A utopia for the mind and heart
A few days ago, Toyota Motor Corp shared updates of its smart-city-of-the-future Woven City during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2025 press conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. TMC board chair Akio Toyoda said that this year, with the completion of the Phase One of the so-called “world’s first living laboratory,” the “prototype town of the future,” or the world’s “first urban incubator,” residents are set to begin moving in.
The Woven City is located at the foothills of Mount Fuji. Here is the link to Toyoda’s updates: https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/41969781.html
Akio-san’s impassioned speech certainly piqued my curiosity about Woven City. And after watching his 15-minute speech, my imagination was running wild about the many possibilities this place could realize for its future citizens.
In the current state of world affairs, where there has been plenty of conflict, calamities, and geopolitical uncertainties, Woven City’s readiness to accept its first residents this year upon the completion of Phase One of the “prototype town of the future” project is a very welcome development, and one that is much needed by humanity.
The timing couldn’t have been any better, as we welcome a new year hoping for some truly uplifting news. And as it turns out, just like many times before in human history, advancements in technology have given us that needed boost.
As I watched Toyoda enthusiastically talk about flying cars, driverless drift cars, in-home robotics (the robot “learning” to fold shirts overnight brought out a wide grin on my face, for sure), robot dogs accompanying and assisting the elderly in their walks, drones accompanying hikers, and the like, I couldn’t help but forget about the present troubles of the world, and become excited about a future that’s not car-centric, but people-centric, where not everything is about making a profit, but making lives better.
Woven City is as real and sustainable as it gets, as it now has been awarded the highest among LEED certifications, the Platinum award. The City, I can imagine, will have cost-saving green buildings that power new-energy vehicles, much like the smart houses in Nagoya shown to us by Toyota when our group of motoring journalists paid a visit in 2011.
I also have the impression that Woven City has a heart not just for human beings, but for all creatures. Akio-san showed his pet horse Minnie, who he said will be at home in the City. I understand that with the way Woven City has been masterplanned and built, it would retain the endemic species that consider the area their natural habitat. I look forward to Akio-san assuring us that Woven City has also embraced the natural flora and fauna of its location.
I understand that Woven City was built for the future of humanity. I hope the City inspires future generations to also have a heart for animals. Since the City has been envisioned to be a “living laboratory,” I hope it incorporates and encourages the exploration of food technologies that centers around the elimination of the need for animals as food for humans. Imagine if our world were to become completely independent from animal agriculture, animal farms and slaughterhouses. All those precious and finite resources (land, water, grains, etc) devoted to raising billions upon billions of cattle, cows, pigs, chickens, goats, sea creatures and the like would now be redirected to nourish countless starving humans. Woven City can be the model city for such a revolutionary step in our evolution as a species. Although the total eradication of the exploitation of defenseless animals as food for meat-craving humans can be viewed as an impossibility, I wouldn’t discount the possibility that food scientists may be able to perfect “lab-grown meat,”—actual animal meat that is artificially grown, and would do away with slaughtering live animals.
Most importantly, as the inhabitants of Woven City free themselves from the cruelty and violence of animal slaughter, they could truly come closer to Akio-san’s vision of “a future where we hope to not only move people, but move hearts.”
