Three ‘cities of the future’ that could change the way we live

What will the cities of the future look like? Many architects have created visions of sustainable utopias all over the planet - but what about the cities that could really be built?

Around the world, projects are raising money (and beginning to build) some startlingly ambitious cities - from a Utopian city in a US desert to an artificial intelligence-powered desert metropolis with its own ski resort in Saudi Arabia.

These are some of the world’s most ambitious city projects that are either currently being built, or at the planning stage.

Idris Elba’s Sherbro City

Idris Elba is known to millions as the star of TV shows and films including Luther and the Wire – but he also has a vision for a ‘smart city’ in Sierra Leone, where his father was born.

Elba describes the project of the city of Sherbro as a ‘big dream’, but Sherbro Alliance Partners (SAP) struck a deal in 2019 with the Sierra Leone government to develop an island into a sustainable destination.

He is now working with architects Foster and Partners to develop the plans.

Elba told the BBC this year: "It's a dream, you know, but I work in the make-believe business.

"It's about being self-reliant, it's about bringing an economy that feeds itself and has growth potential. I'm very keen to reframe the way Africa is viewed… as an aid model.

"This opportunity is completely different."

The island is a little over the size of the Isle of Man near Britain, and Elba says: “The character of the island hopefully will remain intact. It's a beautiful, green part of the world and we don't want to disturb that."

Telosa

The city of Telosa is backed by e-commerce billionaire Marc Lore, who says he wants to create a city of the future with a ‘reformed vision of capitalism’.

With a planned budget of $400bn (£320bn), Lore has devoted himself to the project, which is expected to be built between Nevada, Arizona and Utah.

The city will have a focus on sustainability, and be powered by renewable energy.

Fossil fuel vehicles will be banned, with plans for residents to be able to walk everywhere or use scooters and autonomous electric vehicles.

The economic philosophy behind Telosa is 'equitism', which promotes equitable opportunities for everyone and will see city dwellers share in the city’s success - with the value of the land used to fund housing, training and education.

Lore has said, "If you really want to go after your moonshot, which I would consider this city to be, you have to start with a big, bold vision.

"You need to raise or acquire capital, you need to surround yourself with the very best people in the world.

"If you get those three things right, you can achieve incredible things."

NEOM

The mind-bogglingly ambitious Saudi Arabian NEOM project has wormed its way into many people’s consciousness through adverts on social media - and it is truly biblical in scale.

With a budget of more than $1tn and a planned completion date of 2039 (with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants by 2030), NEOM is perhaps the most ambitious city project of all time.

Being built in Tabuk, it has a planned area of more than 10,000 square miles, a ski resort, a free port and a tourist town - along with a ‘linear city’ snaking into the desert.

The ambitious ‘The Line’ linear city has been scaled back from a planned 100-mile length to a mere mile and a half (other details that have been dropped along the way include a plan for an artificial moon and for half of the population to be service robots).

The plans for The Line and NEOM more generally involve large amounts of advanced technology such as AI - and have ambitious plans for the use of renewables including solar and wind.

The $38bn ski resort (in a region where temperatures can soar above 50C) is symbolic of the extreme ambition of NEOM - but with the plans for The Line scaled back, how much of NEOM will become reality?