Pipes will repair themselves in the towns and cities of the future

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is coordinating an international CIB Aworking group, which has published a roadmap to the smart cities of the future. Cities will adopt new practices and adapt to change quickly. They will also need to be resource-efficient and reduce their emissions. Strong transformation trends include efficient energy consumption, interactive smart technology, and new types of services in particular. Only around 2.7% of the Earth's surface is urbanised, but these areas account for 70% of natural resource consumption and 75% of carbon dioxide emissions.