Sitting Around the Fire
February 25, 2025
Using Technology to Build More Inclusive, Smart, and Resilient Cities
Urban planning shapes how we live, work, and move within cities. At its best, it creates economic opportunities, promotes social connections, and ensures that infrastructure, housing, and public spaces serve everyone. But as cities grow at unprecedented rates, urban planning struggles to keep up. Population growth, climate change, and rapid urbanization stretch resources thin, leading to housing shortages, infrastructure gaps, and widening inequalities.
In many cities, development is uneven. Take Nairobi, for example. Some areas modernize quickly, while others lag, impacting access to basic services. Clean water, sanitation, electricity, access to education, waste management, emergency response, and law enforcement vary widely. Some neighborhoods enjoy reliable services, while others barely get by. At the same time, informal settlements keep expanding, highlighting the deep inequalities in urban development.
Urban planning needs to evolve alongside cities. Other industries are already transforming through technology, so why should planning be any different? Traditional methods still rely on static maps, outdated data collection approaches, and slow bureaucratic processes that often fail to reflect the real and immediate needs of communities. This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) can make a difference.
AI can analyze vast amounts of data, from traffic patterns, and climate risks, to population shifts, giving planners deeper insights and helping them make smarter, faster decisions. It can predict the impact of new developments, model future scenarios, and even automate time-consuming processes. AR, on the other hand, makes planning visual and interactive. Instead of relying on maps and reports that many people don’t have access to or don’t know how to use or interpret, AR lets communities and decision-makers see and experience proposed changes in real-time and in the real world.
More importantly, technology can be a tool for inclusion, not just efficiency. For years, advanced technology and technical knowledge have been reserved for a few — the so-called “professional class” — those with access, resources, and expertise. But today, technology such as AI and AR can give everyone a voice in shaping their cities. By making urban planning more participatory, these tools can bridge the gap between experts and everyday citizens, ensuring that decisions reflect the needs of the communities they impact the most. Technology can unite people through a shared vision of the future. It can bring communities, planners, and decision-makers together, helping cities become more inclusive, efficient, and resilient.
The real question isn’t whether technology will reshape urban planning, it already is. The question is: Will we embrace it in time to build cities that work for everyone?
