Urban planners have come up with an ambitious project to transform large tracts of scrubland on the Danube flood plain into a living, thriving farming city that will be completely powered by renewable energy.

The $AUD 2 billion greenhouse city project planned by the Hungarian government will be executed in collaboration with German developers FAKT AG and energy providers EON SE.

The project aims to transform the barren land – equivalent to an area covering 500 football pitches – into an agricultural centre, which will be home to a huge complex of greenhouses growing tomatoes, peppers and aubergines in addition to a massive inland fishery – Europe’s largest – as well as the requisite infrastructure such as cold storage and logistics facilities.

The renewable energy powering the carbon-neutral city will come from EON in the form of solar power systems and biogas while geothermal plants will cover all cooling requirements. The new city will also include about 1000 homes for workers who will have access to a host of facilities including schools, hotels, shops and railway station.

Similar developments are coming up in other world cities too: A new district planned in Amsterdam will process their own waste and produce renewable energy while disused goods yards in Milan will be turned into green parks.

A new tech city in Bangalore, India will be painted in cooling white paint, and a new state capital in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh aims to be one of the most sustainable cities in the world.

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