Free wi-fi everywhere, streets dedicated to free-flowing public transport, cars banned, and no waste or carbon emissions - but while these may sound like far-fetched cities of the future, they are already here. Masdar city, only a few miles from the Middle Eastern economic powerhouse of Abu Dhabi, will be fully operational by 2020 and plans to recycle most of its water.
It will also ban 'gas-guzzling' cars, which will be replaced by a subterranean battery-operated transport system.Similar ecological moves are afoot in China, where Dezhou in the north of the country has created 'solar valley' with street lights and swimming pools heated by the sun and 80 per cent of buildings with solar water heaters. Transport - or rather, traffic - is one of the biggest problems blighting cities. It is dealt with elsewhere in China with a massive 50,000-strong bicycle sharing scheme. Hangzhou offers users the first hour of cycling free.
Bus Rapid Transit in Curitiba in Brazil is used by four-fifths of the population, who pay beforehand to use the regular services, which use dedicated streets. And in Tallinn, Estonia moves to 'wire the nation' mean free wireless connection in parks, museums, cafes and trains; Minneapolis has 59 square miles of internet connection, although users pay a fee for use in some areas.
Then there are the extraordinary buildings planned by visionary architects who imagine a world filled by tree towers, floating pyramids filled with suspended skyscrapers and houses floating on water.
Some of the most astounding designs are planned for the Far East where Japan and China lead the field in modelling the mind-blowing aesthetics of the future. However, Britain also gets a look in. The glistening Shard, rising triumphant from the South Bank is as futuristic a building as any in the world.
Source: mailonline