New Technologies an Integral Part of New Cities
Cities like Milan, with a past stretching back centuries and a population of 8 million, can only become green as old buildings are replaced and new sustainable projects sprout up. Milan’s Bosco Verticale, a “vertical forest” is one such project changing the face of an old city. The world’s “nouveau riche,” many in the Middle East, are taking new found wealth and investing in new cities that never existed before, therefore allowing them to build sustainable environments from the ground up.
In the United Arab Emirates, with close to the highest per capita energy consumption in the world, Masdar City is a project intended to showcase how residences, businesses and institutes can be designed with sustainability in mind. The project’s website promotes it as “one of the most sustainable communities on the planet.”
High Quality of Life and Low Environmental Footprint
Masdar City, a project of the Mubadala Development Company, is a “cleantech” city that emphasizes creativity and entrepreneurship and seeks to show what a green urban development can be. The Masdar Institute of Science and Technolgy, an offshoot of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, is one of the main tenants in the new development. The city is being built with the very latest high tech sustainable technology.
Masdar City hosts loads of cutting-edge cleantech research and development projects, pilot projects and is attempting to build the world’s most sustainable buildings. There are no gas powered cars or buses and people move around using PRT or Personal Rapid Transport Vehicles. The city is currently powered by a 10 MW solar farm.
Masdar City currently has six buildings: three residential, two research laboratories and a Knowledge Center, totaling 35,000 m² of area. Masdar City sits on 6 km² of land and a full build-out of the project will be completed by 2025, house 40,000 residents and welcome 50,000 commuters each day.
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References and related content:
- Masdar City – GeographyMonkey.com
- sustainable Masdar City | Greener Cities & Communities
- Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, to implement innovative seawater bioenergy pilot project – WaterWorld
