Covid inspired lifestyle trends, Smart Cities and Top 6 Futuristic Tech. “Demolition Man” has arrived.
In 1993 families across the globe gathered huddled in their homes for Saturday night feature movie, scheduled by TV bosses in their regular 9pm slot. Being 8 years old, I crept in the corner of the room; sneaking popcorn and shade. The more adventurous of-age persons would venture an establishment called a cinema (that my 6 year old couldn’t remember the name of); usually on Sunday evenings for some casual people-spotting in the foyer. The screens revealed sci-fi scenes of wonder: a subdued society set in 2032, dressed in yoga spandex day and night, with flying cars, personalised hologram advertisements and Stallone-Snipes cryogenically frozen and thawed to bring their 20th century mayhem.
In 2021, 11 years ahead of schedule, these futuristic goodies have manifested, with top 6 favourites listed below. Unlike the first (industrial) revolution, there hasn’t been a big bang of commotion & noise. These goodies materialised in private laboratories, funded via exclusive top tier access granted only to powerful individuals — vaults of money is not enough to qualify, investors must also be useful with an influential policy-making network to get a foot in the door.
Introduce Covid, and we have what investment advisors quickly coined the fifth industrial revolution; where humans and machines will dance together. One of the major obstacles to diving into this dance has been data privacy and security; today we are finally seeing the first wave of recognition in legislation and protection rights, facilitating progress. Accelerated with the unimaginable turbo boost shift of collective behaviour, brought on by Covid & lockdowns; here are some examples:
Quieting Consumerism Noise: Lifestyle trends
Consumerism is a cleverly crafted 19th century tool advertisers constructed with sole purpose to sell. Lockdowns and restrictions have translated into ‘new’ time for us to contemplate & transact on purchases that matter more to us. Paul Donovan, GWM Chief Economist at UBS regularly (and amusingly) highlights that despite restrictions, consumers are still surprisingly spending just as much, it’s what we’re spending it on that’s changed: think more high quality & purposeful like exotic retreats & adventure experiences, med-tech, biohacking, high quality groceries for lunch instead of that baguette by the office and, one of Donovan’s favourite topics, the home-office currently funded by employees who ought to be reimbursed.
The property rental market is a clear indicator of these new trends. Savills prize, Lucian Cook, reports an annual rental value fall of -6.2% across Prime London flats, with a rental growth of +3.4% in the prime commuter belt and further growth in the countryside, smaller cities and villages. Forecasts for 2021 see the commuter belt strengthen more, indicating a call for nature with access to big cities. Despite Covid uncertainty and employment rate decline, property transactions still rose by +7.6% in the year to November 2020; data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Again demonstrating people are still purchasing what they feel strongly about, which happens to be green London suburbs.[1]
Why the move? Dreams of a new masterplan
While Work from Home WFH, larger spaces, gardens & nature are certainly at the top of the list, also consider:
Air Quality: Trapped in one location, air quality and pollution is taking its toll. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 12.5% of annual deaths are from air pollution[2] & 9 out of 10 people breath air that exceeds WHO’s guideline limits — including a whopping 99% of Londoners. While air purifiers are becoming more commonplace alongside mechanical ventilation, New Zealand, envied internationally for their superior handling of Covid, reported its first Covid case in over two months mid-January 2021 and are investigating its possible spread via ventilation and air conditioning systems in a quarantine facility — yes an isolation facility! One can argue that proper maintenance and using fresh air supply instead of recirculated air (the cheaper alternative to provide larger quantities) can mitigate these risks. However combine air pollution, new variants and future virus threats and I believe we will be seeing Air Quality standards introduced as part of property regulations. This means new smart builds have the opportunity to design optimal smart city systems; existing buildings with ventilation shafts to better standards, for example by installing pathogen reduction systems (as being installed in iconic London nightspot 100 Club in hope to reopen) and the vast majority being older blocks, to install new systems such as unsightly external shafts (easier then installing internal shafts).
Property standards & regulations: are getting stricter making it costly and timely for owners of old buildings to keep in-line. One example being Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) that in 2025 requires new tenancies to be EPC rating C or above (minimum standards today are E). There is a proposal to enforce owners to spend a substantial £10,000 per unit to comply, for example, by installing double/triple glazing, wall & roof insulation and smart meters. With this strong push to get buildings air-tight — I doubt owners will be happy to then drill holes in window frames for vents, to meet potential air standards (the cheaper alternative to installing shafts). The ad hoc frenzy to keep in-line with the ever growing list of new requirements offers new smart cities an alluring appeal, as well as rebuilding existing city buildings from the floor up.
Progressing living standards:
Built from scratch on a sci-fi blank canvas, new smart cities optimise design with stacked living to cater to today’s way of living. A typical smart city project has top stack as open-air & pedestrianised, middle stack one level below for services like deliveries & refuse collection, and bottom stack for transport powered by clean energy. One example is The Line in Saudi Arabia, a 170km strip connecting 4 ecologies: coast, desert, mountains & valley, and home to NEOM: a city being built for a million residents that preserves 95% of nature with no cars or streets and zero carbon emissions.
Gone are rubbish collection days with torn trash bags sprawled across streets attracting little creatures and agitating traffic with pollution. Instead there is the opportunity to implement concepts like the 15 minute city, dreamt up by Sorbonne professor Carlos Moreno, where everything and everyone can be reached within a 15 minute radius of existing cities and new smart cities implementing 5 minutes.
Existing cities are also getting smarter, streamlining commutes by 15–20% with smart mobility, like installing IoT sensors on existing physical infrastructure, helping to avoid break downs & delays and optimise traffic signals to reduce congestion. Singapore smart city ranks high in smart cities in the world. The first country to establish a Smart Minister in 2014, Singapore had a $12b budget for transportation development in 2018, invested in IoT sensors, AI, EV charging points and Autonomous Vehicles (AV) for freight & public transport; with driverless buses set to launch in 2022 and Volvo working on electric buses. All of which making Singapore one of the least congested cities in the world, according to KPMG’s 2020 index — a great IoT smart city example.
According to Smart City Government and the sixth edition of the annual IESE Cities in Motion Index 2019, of all the smart cities in the world, London is ranked top. As a Londoner, I must say I’m surprised signalling there remains a long road ahead. Though the £1m+ property club boroughs are showing their support of electric vehicles, with 1 in 27 having ultra low emission cars. Though there are only 1 in 500 owners in areas with fewer £1m+ properties, reported by Savills; demonstrating affluence playing a key role with progress.
Why move now?
Consequences of Covid lockdown have brought the office home with more freedoms and trust to employees (unless you’re unblessed with the rare Jurassic bosses in breach of Government guidance — is there a forum to name them?). We are slowly returning to pre-industrial revolution ways of business, where employers purchased complete products rather than owning allocations of a person’s time & geographical location; for a brilliant historic account read Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari.
According to the Economist, companies have raised more capital in 2020 than ever before. Venture capital previously allocated to property and bonds markets are renavigating to tech & equities. Increased taxes and costs to the property sector and low returns from bonds & deposits are pushing investment away and toward established tech (med/fin/ed/com/entertainment), clean energy and for those with high risk appetite to start-ups. [3] 60% of American entrepreneurs believe AI to be the most promising, with autonomous transportation and cleantech in top five most promising, fortunly.
The greater push toward tech and more permanent flexible Work From Home options offered by for example Twitter, Zillow, Aviva & Salesforce, are resetting employment norms. This opens-up where we choose to live and for how long — it’s not only hippies and nomads dividing their year between Ibiza, London, Berlin & Goa but tech giants and entrepreneurs. Now imagine what Soho House has done for Entertainment/F&B, in creating the ultimate exclusive international membership club that’s not so exclusive with over 100,000 members; superimposed on the smart city model with international collaborative partnerships.[4] Becoming one of many key features of smart city living.
Lest not we forget the children, as my 6 year old son casually walks in — mainstream schools already have international partnerships & exchanges in place, as well chains like the Lycee Francais and Montesouri, forming a solid foundation for progress. According to HolonicIQ, venture capital investment in EdTech doubled in the last 2 years, from $8n in 2018 to $16B in 2020; they forecast advanced AR/VR tech expenditure in global education will rise from $1.8b in 2018 to a staggering $12.6b in 2025. [5] With home-schooling set throughout 2020/2021 as a minimum; by December 2020 I had already witnessed a fundamental change to school policy where school winter holiday was extended from 3 to 5 weeks to accommodate time for travel plus 10-day isolation — surely this brings into question the entire school calendar & locality with room for collective progress.
Top 6 favourites Futuristic Goodies:
1) While today’s markets are rife with talk of Apple’s autonomous cars and their competition Tesla, lets return to 1982 and Blade Runner’s flying cars that exist today. AKA Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL), Germany’s Volocopter runs on Microsoft azure and battery packs 100% electric, with their first flight back in 2011.
2)Gravity Industries are augmenting the body & mind with jetpack powered human flight. As the name implies, gravity defying flight using human jet suits you can now try for yourself on one of their experience days.
3) As a child I dreamt about travelling to places, being shot up by tubes; Virgin Hyperloop is getting us on step closer with its 100% electric engine. There are a number of companies exploring hyperloop; powered by solar panels, lithium-ion batteries and high strength magnets to levitate the internal pods propelled in the vacuum. It’s worth noting, there are environmental & health challenges in mining for the lithium and magnets, which the industry is starting to consider.
4) Using 65 cent red building bricks, the kind you see in buildings everywhere, Washington University in St. Louis, have found a way to convert them into energy storage units, charged like batteries. Connected with solar cells, 50 bricks would enable powering emergency lighting for five hours. Food for thought for smart city examples!
5) Rotterdam, an experimental architects haven, have built the first Floating (smart) Farm, home to 32 cows — dream child of Beladon and architecture studio Goldsmith. Powered by solar energy, using fresh water from rainwater collection & purification systems, with robots that milk cows and clear away manure; the transparent architecture also educates as well as cuts carbon emissions by producing local dairy products. As I’m more partial to a greener diet, architect Javier Ponce of Forward Thinking Architecture designed a three tier system 24m tall system that would produce an estimated 8.1 tonnes of vegetables and 1.7 tonnes of fish a year with just a 350 x 200m space. Again solar panels on the top tier, vegetables grown in middle using nutrients in liquid and not soil, that drip to the bottom tier to feed the fish. Designed to be integrated into cities, the floating farm creates local produce reducing food miles.
6) While this one is more about conservation, it does give our future hope: 3D-printed coral structures that could rebuild world’s damaged reefs
[1] London suburbs achieved the highest number of £1 million+ sales on 2019: Bromley, Barnet and Haringey saw the highest percentage rise, with the most transactions taking place in Wandsworth with a 25% rise and Richmond upon Thames rose over 20%. For context, inner city transactions in Westminster fell by 6.4% and Kensington & Chelsea rose by just 5.6%.
[2] 7 million people die each year from air pollution, 4.2 million people dying as a result of exposure to ambient (outdoor) air pollution.
[3] Note, weaker start-ups have been greatly affected post pandemic, with 60% reducing salaries’ or cutting jobs and receiving approximately 50% less or slowed investment than expected, see Start Up Genome’s 2020 repot.
[4] Whilst Soho House’s profits reflect they may have expanded too quickly, the demand and concept is none-the-less a game changer.
[5] 2020 EdTech grow by 18% globally, 72% in the UK with exceptional growth in AR (+119%), digital classrooms (+65%), and SaaS (+57%).
