Artificial Intelligence For A Sustainable Future Urban Development

The paper explores how innovative Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques are leading to new urban planning methods based on the interplay between human creative thinking and the computational power of modern computers (Figure 1).

The goal of the new planning tools is to plan cities more efficient and, despite their complexity, more comprehensible, and - with the help of the computer - to understand the parallel interactions of many different factors in order to develop urban qualities. The flexibility of the computer programs also makes it possible to integrate a wide variety of stakeholders in planning processes and thereby respond to people’s needs.

Digitization and climate change are two megatrends that are responsible for a variety of simultaneous transformation processes in cities. Taxis are being replaced by travel services, cars are soon driving without drivers, housing is being treated as a flexible service, and ownership is being managed with new forms of smart contracts. In this context, also how cities are planned changes. Technological innovations in AI and data analysis, combined with new production processes such as mass customization, inevitably lead to new planning strategies and processes, in which architects and planners must constantly redefine their role in interaction with digital tools. An additional question is which role AI plays in developing the knowledge of historically evolved cities and applying it for future cities.

Examples In following, we consider the opportunities offered by artificial intelligence for the design of new cities and districts by two examples: First the planning and simulation of new cities in the context of rural urban transformation processes in Ethiopia; and second the expansion of the metropolis Singapore.