Self-repairing cities

As urbanisation accelerates and infrastructure decays, researchers are working out how cities can heal themselves. As the Financial Times’ Nikou Asgari explains, innovators are carrying out tests on materials that repair themselves and an army of maintenance robots that can work around the clock. The rising world population is putting a lot of pressure on infrastructure and its maintenance is neither cheap, nor ecological. Cities of the future may find solutions in small robotic worms. Mixed into construction materials, they can find and fix leaks in buried water pipes and drones can detect and patch up potholes in the middle of night. By looking for solutions to build affordable and sustainable cities, these innovations are essential to securing a sustainable, greener future for the next generation.