Emerging patterns of change for tomorrow’s cities

Today, climate and demographic changes are becoming the greatest challenges for cities and their multicultural populations. On the other hand, there is a growing societal acceptance of information and communication technologies around the globe. And this connectivity is influencing both design thinking and research methods, while generating large quantities and a wide variety of data. In this paper, emerging patterns of change for future cities are surveyed, and international networks for urban research are highlighted. As such, criteria to analyze and compare trends, shifts and hypes in urban studies and planning are searched. Moreover, interactions between open data and green infrastructures are foreseen, in order to promote public development for future cities. Finally, a need for common mind sets and methods is claimed, namely between computing and social sciences, to engage local communities and public organizations.