Abundant scenarios

A major obstacle to using data-driven scenarios in urban planning is the cost and time involved in producing them. Over the next decade, however, AI-powered simulations will make it possible to generate and explore countless potential future urban scenarios quickly and affordably. Technologies like synthetic populations, photo-realistic image generators, and faster and more detailed physics-based models will enable urban planners to produce an abundance of detailed urban scenarios that were previously too time-consuming or expensive to create. These scenarios can better illustrate real-time changes in population, infrastructure, and environmental conditions.

This proliferation of scenarios will spur innovation in new styles of climate adaptaiton planning. Cities will be able to engage communities with a broader and more diverse range of possible futures, pressure test and iterate plans more rapidly, and understand and explain the costs and benefits of decisions more transparently.