Cities of the Future: Technology and the Challenges of Emerging Market Megacities

Rapid economic growth has accelerated urbanization, driving the development of megacities across the globe. While urbanization offers increased efficiency, businesses development, and improved standards of living, the continued growth of urban metropoles also places great strain on natural resources, the environment, infrastructure and governance. The Accenture Megacities Capstone Project aim was to understand current trends and drivers of change in emerging megacities as well as determine the main challenges and risks faced by megacities in emerging markets. Building on this, the team identified opportunities for new markets, infrastructure investments, and specifically, the use of new technology to manage the increased strain of resources due to urban population growth.

The project first identified various approaches to challenges different cities have employed, including nascent technology-based solutions, and then assessed how well different megacities have capitalized on opportunities and would likely manage future challenges. The four key areas the team focused on were: Transport, Energy, Water and Healthcare. The project explored relationships within these four categories, controlling for variation in city characteristics in order to identify any systematic patterns linking challenges and solutions in order to isolate opportunities and risks. The project methodology employed a range of approaches as appropriate to each topic including quantitative approaches to extrapolate trends, qualitative exploration of best practices and state of the art technologies, and the use of scenario analysis to forecast the implications of various technological solutions across city types.

The team made specific recommendations for future opportunities for investment related to four focus areas: Transport, Energy, Water and Healthcare.  Specifically, the team emphasized the use of urban science and informatics in the domains of energy, buildings, transportation, water distribution, including the use of tools such as spatial data infrastructure, optimization strategies and data processing for quality control and calibration across systems. Additional avenues for future exploration include the development of Public-Private partnerships in the areas of waste water treatment and water utilities and the use of ‘green’ infrastructure technology such as porous pavements, green roof technology, and water reclamation and reuse programs are each recommended areas for future consideration.