You are accessing the Global Goodman site. Are you looking for your local Goodman site?

Growth of urban technologies

In this episode of Thought starters, Tim Williams from ARUP and Director at Publicani explores how younger generations are inspiring change in global cities with their purchases.

With consumers gaining more control of the purchase and delivery process, cities are going to need to adapt to keep up. 

"The consumer is becoming even more sovereign, even more in control of the process of understanding what they want, shaping what they want, ordering what they want, and receiving what they want" says Tim. It’s how we manage our cities in this era of new technological opportunities, that becomes the issue.”

Internationally, every major city has many more people living within a few kilometres of its CBD than it had in previous generations. As a result, delivery systems are transforming.

"We're definitely going to see that more and more places across the city are going to be required for localised warehousing and distribution to smaller places around them" says Tim. 

He goes on to question whether the same models of desire that we've had in previous generations apply to what is happening next. In other words, will the young people of today want the same things as the people that went before them? 

"People coming forward, younger than me are actually used to this process of change and can adapt to this process of change" says Tim. Part of this is younger people’s engagement with modern technology and the possibilities it can bring. Their enthusiasm for technology and expectations around it have actually created cross-generational dialogue which is crucial.

"We need to be rationally optimistic about the urban and technological future, where you create something together."  

"We're definitely going to see that more and more places across the city are going to be required for localised warehousing and distribution to smaller places around them."