Mega City 2070, a new tool from the American Society of Civil Engineers, is designed to jump-start discussions among engineers and others about the future of the built environment and how today's choices will play out over the next 50 years.

ASCEreleased the beta version of Mega City on Feb. 22 as part of National Engineers Week. Built on the Unity game engine, Mega City offers users a highly detailed look at a theoretical city of 50 million people in the year 2070 with an interactive 3D model. It focuses on six key trends — alternative energy, autonomous vehicles, climate change, smart cities, high-tech construction and policy and funding — through the lenses of different neighborhoods, potential technology and other projected trends. It also looks into issues facing the future city, including construction and materials, energy and utility, architecture, transportation, water and waste and the environment, and the action that will be needed to adapt over the years.

Mega City 2070桌面应用程序可作为免费下载。

ASCE首席创新官Gerald（Jerry）Buckwalter说，想法是要问有关以前可能从未提出过的未来环境的问题。

他说：“这是关于在开始设计和构建之前，要思考我们从建筑环境中想要的生活质量和社会利益。”

对于Buckwalter说明该模型提出的问题类型的示例，他指出了运输。道路需要多么“聪明”？如果可用的自动航空客车可用，那对道路表面意味着什么？如果3D打印成为世界建立事物的主要方式，这将如何影响道路表面交通或海上交通？

“The world in which we live is becoming more complex and changing at an accelerating pace,” Dennis D. Truax, ASCE president, said in a statement. “Understanding the drivers of change is more critical than ever. Our future will require a new way of doing things. Mega City 2070 helps connect the dots and ensures all systems are integrated in the future.”

虽然这似乎是科幻小说，但巨型城市的设计是对未来城市可能包含的东西的合理预测。Buckwalter说，为了实现这一合理性，他们与在美国国防部或情报机构创建现实未来情况的同样类型的顾问合作。他们研究了从技术到环境，自然资源到社会期望，再到经济的一切，然后集中在这些因素的交织线程上。

Mega City是ASCE未来世界宣明计划的最新项目，该协会希望建模至少五个未来社区中的第一个。巴克瓦尔特说，考虑到城市化趋势是最相关的，他们选择了巨型城市模型，因为它是最相关的。此外，他们想从一个比其他城市少的城市开始，而在现有城市的发展中，这是近期挑战。

The Future World Vision team unveiled its proof-of-concept forFloating Cityin 2019, as ENR previously reported. Buckwalter says it was inspired by expectations for evolving coastal resilience strategies that may involve moving offshore. And while rising sea levels will likely push many people further inland, Buckwalter adds that the Floating City concept is again designed to prompt discussions about the future.

“It’s more provocative,” he says. “It forces people to think about coastal phenomena differently.”

The team also has plans for a Rural City model. The opening of the Arctic amid climate change inspired a Frozen City model with the expectation that there will be a need for built environment on permafrost as the world’s supply chain starts moving through the Arctic. There are plans for an Offworld City. There has also been interest in a potential sixth Desert City examining trends for parts of the Middle East and Global South.

The project is the result of collaboration between ASCE, subject matter experts, designers, developers from the firm Experimental Design and futurists. Before joining ASCE, Buckwalter worked on long-term technology planning and developing future scenario assessments for the government.

“I discovered that some version of that was really needed for those who touch the civil built environment, because the same changes that I was analyzing were going to impact our civil infrastructure as much as it’s going to impact our military infrastructure, or national sovereignty issues, or global security,” he says. “But nobody outside the classified community does this with this kind of rigor.”

Buckwalter says the full production version of Mega City 2070 will launch in the fall.