10 Future World Eco-Cities

Planners and developers all over the world have plans to make brand new eco-friendly cities, from Tianjin in China to Logroño Montecorvo in Spain. With photovoltaic solar cells aplenty and a plethora of sustainably-sourced building materials, each eco-city sounds more amazing than the last.

Take Sakai, Japan, for example. The Sakai City Waterfront Mega Solar Power Generation Plan is a collaboration between Kansai Electric Power, Sharp Japan and the city of Sakai that will utilize undeveloped waterfront land for two giant solar power plants. Teamwork seems to be a major theme in eco-city planning, as the planned city in Tianjin is a collaboration between Singapore and China.

In the Middle East, Ras Al Khaimah seeks to draw the attention away from Abu Dhabi and Dubai by building a giant eco-friendly urban development smack dab in the center of the desert. Both Ras Al Khaimah and China's Tianjin are excellent examples of making the most of underutilized land.

Not all eco-friendly cities in the making have as much open space as the Middle East or China in which to develop, however, so their efforts at 'greenification' must come retroactively. San Antonio, for example, has implemented a wastewater recycling plan that will convert methane into fuel. I suppose it's better than letting the, ahem, biosolids go right into the ocean...