how is housing changing? how is mobility changing? will we soon be seeing flying cars? or floating cities in the clouds - or even in space? there's no shortage of inspiring, exciting visions of cities of the future. but the reality is sobering: from over-stretched infrastructure to climate change, many cities today are in crisis. what can we do to make them more liveable?

if you think of just the modes of transportation throughout history, just going from, you know, horse and buggy to rail, to ocean-going vessels, steamliners, airships, there's always been something new to try out that would solve some of the problems of the old. and each one of those new things has introduced its own new problems. today's transportation mix is no exception. the biggest problem is that roughly a quarter of global energy-related carbon emissions are linked to transport. but that's just one of many many people have the experience of being stuck in traffic. and of course, people don't like that. there's also the high cost of kind of owning a vehicle, if you have to do that in order to get around. and unfortunately, you know, in many places, transit services are not always the most accessible, the most efficient, even the most affordable.

traffic jams are so universally hated they're the butt of jokes in movies. little wonder that tech giants jumped on the transit bandwagon. big tech has reshaped the economy, and flashy, hype-fuelled presentations -- no matter what their substance -- were key. and so instead of kind of really mundane things, like invest in buses, and, you know, think about how we distribute street space, and maybe make some cycle lanes, it sounds a lot more attractive to say, oh, the cars are going to start driving themselves. and we're going to make this new tunnel system for transportation. and we're going to have flying cars, finally. investors and media lapped up high tech, exciting new transit projects. and the companies saw potential too: people spend loads on transit! in the us, for instance, 16% of household spending goes to transportation, 2nd only to housing. and while investors currently only have promises, not results to go on, it hasn't stopped them.

for example, elon musk's the boring company - named that because they bore tunnels, get it? - picked up $675 million 619 mio.e in private capital in 2022. local governments have also jumped onboard: musk announced deals promising to build underground tunnels for high speed travel in chicago and ft. lauderdale in 2018 and 2021. neither have been built. so the hype train is rolling, the venture capital is flowing - everything's fine and dandy til tech companies have to deliver on their spectacular promises. one of the most glaring examples is hyperloop: a high-speed, above-ground vacuum tube popularized by musk in 2013 and pursued by a number of firms. billionaire richard branson, owner of virgin, also got in on the fun. in 2017, virgin hyperloop announced plans to build overground vacuum tubes that would hurtle people at 670 miles an hour 1078 kmh across the us, india and the middle

east. but the closest these came to materializing was a single crewed test in 2020 - which reached about 100 miles an hour far less than promised. costs were nearly 10 times higher, and the test ride transported just two passengers -- instead of the promised 28. undeterred by the failure of his above-ground travel project, musk opted to go underground with his boring company. first, he pledged to dig elaborate systems of tunnels under cities where autonomously-driven pods with 16 passengers would zip around with ease. that became a pledge to develop a system of so-called 'skates' which would sweep electric cars across town at speeds of up to 130 miles per hour 209kmkh which became a one-way tunnel to drive teslas through at about 40 miles an hour 64kmh, called the loop. which at least exists! he sold these systems to a bunch of cities around the united states and in most cases they have not materialized. and in the only place where it has, which is las vegas, it's

this short tunnel that connects up the convention center. and it's mainly just an attraction for teslas you know, it's a way to sell teslasit's not really affecting traffic, it's not really solving transportation problems. it's really, i call it a disneyland ride for tesla fans. western billionaires aren't the only ones with tech that sounds more impressive than it looks. china's autonomous rail rapid transit has gotten hype for being a cheaper alternative to standard trams and has been tested in qatar and australia. it's a quote-unquote - trackless tram system that traverses roads and has a driver, despite being called autonomous - that's right, pretty much a bus. looks kinda cool, but not a transit revolution. if it feels like we're seeing a pattern here, it's because lots of these could be defined as 'gadgetbahns', the transit term for an exciting new technology that's actually less useful than what it's meant to replace. and then there is the holy grail of sci-fi: flying cars.

some companies like joby are working on what they call electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles, or flying taxis. even the biggest luddites have to admit these are cool - though they look more like fancy helicopters than flying cars. joby hopes to launch these fully electric vehicles in 2025. they should have a range of 150 miles 240km but joby expects the average trip to be around 25 40km - meaning flying taxis would complement, not replace existing transport networks. if and when these tech solutions materialize, they often bring with them their own set of regulatory, cost and safety challenges - or fail to solve some of the biggest transit issues. ideally, mass transit should serve the masses. that means recognizing it as a public good - something flashy private 'innovation' distracts from. if we wanted to do it, we could have been making investments in transit service and investments in cycling infrastructure, and

doing you know, other things in order to address these issues, instead of waiting for the tech industry to create solutions that were never actually going to solve anything in the first place. practical transit solutions that encourage people to ditch private cars are often a bit boring - while the electric buses popping up all over the world are cool, they're no flying cars. and transit researchers might be the only people on the planet who think e-bikes are sexy. i have one right here in the background, it's how i get to work. they're pretty understated, they're easy to maintain, low cost they enable quicker and longer bike trips, without the cost of showing up sweaty or tired. bikes and buses are great local transit solutions - but what makes them really shine is dedicated lanes - like bogota's bus expressways or amsterdam's extensive network of bike paths.

and there's always room for innovation - like in medellin, where cable cars help traverse densely-built, steep terrain. so it'll take much more than flashy animations to solve our traffic problems - let alone curb transit's climate impact. the billions in venture capital and heaps of attention these tech solutions garner would probably be better invested in truly 'boring', but more efficient, real solutions. the austrian capital, vienna, is creating a completely new district. seestadt aspern is being constructed on a former airfield on the outskirts of town 27,000 people are to live here one day. it's a testing ground for sustainable housing and living. the subway was built long before the first house was erected. it only takes 15 minutes to get from the center of the capital to vienna's newest district.

it's meant to be car-free: so bikes can be 'rented' everywhere free of charge! a very important aspect was the connection to public transport, right from the beginning. the first step was excavating the lake, and then, the subway was built. the idea was that people knew from the start, they can travel here using public transport -- instead of at first taking their car, and then having to relearn their behavior and get used to taking the subway. the construction of seestadt aspern is being supported by several research teams. magdalena bürbaumer and florian pühringer are investigating in a 'mobile lab' how the residents of seestadt travel. they get the data from an app - which i also download directly onto my cellphone. for the next few days, it will automatically record all the routes that my camera team and i take. plus info about the means of transport used and our co2 consumption.

the young researchers also go from house to house to distribute questionnaires. we need to know what the status quo is, and monitor it continuously. because there are changes in individual behaviour -- and simultaneously, seestad aspern is changing as well. it's still under construction, it's one third built, so there is still potential for the district to use new info for the next construction phase. the mobile lab shares its data with anyone who is interested: companies, city planners, and the residents themselves. the data is especially important for the planning phase: the new district is meant to learn from its mistakes. at first it was tolerated that you park your car in front of the door, just in order to make your move easier. but that behavior quickly became established and turned into a habit. and when it was later penalized, there was a big fuss--although

it was never planned that parking would be allowed there. so one of the things we've learned is to work with the development company to make sure that these things are taken into account in the newly built areas. all over seestadt aspern there are multi-storey parking houses, which are very well camoflaged. but they are never closer than the next public transport stop, so that it's not more attractive to take the car. my camera team and i are on board! we load 70 kilos of equipment into a cargo bike. kurt hofstetter isn't only one of the planners of seestadt aspern, he also is one of the longest residents. at first glance it's nothing special. all the initial development is pretty much just concrete construction, with a few exceptions. but the sustainable aspect is, it all comes from the lake.

the lake didn't exist, it was excavated. in the environmental impact statement, it was stipulated that everyone driving in here with over a certain number of trucks a day would have to pay a toll. that made the concrete so expensive that it was cheaper to produce it on site, with a plant we built here. so the first phase of seestadt aspern was virtually born out of the lake.. the artificial lake is the center of the neighborhood. the whole district is built slighty sloping towards it so that all the rainwater collects there. in addition, it's fed by the groundwater flow of the danube river. seestadt aspern is home to some unique examples of sustainable architecture. at 24 stories and 84 meters high, the hoho is the world's second tallest wooden skyscraper. an office building is under construction here that doesn't need central heating or air conditioning: extremely thick

brick walls make it possible. in the first phase, sustainability was not the big issue. residential development was the main concern, and we didn't even realize that was a key to sustainablility. that turned out to be the case when the first things started to work. wow, that worked, now we can go one step further. then came social change, when suddenly in society and in politics, doors were opening. early on, we argued about things like planting big trees, and ended up planting small ones. now it's common practice. seestadt is built on spongy ground. under the trees and plant beds, there's a layer of gravel 80 cm thick. the gaps are filled with a substrate of sand, compost and biochar, which serves two functions. it can store water and also release nutrients. but many residents find the gravel beds around the young

trees too drab. various initiatives are trying to make them more attractive... but it's not all that easy. you have to apply to the city of vienna for a permit, in order to plant vegetation. and then you have to prove that you will take on this responsibility, and that you will take care of it regularly. such a permit can take up to 3 months. for large scale projects, like the communal garden of heidi merkl's gardeners' association, you need even more patience. but the joy of being able to harvest fruit and vegetables makes up for the toil. what an abundance! and they have this fabulous name - they're called communists!

what gets grown and when - in the one thousand square meters of garden - is a collective decision. vegetable gardens, sustainable architecture, good public transport access - none of this comes cheap. another core principle of seestadt is social diversity. the sale of real estate within the project to private investors helps fund social housing and public developments. here, sustainability also makes economic sense. vast amounts of data are collected to ensure an optimized energy supply. europe's largest ever energy research project - which employs over 200 people - is underway in seestadt aspern. sensors are installed all over the district. they record in real time how much energy each building consumes and how much it produces.

this particular building is almost net zero, it uses just a little more electricity than it produces. next door is an energy plus building - it produces more electricity than it consumes. and we can go one step further - take a building that requires a lot of cooling: it will also have a lot of waste heat. that warm energy is released into the atmosphere, and that's problematic for the surrounding city. it's more efficient and intelligent to make the waste heat available to the neighboring building. identifying and solving problems together: seestadt is all about community - that's the message i keep hearing. we're on our way to vienna's newest gemeindebau or municipal building - a social housing concept dating back to the 1920s. you can still read on the buildings that they were financed from the revenues of the residential

construction tax. that was a tax on luxury goods, automobiles, service personnel, entertainment, such as opera and theater, and so on. all this was taxed and the funds were used to finance the municipal building projects. the tax no longer exists. but while other cities in europe are struggling with spiraling rents and real estate speculation, over half of vienna's housing market is city-owned. 4,000 new subsidized homes are in the pipeline. the city already owns 220,000 apartments like these. 25 percent of vienna residents lives in municipal housing. narrator hi! are you coming down? sure! great, thanks! when i first came here it felt very sci-fi and utopian. i expected to see flying cars and such things.

what i think is great is that there's neighborhood management. they organize lots of projects for the seestadt residents. it makes you feel very at home. is seestadt as utopian as it seems? is this green urban development project community living at its best? the last stop on my visit to vienna is an intergenerational apartment block. the apartments are small, but there are also communal spaces and a roof garden. and here too, a strong sense of community. it's sustainable living because we borrow things from each other. people ask for instance, hey, can i borrow your iron? and i just had my grandson visiting so i needed a cot, a baby rocker, a high chair - and i was able to borrow everything. so that's great.

both women moved to seestadt aspern from much bigger apartments in the inner city. a move neither have ever regretted. i love how many sports grounds there are under and around the train tracks. and they're always in use! throughout the day, until late in the evening. there's always laughter, there's always something happening, it's vibrant. it makes me happy! all the buildings in the first construction phase have been state-subsidized - which is why so many young families live here. the next development phase will see the construction of privately financed apartments, lofts and terraced houses. seestadt aspern is a work-in-progress: learning, evolving - and flourishing.

a dynamic economy and a rapidly expanding consumer market: india is an emerging global powerhouse. many highly skilled young indians are returning home to be part of the boom. alright guys, very good morning! welcome to our design sprint. a team meeting at hala mobility, a startup headquartered in hyderabad, south india - home to almost 7 million people. ceo is 29-year-old srikanth reddy. he studied in italy and spain - but after gaining a doctorate, chose to return to india. i had a very lucrative job in fact. it's a high paying job so that i could have happily settled down there. but what drove me here to move was the impact i could create with the experience that i have, and the bigger problems

that i can solve. the company's fleet of over 2,500 electric vehicles are rented out to customers - such as delivery people. three years ago, reddy chose to launch his business in india because he was confident there was a huge demand for electric mobility solutions. today we are dealing with 1.4 billion population here, and that population needs different types of solutions, and that's the benefit anyone would get. on top of it, the young generation that india has. and that is what going to drive the whole, and make one of the super powers again. the indian economy is currently seeing unparalleled growth. it's set to overtake germany and japan within the next four years. the startups mushrooming across the country prove that this is boom time for india. when we started in november 2020, we started with a mere 2 vehicles. that same year we scaled it up to 20. then in the next 5 years we were 100, 200 vehicles.

from there we scaled the journey to a thousand odd numbers, where we picked up our first round of investment last year. with the investment we grew 400 times. the e-vehicles-based ride-sharing company has already raised 1 million dollars in funding and reddy now oversees a team of 80 people. many of them originally come from small towns and villages. such as mechanic shravan kumar. i'm learning a lot. in my village i was used to just being given orders, but here everything is explained. there's opportunity to develop and i've already been taught so much. that would never have happened in my village. there's a world of difference between the city and where i grew up. he wants to show his boss where he comes from. they're on a visit to saidapur, a small town with a population of 4000 outside hyderabad. originally shravan hadn't wanted to leave his family and his home - but he knew his prospects would be better in the city.

before i went to hyderabad to become a mechanic i'd wanted to start up my own business here in my hometown. i wanted to open a small garage. but it wasn't possible. noone took me seriously, they quibbled over everything. it was completely demoralising. the rapid technological progress underway in the cities has passed by much of rural india. the kumars live from farming, making around 150 euros a month. shravan's mother says that politicians aren't interested in the plight of towns and villages like saidapur. nothing here ever changes. everything's the way it's always been. the government promised that things would improve, but nothing happened. even people with an education can't find work that pays a decent wage. that's why my son moved to the city. this is not a world that reddy is familiar with.

but two thirds of india's population of over a billion live in rural areas and there's growing awareness that they need more opportunities. it can be moving to the cities, working there, improving their lifestyles, whatever it can be. and to achieve the dreams that they have. so i would say there is still a lot of gap that needs to be filled. that's where the t-hub center in hyderabad come in. it's a project financed by the state that advises and supports startups like reddy's from day one. hello sir good morning! how are you? fine thanks for asking. anthony anish - t-hub's chief operations officer - welcomes young entrepreneurs' interest in rural india. agritech is moving out there, sustainability is moving out there, right. so there are start-ups that are actually for solving rural problems, for non-metro problems for semi-urban problems, so i

think, yes, there are alot of start ups that are putting alot of energy into these problems and taking these solutions out into the masses. here in hyderabad groundbreaking new technology such as artificial intelligence is welcomed. while there are currently just over 300 startups working in the innovation center, this number is set to rise to more than 20,000 in the next five years. entrepreneurs like reddy predict that india will soon be an economic superpower. it's not too far off to get the silicon valley of india in hyderabad. or even better, to have a unique recognition for ourselves than compared to anyone else. and hyderabad is in that range, and india will be in that place where, you know, it's going to be a centerpoint of innovation. india's population and economy are growing. and so is the confidence of its vast population.

live from berlin. tonight, israel telling more than one million people in northern gaza to evacuate. hamas, telling them to stand their ground. it comes as the israeli military carries out localized raids inside gaza. is this the beginning of an israeli ground invasion of the gaza strip? also coming up, dw returns to the site of a music festival where last saturday hamas