Trend molecules for the city of tomorrow

August 2022

What trends shape our cities of tomorrow, looking beyond the global crises? The German initiative Stadt von übermorgen has collected a range of trends and topics that may shape the cities of tomorrow. To see beyond individual trends, they employed the concept of trend molecules.

Trend molecules

Looking at individual trends and their possible impacts on urban development often becomes very detailed and therefore of less relevance for understanding the overall development paths. Dealing with a large number of trends often reaches a level of complexity which is hard to handle. Trend molecules bundle individual trends into relevant causal-relationships and thereby provide an overview of complex trend landscapes. At the same time they acknowledge that individual trends exist as atomic parts, but form a sort molecule though their interaction, whether as attracting or each other repulsive atoms. The concept of trend molecules is closely linked to the system pictures often used in trend research, albeit easier to read.

The study identified 15 trend molecules. The below are just short teasers of each of the often rather complex molecules:

Human-machine-life