Is Your City Planning for the Next Hundred Years?

Newcastle, NSW, Australia, city planners have been looking at the next 100 years concerning the community and economy.

They are looking at a number of areas that will influence demands from consumers, businesses and government including population, technology, work, energy, water and transport.

Population is thought to be the driver of change in Newcastle and the surrounding areas. Growth in the city is expected to grow from its current 157,000 to 192,500 by 2050 and if that rate continues, it could reach 350,000 in 100 years with the surrounding areas climbing to two million.

Drawings from Hidlay Architecture

They believe higher density living will be the norm. Prefabricated, modular housing will be commonplace, and that has a lot of positives. Housing modules constructed in factories and assembled on site will be cheaper, of a higher quality, more flexible and faster to deliver.  They are already seeing apartment buildings and houses built this way. It will involve new thinking, new materials and new manufacturing technologies.

Our city planners are including modular construction in their plans as well as witnessed by the numerous high rise projects currently being built in New York, Philadelphia and other major cities.

It is predicted that modular apartment buildings will be half of all new construction in US cities by 2050.