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“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard
A hundred years ago, one out of every five people lived in urban areas. By 2050, that number will balloon to over four out of five.
This rapid urbanization presents significant problems to the world. Even a modest annual population growth of three or five percent can mean thousands of new inhabitants, and each new resident will require energy, transportation, potable water, food and other infrastructure services that strain finite resources.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago are developing tools that merge urban design with scientific analysis to improve the decision-making process associated with large-scale urban developments. One such tool, called LakeSim, has been prototyped with an initial focus on consumer-driven energy and transportation demand, through a partnership with the Chicago-based architectural and engineering design firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Clean Energy Trust and developer McCaffery Interests. LakeSim began with the need to answer practical questions about urban design and planning, requiring a better understanding about the long-term impact of design decisions on energy and transportation demand for a 600-acre development project on Chicago’s South Side—the Chicago Lakeside Development project.
More Videos: Chicago Lakeside Development Project
Argonne National Laboratories: Designing Future Cities, Justin H. S. Breaux
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