urban planning

The China Railway Research and Development Corporation (CRRC) has introduced the autonomous guided, track- and wireless tram, a major advance in the design and technology known as Autonomous Rapid Transit (ART), a LiDAR-guided articulated bus system for urban passenger transport. It was developed by CRRC Zhuzhou Institute Co Ltd and was unveiled in 2017 in Zhuzhou, Huan Province. The product was described as a cross between a bus and a tram, commonly referred to as a "tram  without tracks".

Toyota has begun construction of Woven City, its prototype city of the future, at the foot of Mount Fuji, on the site of its former car factory in Shizuoka Prefecture. Woven City will serve as a living laboratory and intellectual workshop for the scientists working there to develop the technologies of the future.

One of the key goals of building the city is to test new system and service ideas that expand mobility and unleash human potential. The planned city will cover a total area of 708 000 square metres, with a planned housing capacity of 2 000 people. 

The large-scale real estate development project known as BudaPart is one of Budapest's largest brownfield-revitalisations in the Lágymányosi Bay area, next to River Danube.

One of the largest residential complexes in Hungary was built in the city centre of Szeged from more than 7000 prefabricated elements and a total of 8510 m3 of concrete. The project in Huszár Street includes 593 apartments, offices and shops.

The six-hectare site, replacing the industrial character of the former cable factory and wholesale food site, will provide a green environment for its future residents in the city centre. Cedar Grove takes its name from the evergreen that grows there.

One of the most famous examples of railroad reuse as a green space is the High Line (or High Line Park) in New York, which has been recognised as an icon of innovative design since its opening in 2009, and serves as a model for the reuse of abandoned infrastructure in other cities around the world. However, not everyone knows that the design of the High Line itself was based on another development, the Coulée verte René-Dumont (also known as the Promenade Plantée) in Paris, which opened in the early 1990s.

The 1879 flood in Szeged practically leveled the city, which was then built of adobe houses with irregular lines, to the ground. Although the steadily rising flood levels since 1855 and the floods of the 1870s highlighted the weakness of the embankments and the lack of organised protection, no planned intervention was made.   

In the centre of Kreuzberg, in the east of Berlin, is the landscape wound left behind by the railway, which until 2011 defined the district. Over the years, nature has started to take over the abandoned railway, which German urban development agency Atelier Loidl has taken the opportunity to transform into a diverse park forest, using the infrastructure elements left behind.  

Merwede is a neighbourhood in Utrecht, one of the fastest growing cities in the Netherlands. An old industrial area, it is now undergoing a transformation process based on urban planning criteria that puts clean and shared mobility ahead of the existing prioritisation of road traffic.The demolition works have begun in 2020 and the final project includes sustainable housing for around 12,000 people (the first residents are expected to move in by 2024). The new neighbourhood of Merwede will enable residents to access all the services on foot or using bicycles.

The municipality of Rotterdam and the Rotterdam Port Authority want to develop M4H (Merwe-Vierhavens, a 100 years old harbour area in the City of Rotterdam, a brownfield area with heavily polluted soil) into an innovative living-work environment, optimally equipped for innovative manufacturing industry and with a mix of working, residential, culture, catering, sports and education. An energetic district with an impact on both the city and the port.

In 2017, the municipality and the Port Authority formulated five objectives for M4H:

Schoonschip is Amsterdam’s innovative circular neighbourhood, a community-driven project set to become a prototype for floating urban developments. It is situated in the North of Amsterdam, in the Johan van Hasseltkanaal. This neighborhood used to contain mostly industrial activity, and now is transformed into a sustainable residential area.