FUTURE PROOFING
is an actionable playbook of the most effective strategies and digital solutions used by cities to address challenges and prepare for the future .
“ Cities today face major challenges as they strive to become future-ready ,” said Lou Celi , CEO of ThoughtLab and Director of the research programme . “ The goal of this study is to equip city leadership with a data-driven blueprint to meet the shifting expectations and behaviours of their citizens while offering benchmarking insights to help them assess their progress toward future readiness .”
What makes a future-ready city
Future-ready cities are those that are making the most progress in becoming inclusive , resilient , sustainable and digitally enabled . They are more advanced in preparing their urban domains to meet the fast-changing needs of citizens and local businesses .
• They have made the most progress in safety , security and resilience , with nearly three-quarters of them reporting significant progress , compared with just 17 % of nonfuture-ready cities
• About two-thirds of these future-ready cities have also made considerable headway in environment and sustainability as well as citizen living , health and trust
• Over half have made significant progress in transportation and urban infrastructure , which are more challenging domains due to years of inattention
Of the 250 cities participating in the study , ThoughtLab categorised 50 cities as futureready ; 150 as progressing toward futurereadiness ; and 50 as beginners in an earlier stage of development .
The top future-ready cities in each region are :
• North America : Boston , Chicago , San Francisco , Seattle and Toronto
• Latin America : Buenos Aires , Caracas , Quito , Rosario and Salvador
• Europe : Edinburgh , Helsinki , Lyon , Madrid and Vienna
• Middle East and Africa : Ankara , Doha , Kampala , Rabat and Tehran
• APAC : Beijing , Guangzhou , Melbourne , Taipei and Tokyo
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