The bottom line
Cities are evolving from collections of separate infrastructure systems toward more connected, adaptive and data-informed urban ecosystems.
Why it matters
Digital twins, sensing, mobility, energy systems and resilience planning increasingly intersect. The result is broader than the old smart-city label: infrastructure itself becomes more observable, responsive and integrated.
From the foresight archive
Jim Carroll first published this as Megatrend #25 on 2025-07-30. He revisited it one year later on 2026-09-09, using the retrospective to test the original call against what had happened since.
In that retrospective, Carroll’s own shorthand assessment was: On track, and wider than the “smart city” framing captures. The trifecta — sensors, AI analytics, digital twins — is real infrastructure now, not a slide in a keynote deck.
This page treats the 2025 article as the original foresight call and the 2026 article as the first evidence checkpoint. Later signals and scorecards can be attached without rewriting the historical record.