Recycled… airports?

Now this is cool.

Germany’s Tegel Airport, which was decommissioned last year, will be turned into a climate-neutral city.

It’ll have shops, businesses, schools, 5000 homes, bicycle highways, 30 hectares of playgrounds and open green space, will produce it’s own energy from renewable sources including capturing heat generated from local office buildings, and the whole city will be a safe haven for a number of rare animal species.

Existing buildings like the terminals will be repurposed into offices for climate-tech startups, who’ll test their new products and ideas inside the city. New buildings will be built from locally sourced wood which will reduce construction emissions by as much as 80%.

Notice anything missing from all that?

Aside from a handful of mobility vehicles, there will be no cars.

Some of the press photos look like sci-fi. The first stage is due to open in 2027.

Imagine living in a city where everything from the roads to the businesses are 100% climate focused – feels a pilot for what everywhere will look like in 2050 when we’ve hit net-zero.

It’ll be a new normal, where things like smoke-stacks and polluted air are hard to imagine… kind of how it’s hard to look out your window now and imagine dinosaurs walking around 😉