anmod: welcome to "global 3000!" this week, we take out o our crystal ball and check out the cities of the future. just what will life be like in our world's urban centres in 20, 50, 100 years? we look at some of the fascinating ideas alady beinin developed, and learn autut new technologies and innovations, as well as the work some visionary architects. alall of which r raises a cenl questition -- who wiwill actuy be a able to afforord to liven the city of the future? according to the imf's global

house price index, ovever the past 20 years prprices have rin and risen with a small dip just after the financial crisis. over the last 10 years, the cost of many essentials in oecd countries has gone down food, for example, leisure activities, clothing. others, meanwhile have stayed constant, like transportation costs and health. but rent and mortgage repayments have become significantly higher. housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable for many. and yet it is a basic human right, as laid out in article 11 of the un 's covenant on social rights. states parties to the present covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself

and his family, including adequate food, clothing, and housing.g. we m met an activistst who ner tires of r reminding sococietf this. > the world's c cities ae drawining people likike magne. but living in urban centers is often unaffordable. rising housing costs have become a flashpoint. the global real estate market has long since become disconnected from its function of providing people with places to live. real estatisis an vestmeme, an -- a commoty, an object of speculation, o of profit. in germamany alone, two millin apartmtments and homomes stand empty they're just scuculative investmentnts. flawed. -- leieilani farha s says te system is flflawed.

until recently the canadn n was the specicialapporteueuon aduatete houng. e featurur in a recent dodocumentary whwhich shows hes she travels s the world toto go the bottom of the housing crisis she speaks with polititicians, instors, tenants' associciations, and d with pee experienencing displacacementr eviction. her un mandate ended in apll 20. bubut leilani fafarha is stl pursuingng the issue.. she e now runs her own ganization from her home in otottawa. ilanani: the righght to adequatate houg is thehe right to lilive somewe with peace, , security and dignity, andnd i actualllly think k it's probablbly the mt pressingng social isissue facg cities foror sure around the woworld. >> leilani f farha says adadeqe hohousing is a h human right somehting politicansftften dodon't realize e and investorss often , ignore. a home f for everyone e afford, , of a decent size andococation. in the film,m, farha discucuss

wiwith experts w why this righs beining disregardeded more and . leililani: you havave human ris obobligations, a and you can'tt these ininvestors and d the financial sysystem run amomok its n. saski at i sees those th power boy can they dloloy the w in ys thahawork with them. stststst h happening, , you k. we havave arved atat aoment where there is a gaping ho i in ouour syem. most of f our major ininternatl syststems don't tatakehe individualo seriously. >> this is berlin's kreuzberg district -- lively,

cosmopolitan, in the center of the city. it's especially popular with young people. it's also changing. for instance number 83 wrangelstrasse was recently bought by an investor. but none of the tenants know what his plans are. carlos martinez, originally from the united states, lives here with his wife and children. their 75 square meter flat has two rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom. they pay less than 10 euros per square meter, heat included. that's now cheap for berlin. the family is happy here. carlos: we know the people in the neighborhood, we have seen their children grow up. and now we have our own children. and we just would like to stay here. >> w will the new owner renovae the bubuildi, raise the rerent, and put the individual apartments up for sale? that's a common strategy. the courtyard has become a meeting place. everyone here is worried.

will they be forced to leave their neighborhood, like so many others in berlin? the building's previous owner, who passed away in 2016, didn't want the building to be sold. but his will was declared invalid due to formal irregularities. the building eventually ended up on the open market. it was bought by henrik ulven, a norwegian investor and director of a network of companies. he didn't answer our requests for an intnterview. rebecca büchner has lived here for more than 30 years and has seen her neighborhood transformed. rebecca: of course hehe'll raise the res as much as he possibly can. they always raise it to the maximum,m, until it hurts. in a turbo-capitalistic fashion. for me, that means that sooner or later, i'll be gentrified out of here. leilani: the whole business model is

based on the idea of taking square meters of living spacace -- and youou have to, s is h how they're tnking a and squeezing out ofof every squqe meter as much h prit as ththey caca so that i is the extractie inindustry of hihigh finance t has moveininto an area thahat happens toto be, in fact, a hun right. and that's the rub. >> t the residents o of the kreuzberg apartment building ready to put up a fight. they've named their activist group in memory of willi their former landlord. at housing demonstrations, they march with tenants from other buildings facing the same situation. lisa: this process of displacement is really an anonymous one. it simply happens. one building after the next is bought up on the street. the tenants are squeezed out.

on t the outside, it's n not vie atat all unless s people get organized. >> leilani farha says mu re p pubc debatetes needed asell as pssure on poticians and investors, including legal action. wi thahat wo? can ththe real estatate sector change i its thinking g and approachleilani: i never r think about t that s t possible. i i think beususe what is stronger t than humarirights? i believeve the strtrength of human rights against all of the -- these are just human beings with greed. so i'm o on the winning sidede here, that's for sure. that's for sure. [laughter] and: course, no one knowexactly whatat the cities s of the fue wiwill be ke t thougone thinins

for ceain, they'y'll be full. the un says that by 2050, two-thirds of e global populalation wl live in n cies. trafaffic, streamsms of commut, popollution someme big solutis are needed. the smt city mod could be one of thehem. suchitities are digigitally organised d and highly effffic. and ththere are alrerey places offering a taste in this ature. -- of this feature. kyoto in japan and songdo in south korea. >> the south korean capital seoul is a teeming metropolis of ten million, a finance hub and center for the arts. there's plenty of tradition here, but not much scope for large-e-scale urban developmen. that's taking place 40 kilometers to the west -- songdo international business district is being built from the ground up on six square kilometers of reclaimed land.

it has been billed as the "smart city" of the 21st century and embodies pioneering work on the part of architects, construction companies, environmental and high-tech firms, and computer network experts. this model city is overseen and run by a gigantic computer -- giant computer s system. it's the brains of the city. all public b bldings and homes e equippeded with digitall sensnsors and contntrols thatn be operated remotely and are , monitored centrally. sensors relay a room's teerature and energy use. it's all being track a and can bebe adjusted inindividuall. residents cacan monitor and reduce their consumption. municipal staff can optimize the use of resources. they see power consumption at every node and can match production to demand. the garbage disposal system is alalso extremelyly clever. trash from apartment b buildins

and offices travels via chutes and pipes straight to processing plants. the system regulates who may discard what kind of garbage at what time. this smart city only functions thanks to the digital network and ubiquitous monitoring. isn't there also a risk of unwanted surveillance? personal data could prove to be the most valuable product generarated in a smamart city, because they are t the basis fr targeted i informati or advevertising. inyoyoto, jan, u us tenologygy group cisco is working on arart cicity solutionsns managing t, flows of tourists to landmksks acroross t beaututul old city, and enerergy-savinststreet ligs thatat only get brbrighter whenn peopople are nearbrby. fofor all this t to work, peops

behavior and movements have to capture -- be captured with the hehelp of surveieillance came. but what if f facial recogognin softwaware were added to the mx and if interactiveve informatin panenels to -- whehere to colt data to generate pfifiles of paicularar iividuals smarcicity thnologogy should make peoeople's lives s easierd better, but we have to mak re i it don't lelead to totall surveillance and control. anmod: new technolologies are onene tg there's also "new architecture." today's housing policies are often about getting apartments built as quickly and cheaply as possible to get a handle on the acute shortage of them. but for many architects that's simply too narrow a vision. they want t sustainable e buils and a radical rethinking of priorities. >> the new delhi skyline is a mixture of modern skyscrapers and energy intensive, poorly designed constructions.

carbon emissions from buildings are often neglected in the climate dedebate. but in india, buildings alone and their construction are said to contribute up to 40% of energy-relatated carbon ememiss. architecect nilanjan b bhowals been desesigning sustatainable, functional b buildings for ovr 2020 years. he says s they're morere urgey needed thahan ever. but erere are still a lot of miscononceptions abobout what n bubuilding desigign really me. nilanjan:: the e biggest mythth is that pe believe that a gre h home is one with a lot of green pltsts -- y you p in a a t of plantnt lawn andrarass a it becos green.hich is noso. a green bubuilding is actutuay greeeen because it respects nature a and uses replplenishe resourceces, and reducuces was, reduceces consumptioion and we recycle e a lot of matererials. >> one of bhowal's designs in new delhi is famous for being

india's first t five-star ratd greeeen residentiaial building,, called green one. it's been certified by research and polilicy organizatioion, e energy andnd resources i insti. large windows provide lots of natural light, while double glazining, a relatively new feure e in iia, ininsutes thee ilding, eping itool in dia's hot summers. the building also generates renewable energy and harvests rainwater. it's a able to capturere 75% os water needs and also saves a lot elelectrity. it cts m morto build this wa t t thesfeaturur pay off over ti. nilanjan: i thk it i istill woh it if u spend % more 50% m me, and for five yes it p pays foitself andfterer

that it runs virtually free cost and you areivining ck to ture genenerations andnd givig back to the e environment. we a are now moving g towars concept ofof zero-carbonon, neto builildings, which are goioino give b back more than they consume and that's the n need f the hourur , right now.. >> at the moment india has around 1.4 million modern homes built with a green concept which amounts to less than 5% of all residential properties. the indian green building council hopes to take this number up to 10% in the next two years, and some states have begun providing more incentives to green certified construction. however, these figures do not include ththe countless s hous built by h hand in ruralal ina tradititional dwellings ththate , , often green in their own right.

nilalanjan: we a are always inspired by or old structures. history has to be ststudied because historically what we have built naturally, it is known that they are the best structures. what we dodo is we contetempore it. >> bhowal renovated his own house in 2000. he was inspired by the traditional methods of environmentatally friendndly construction. ninilanjan: i have used all l the brokenen tiles s that came out frfrom e toililets. so a all that was brokoken andd in the form ofof a pattern, ad since a a lot of those werere t colored d tiles, they reflflea lolot of heat as welell. >> more peoplele can now a afd the initiaial investmentntnd me indians are growing aware of the impact of their choices on the environment. nilanja strongly feel that sustaibility has to stt from homeand you ve to adt a

sustainable lifeylyle bere you want to suainanabland green ildidingso i think the lifestyle coming, and pandemic or not,his s rely will pick up, d i i amure thatost-covisituatiowe are getting lot c callsrom clientsayiyinghat lets mpmplifyur homom, let's go for -- let's kp p morepen areas, let'so fofor re green measureslelet's ant momo trees beuse e th help in taking care of pollution as well. >> is green building design the wave of the future in india? architects like nilanjan bhowal hope sand are rey to play their partrt. anmod: rethinking cities is a mammoth task with heaps of challenges. how, for example, will we keep the cities of the future clean? in 2016, the world's households produced two billion tons of

waste. by 2050, estimates suggest there will be 3.4 bbillion tons of it , 80% from cities. fofor most of usus, rubbish ist a pain. it looks badad, smells bada. anand yet it hasas huge potent: through clever recycling, can ke e extrely usesefu products from it, like in the netherlands. >> we'rere using naturural reresources at a a very fast p. some are finite, others renewable but nature can't keep , up with us. we also generate vast amountns of greenhouse gases cities account for 70% of them. the dutch capital amsterdam is aiming to create a circular economy by 2050. that involves curtailing the use ofof new raw materials, avoiding , wastete, and reusig

as much as possiblble, thereby slashing emimissions. the e city sanitation departmet fishes 42 tons o of floating plastic trash out of the canals every year. a lot more probably gets through. anne: we knonow that arounund two ths of all the plaststic in the ocn actually traveled by our rivers towards the ocean. quite some trash that you see on the street or that is there ends up in the rivers. and then, of course, the rivers flow towards the sea. so it's one of kind of transport mechanisms of plastic pollution. and that's why we would really like to stop it there. >> anne marieke eveleens is behind a start-up, the great bubble barrier, and its innovative technology. here is how it works -- a tube is laid across the bed of a waterway. air is pumumped out of holes along it. the bubbles drive trash in the water to the surface, , towars the bank and into a receptacle. , tests have shown that on average 86% of trash in the water can be collected this way. the garbage that ends up in the

container is removed three times a week. for now, only one bubble barrier has s been installed n amsterdam. it's a pilot project, but the potential both in the city and worldwide is enormous. >> i have multiple sectors that have interest in this, for example. you can imagine that companies that have a benefit of tourists coming by, they want beaches that are clean, they want river sites that are clean. they want to have terraces where you can sit on nicely. and on the moment you install such a system, you can you can make it clean and make sure that it looks nice to visit agaiain. >> the fm has received financial support from the government. it's also woworking on ways to recycle all l the collected tra. cities also generatete ls s of wastewatater. as unlely y as imimight seem

the water flushed d down our totoilets contains valaluabe resources that could be retrieved. scientists in the netherlands have developed a new wastewater purfication system to do just that. one of the end products is a gum they call kaumera, which has many applications as a glue or binding agent in the manufacturing and construction industries. peter: if you want t to have a circulr society, then we should up-cycle all our waste streams and wastewater is a very important waste ststreams. and nowadays what happens is if in the end produce bio gas with it, with bio gas is relatively low value application. and by producing this kaumera, this glue,e, we can use this ge for high value applicationons. so what we want to do in the end is to produce high value building material for the city using wastewater from the city. >> standard industriallulues arare ma from m oil, which i it

good for t the environmemen. in the new p process, bactctea purify the wastewater. the kaumera isis a side benefi. a single plant can proroduce upo 800 tons of it today year. -- of it a year. in this lab, researchers are working on new biodegradable materials. they mix kaumera witith recycld toilet paper and various combinations of peach pits and almond and pistachio s shells. so far, they've made road signs and developean architectural cladding material, made out of 80% organic materials. more r & d is needed before this new composite based on kaumera and toilet paper can come to market but prospects look good. willem: for instance, tropical hardwoods ththat's beatable by this material. and also aluminium and aluminium is a huge market, but

aluminium has a very, very high co2 footprint. and a good thing of this material is you can beat its mechanical propertieies and al co2 properties you beat it to anyway. so then the price will be the challenge. and i think the upcoming ten years, we will try to replace aluminium by this kaumera composite e material. >> r recycling andnd upcycling organinic waste and d construcn waste coululd be a moneyey spir and woululd certainly y be goor ththe environmenent. amamsterdam's bebeen known as sa great t place for emissions-eee cyclcling for decacades. it's still a long waway away fm achihievina circrcul economy. the plan is to make th h happen by050 anan aitious g gl for a city determimined to be a a pio. ♪ anmnmod: and now,w, we leave technonology behind d and headt to t the mexican c countrysideo meetet a family liliving much e the nerarations beforere them.

♪ adela: hellllo, my name i is adel i i spend most o of my time hen the kitchehen. it's w where i like e to be. this is s my mother-inin-law,d this is mymy sisr-in-l-law i like it t when they cocome v. my eldest t daughter is s 1. her name is maria guadupe. my otherer daughter elisea is . that's migiguel, and that'ts jojosé-luis.s. i have f five childrenen. that's my neph. thth is the griddle where i mamake ttillasas.

i enjoy rkrking in the kitchen and do everythg byby hand here. when my y family are o out all, i get upup at three inin the rning to make them tortillas for nch.h. then i makake some me e that w t hot t fosupper.. i make torortillas twice a da. ♪ here theyey are. thank you u for coming t to se! anmod:d:

and now it's time for us to say goodbye too! thanks for watching. we'd love to hear from you you can email us at global3000@dw.com. see you next week. ♪

and in the heart of moscow is to place the best represents what vladimir