NextMetropolis

News and insights on trends shaping the future of cities and urban development.

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Follow @NextMetropolis for must-read news about the future of cities and urban development.

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

La Tour F in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, is set to become Africa’s tallest skyscraper, rising 421 meters across 76 floors. Designed to resemble a traditional African mask, it’s wrapped in 16,000 reflective glass panels on a double-layered facade built to deflect the sun. Foundation bars drilled 70 meters deep support the 170,000-ton structure. First conceived in the 1970s, the roughly €450 million project began construction in 2021 and is scheduled for completion in a few months.

#LaTourF #Abidjan #IvoryCoast #Skyscraper #TallestBuilding #Africa #Architecture #Construction #UrbanDevelopment #Engineering

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

AC Milan and FC Internazionale Milano have unveiled the design for Generali Stadium, a 71,500-seat venue that will replace Milan's historic San Siro. Designed by Foster + Partners and MANICA Architecture, the stadium will be built next to the existing venue as part of a 281,000-square-meter redevelopment. Construction is expected to start in 2028, with a first match planned for the 2031/32 season, subject to planning approvals.

The clubs bought San Siro and the surrounding land for €197 million (approx. $220 million) and estimate construction at about €1.2 billion. A naming-rights deal with Generali is reportedly worth €650 million through 2052. The all-electric design includes a concrete X-frame structure and a roof with 27,500 square meters of solar panels, and targets LEED Gold and carbon-neutral operation.

The plan still faces opposition. Inter fans protested at the October 29 unveiling and called for San Siro to be preserved.

Image credit: Foster + Partners

#SanSiro #Milan #StadiumDesign #FosterPartners #Architecture #SportsInfrastructure #UrbanRegeneration #SustainableDesign #ACMilan #Inter

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

A ferry that flies 🌊⚡
Vessev's electric hydrofoils from Auckland cruise at 25 knots above the waves, with almost no wake and up to 95% less energy than a normal boat.
Coming to Hobart in 2027. Would you ride one?
Vessev #Hydrofoil #ElectricBoat

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

No interior columns. Just giant steel ribbons wrapped around the outside 🏙️
The (W)rapper by Eric Owen Moss: a 235-ft LA office tower on an earthquake-isolated foundation, 26 years in the making.
Genius or chaos?
Wrapper #EricOwenMoss #Architecture

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

Beta Technologies has become the first company to receive a Special Airworthiness Market Survey Certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration, allowing its A250 electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft to fly with pilots and passengers for market surveys. Beta made its first flight under the certificate on October 20, a 34-mile, 20-minute trip from Plattsburgh International Airport in New York to Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport in Vermont.

The certificate lets potential customers experience the aircraft and plan how it fits their businesses, according to Beta CEO Kyle Clark. The A250 can carry a pilot, up to five passengers and 1,200 pounds of cargo. Other air taxi developers, including Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation, have flown piloted flights, but none have carried passengers.

The FAA also released draft design standards for vertical flight facilities, covering charging systems and landing areas at airports and rooftops, with final standards expected by next summer.

#eVTOL #AdvancedAirMobility #BetaTechnologies #FAA #AirTaxi #ElectricAviation #UrbanAirMobility #Vertiports #FutureOfFlight #Transportation

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

86 floors, around 1,700 homes, 5 infinity pools and padel courts in the sky 🏙️
Al Habtoor Tower in Business Bay just topped out, and its developer calls it the world's largest residential building.
Would you live up there? 🇦🇪
AlHabtoorTower #Dubai #Skyscraper

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

London's Oxford Street, Europe's busiest shopping street, went traffic-free for the first time on Monday as phased pedestrianization began. Nearly a kilometer between Orchard Street and Great Portland Street, home to flagship stores John Lewis & Partners and Selfridges, is now closed to bicycles, buses, cars, and taxis in favor of greenery and seating.

City of London Corporation officials estimate the street brings £25 billion (about $33 billion) a year to London's economy. The first phase is expected to cost £150 million (about $200 million), funded by borrowing, and the Oxford Street Development Corporation (OSDC) expects it to be complete by spring 2027 with more than 50 new trees, two public squares, and over 100 new seats and dining tables. Mayor Sadiq Khan said the project will boost jobs and economic growth.

Accessibility groups, including Inclusion London, have raised concerns about reduced bus and taxi access. The first phase will serve as a test period to gather input from communities, businesses, and accessibility advocates.

#London #OxfordStreet #Pedestrianization #UrbanRegeneration #PublicRealm #Retail #Placemaking #UrbanPlanning #SustainableCities #HighStreets

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

Electric air taxis could soon turn 60- to 90-minute drives in Texas's largest metros into 10- to 20-minute flights. Archer plans three networks serving Fort Worth-Dallas, Houston, and Austin with its all-electric Midnight aircraft. In North Texas, it would link five airports, including Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), Dallas Love Field, Addison, Arlington Municipal, and Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport, with business hubs such as the Star in Frisco.

Charging infrastructure is taking shape. The Regional Transportation Council is providing $477,500 for electric aircraft chargers, including $92,500 each for Fort Worth Meacham International, Denton Enterprise, and Granbury Regional airports and $200,000 for Greenville Municipal.

In September, Archer, Beta, and Macquarie Capital formed America's Consortium for Electric Skyways, which plans to operate up to 250 air taxis nationwide. The consortium is working with the Texas Department of Transportation under The White House's eVTOL pilot program, which also includes Joby Aviation and Wisk Aero.

#AdvancedAirMobility #eVTOL #AirTaxi #ArcherAviation #Texas #UrbanAirMobility #Aviation #Transportation #ElectricAviation #Infrastructure

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

Boston's 1945 White Stadium is being rebuilt for NWSL's Boston Legacy FC and public school athletes ⚽
10,500 seats, natural grass, an 8-lane track. $325M. Opening 2028 after a court fight over building in Franklin Park.
Good for Boston? 🏟️
WhiteStadium #BostonLegacyFC #NWSL

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

A 250-ft granite arch, topped by a golden winged Liberty, is proposed at the gateway to Arlington National Cemetery for America's 250th.

Bigger than the Arc de Triomphe. Observation deck inside. Final federal vote Nov 5.

Fitting tribute or wrong spot? 🏛️

#TriumphalArch #America250 #Architecture

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

What cities can do this week:

1. Find every PHP site, including old vendor-built ones
2. Patch to 8.2-8.5 or take it offline
3. Put a status page somewhere off the main server
4. Ask every vendor holding resident data when they last rotated credentials

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

Black October's biggest hit to cities wasn't a hack. City halls went dark on purpose. Mainz, French prefectures, Finland, Czechia and now Nepal pulled public sites offline over PHP2Shell, a decade-old flaw in the code behind ~70% of websites. How long could your city run offline?

[Reuters @Reuters]

🔊 A critical flaw in PHP — the code that powers much of the internet — forced government websites across Europe offline. 'AI has really compressed the timelines here.' @razhael says hackers can now exploit vulnerabilities in minutes, not months https://t.co/myvporTs94

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

@jmilinovich Good list for individuals. Nobody has one for cities yet. Permit forms, school notices and bill payments sit on web stacks like this, and this week the safest move for governments from Mainz to Prague was switching sites off. 2FA doesn't help when the city portal is dark.

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

@AISafetyMemes @NickADobos Worth adding: most of this is a disclosure wave, not 48 hours of new attacks. The California student data was copied between May and September. What's new is AI finding old holes faster than cities and schools can patch them. That gap is the real story.

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

@axios The scariest line is in the fine print: official fixes cover only PHP 8.2 to 8.5, yet the flaws reach back a decade. Big platforms moved within hours. A small-town portal still on PHP 7 has no official patch to install at all.

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

@CNBC Going dark was the right call, and the NSA told anyone who couldn't patch fast to do exactly that. The harder question is what residents do meanwhile. Denmark's national school messaging platform was among the services hit. How many cities have an offline fallback?

[NextMetropolis @NextMetropolis]

@Reuters The detail that makes this real: Japan took childcare centre systems offline as a precaution, and Australia's own cyber agency site got caught up too. When the fix is "switch it off," parents and residents feel it long before IT teams finish patching.