write/choose themes and words. For example, the choice of a colour means a whole lot more to me than just a hue. For others, it’s just a colour and the nuances that are easily accessible to my mind is lost to them. Blue to me means meandering and I think they see it as curvy streets as I do..but they don’t. I want to finish at least 36 by this year end. I want to have had at least one blue print per month since I started but I have been lagging behind. It was to be a five year project ending in 2020. 60 seems unrealistic at my pace, but I would feel better if I did 3 years worth of cities. I am lagging behind because lots of research involved. But I will finish it! I only wish I could do 3D models. I never learnt that when younger or could cultivate the skills needed for model building. My dream would be to create miniature model cities with forests and oceans and farms and mountains. And keep connecting these cities. Keep building out. My vision of the future is clusters of city states. No more nations and countries.
- brudgers 7y ago2000 people on 175 acres is a very modest density.
- jelliclesfarm 7y agoI expect a lot would be elder friendly. And robots to exclude manual labour.
- Johnny555 7y agoI wish Walt Disney had lived long enough to complete his vision for EPCOT (turning it into a real community) instead of it becoming just another theme park. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept)
- asdff 7y agoAnother Epcot.
- bndw 7y agoSeems like a lot of deep-pocket tech cos are investing in building "future cities". What does it look like when tech companies start burring lines with government? What does "privacy" look like in this future?
- Zarath 7y agoA corporate sponsored city is a city of the future? I actually think it is, sadly.
- snickmy 7y agoTo everyone reading this topic: I would love to work on a project like this. Really, doesn't matter if it is this one, or Google SideWalk, or Microsoft secret project. IF any of you are working on this already, I'd love to chat!