Tomorrow's Cities: What can be done to improve air quality?

Part two of our series "A day in the life of a city" looks at the ways in which offices are changing and how cities are coping with the ever-growing problem of pollution. 

The morning rush hour is over and, if you live in a city in the developed world, you are likely to be settling down at your desk for the next eight or so hours.

However, the office block and skyscraper, which have been part of our urban landscape since the end of the 19th Century, may also soon become surplus to requirements.

Cities are at their busiest during the day - and their most polluted. Photo Credit: Thinkstock

Urban architect Anthony Townsend thinks cities need more creative approaches to how we work and is keen to reclaim the streets by creating pop-up workspaces in the parks and plazas of the financial district in New York.

- Urban architect Anthony Townsend

An atrium filled with natural light and the smell of fresh coffee greets workers at Deloitte's Edge headquarters in Amsterdam, which also uses an underwater aquifer to provide ambient temperature all year round and a sensor network to monitor the use of lights - providing a better working environment while saving money.

The Edge has been dubbed one of the world's greenest offices and now many are following suit - installing sensors to monitor light, electricity and water usage, planting urban gardens and offering employees access to bike or car-sharing schemes.

When you pop out to buy your lunchtime sandwich though, it is a different matter.

Cities are huge polluters - responsible for 70% of the world's carbon emissions, according to the United Nations.

In Singapore huge man-made super-trees house a variety of flora and fauna. Photo Credits: Flickr

And, according to the World Health Organization, more than 80% of people living in urban areas that monitor air pollution are exposed to air quality levels that exceed WHO limits. While all regions of the world are affected, populations in low income cities are the most impacted.

Cities are literally getting greener - with foliage-covered walls popping up in many. Photo Credits: Patrick Blanc

To counteract this, cities are rushing out a whole series of green initiatives - from electric buses (being trialled in many cities including Perth, London and Paris), to bike-sharing schemes, such as those in Montreal, Barcelona and Amsterdam. 

Some are committing to "urban greening" - London is considering a garden bridge - while in Paris, 20,000 residents have backed plans via a citizen engagement app 'Madam Mayor, I have an idea' for a 2m euro ($2.2m, £1.7m) investment in vertical gardens across the city.

Officials have found 40 potential sites and are now calling on gardeners, landscape designers, urban farmers and architects to bid for projects.

Horticulturist and designer Patrick Blanc has been creating vertical gardens since 2001 in city hotels, malls and tower blocks around the world.

The benefits are many-fold, he said. As well as acting as a natural biofilter and providing a habitat for birds and bugs, it also feeds humans' natural sense of well-being in nature, a phenomenon known as biophilia.

China is turning to machine learning to predict smog levels. Photo Credits: Thinkstock

In China, it will take more than planting trees to combat pollution. The city authorities in smog-ridden Bejiing are working closely with IBM to use machine learning techniques to analyse weather and emissions data to predict how bad air will be over the next 10 days.

According to Jonathan Batty, an IBM executive who helped set up the system, it has allowed the authorities to take short-term preventative measures.

- Jonathan Batty, IBM executive

The government also uses the data to provide a traffic light warning system for citizens - red means air pollution is high so spend the minimum time outside, while green indicates safe levels.

London provides a similar system on its city dashboard which is available to Londoners on the web.

Prof Andy Hudson-Smith, who heads up University College London's Centre for Advance Spatial Analysis, came up with the idea to share data with the wider public.

- Prof Andy Hudson-Smith

Would you take an internet-connected gnome seriously? Photo Credits: Thinkstock

The problem with the current way of collecting air pollution data is that often people do not understand what the readings mean, he thinks.

So he has a cunning plan to "humanise IoT" (the internet of things).

He is putting around 100 internet-connected gnomes in the Olympic Park in East London.

The gnomes will talk back to people as they go around the park and among other things will tell them how bad the air pollution is.

Unlike more complex data sets, they will be more plain speaking, said Prof Hudson-Smith.

- Prof Andy Hudson-Smith