POPULATION • URBAN SHARE
Growth lands in cities
Urban growth share
Make New York's FiDi the World Capital for Urban Solutions.
World Population
a. Square overview
Africa’s Growing Cities
e. Largest cities in 2100
Migration and Displacement
f. Population pressures
Temperature Trajectory
j. Square overview
Atmospheric Carbon
o. Carbon dioxide concentrations
Sea-Level Rise
p. New York and global projections
The Adoption Gap
u. Capability and organizational change
Crossing the Chasm
af. From innovation to adoption
The Urban Marketplace
ah. Market overview
New York Benefits
bc. Downside, base and upside scenarios
Value to New York
bd. Local economic benefits
Attract Companies and Investment
bh. A global gateway in New York
Four steps, each building the next. Events and media test demand. The Trade Mart makes it permanent on FiDi's vacant floors. A cluster grows around it. FiDi becomes a model city.
Economics drives action, and a sound investment attracts capital. Invent.City tests demand with events before committing major capital: research from New York’s civic community, support, early revenue, as its 2023–2024 micro cargo test showed.
The roundtables, set for early 2027, will follow three themes: the Cities that buy, the Forces that drive demand and the Industries that supply.
WARMING PATHWAYS
Warming is still a choice
Two warming paths
URBAN SOLUTIONS
Economics drives action
Costs and benefits
Cities are growing at breakneck speed, mostly in Africa and South Asia. Lagos, 17.2 million today, is projected to reach nearly 90 million by 2100. These cities need working systems faster than procurement delivers: bikeshare and light freight move people and goods without widening roads. New York and London face a different task: rebuilding aging systems while millions live and work in them.
GLOBAL CITIES
City Population Evolution
From 2025 to 2100
2025
POPULATION • URBAN SHARE
Growth lands in cities
Urban growth share
GLOBAL CITIES
Africa shapes the century
Top cities in 2100
Climate and AI are reshaping cities everywhere. Energy, demographics, technology, economics, geopolitics and social change add pressure; amplifies it.
Invent.City's events will focus on climate and AI and track the rest, pointing suppliers and capital to the most urgent purchases. shows the speed possible: 70% of the world’s electric cars and 80% of its battery cells in 2025, per the IEA.
SEA LEVEL • GLOBAL MEAN
Seas rise faster
b. Projected 2020–2100
ENERGY • ELECTRICITY
Electricity demand
m. Global demand to 2100
WAR AND DISASTER
Damaged cities
o. Urban damage zones
LEVELIZED ENERGY COST
Renewables win on cost
d. Costs to 2050
CITY HEAT
Local warming
f. Illustrative; source pending
AI • ADVANCED CITIES
AI optimizes city systems
g. Across city systems
AI • DEVELOPING CITIES
AI stretches scarce capacity
h. City services
AI • NEW YORK CITY
NYC’s AI upside
i. Annual value
POPULATION • URBAN SHARE
Growth lands in cities
j. Urban growth share
A Trade Mart is a permanent marketplace of showrooms, demonstrations and industry events, in one building or several. Chicago's The Mart, Atlanta's AmericasMart and Dallas Market Center have run it for decades. Invent.City will apply it to urban solutions in vacant FiDi offices: one place for agencies, owners, developers and utilities to discover, evaluate and buy. Media and AI will extend it worldwide, around the clock.
RAI
Amsterdam / Brussels
Chelsea Harbour
London
The Mart
Chicago
Dallas Market Center
Dallas / Austin
PDC
Los Angeles
World Trade Centre
Dubai
Hannover Messe
Hanover
AmericasMart
Atlanta
FiDi has the space, the transit and the address. Subways, ferries and bikeshare connect it to the city; City Hall and Wall Street put exhibitors beside decision-makers and capital. East of Broadway and south of the Brooklyn Bridge, 27% of was vacant in Q2 2026, per Cushman & Wakefield. Many buildings can host the Mart, so Invent.City can move with the market. New York itself will become the showcase.
FIDI ADVANTAGE
Transit
Transit
FIDI ADVANTAGE
Open Space
Open Space
FIDI ADVANTAGE
Logistics
Blue Highway
FIDI ADVANTAGE
Institutions
Institutions
FIDI ADVANTAGE
Flood Defense
Flood Defense
FIDI ADVANTAGE
Global Reach
Global Reach
Showrooms are the heart of the Mart. Companies will run that make solutions tangible: walk through an energy-efficient apartment, explore a working farm, feel a cooler street, run a city operations center. New York's set the precedent: GM's Futurama (1939) flew visitors over a future city; GE's Progressland (1964–65) showed electricity changing daily life.
TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION
Crossing the chasm
Toward mainstream
Transport
Reconfigure a full-scale street, then watch how curbs, micromobility, shuttles, charging, transit technology, and wayfinding reshape movement in real time.
Buildings
Turn up the heat, cut the power, and adjust controls inside occupied-room simulations to see how building systems protect comfort and continuity.
Power
Balance generation, storage, microgrids, charging, and demand from a live control room, then stage an outage to see which systems keep the district running.
Waste
Send materials through collection, sorting, composting, reuse, and energy recovery, tracing where contamination appears and where discarded material becomes a valuable input.
Agriculture
Harvest from working grow rooms, taste the output, and trace water, energy, compost, labor, and cold-chain decisions from seed to sale.
Consumer
Use low-waste products inside apartment, hotel, office, and retail settings, revealing how they perform where residents, guests, employees, and customers encounter them.
Energy
Combine solar, heat pumps, thermal storage, smart meters, and efficiency controls in a building-scale lab, then tune the system through changing demand.
Water
Trigger a cloudburst and heat wave across a working streetscape, then watch drainage, cooling, leak detection, irrigation, reuse, and flood protection respond together.
Wastewater
Follow a single stream through sensing, treatment, reuse, and nutrient recovery, seeing what can return safely to buildings, landscapes, or industry.
AI
Run a city digital twin from an immersive command center, testing permitting, emergency response, and daily operations as recommendations change under pressure.
Robotics
Direct inspection, delivery, cleaning, maintenance, and emergency robots through real street and building obstacles, exposing where autonomy succeeds, hesitates, or requires human judgment.
Logistics
Route one delivery from vessel to microhub, cargo bike, locker, and electric fleet, seeing how each handoff affects the curb and final mile.
A virtual Mart complements the physical one. Digital media, virtual showrooms and events will extend it beyond FiDi, across time zones, 24 hours a day. Before a visit, buyers explore solutions and book meetings; after, they revisit demos, share them and keep pilots moving. Media draws new audiences; events bring buyers back. FiDi will anchor a market that is .
A cluster needs room, and FiDi has it: of vacancy in the project area in Q2 2026, per Cushman & Wakefield, much of it unsuited to housing. The planning case assigns 1 Million Square Feet to the Mart and 2 Million to supporting offices. Existing space lets the cluster launch fast and grow with demand. remain vital where buildings fit; showrooms take the floors that don’t.
Current NYC Initiatives
Buyers commit when they see a solution working, and FiDi has public proof. At Chambers Street, the MTA and NYC DCAS are exploring a system to capture subway heat for municipal buildings. FiDi also hosts a freight microhub, Blue Highway marine freight and coastal-resilience work. Invent.City will add its own projects, such as the urban hub, and link public initiatives with suppliers, buyers and investors.
The cluster will lay the foundation for a bigger goal: FiDi as a model city. The Trade Mart is the first act of . Unlike greenfield cities built from scratch, Invent.City will retrofit a working district, the problem most cities actually face. Over time it will add housing, low-impact transportation and urban-agriculture jobs, and become a template for AI in city operations.
GREENFIELD VISION
NEOM
Built from zero.
GREENFIELD VISION
Telosa
Seeking a site.
CITY BENCHMARK
Singapore
Integrated systems.
CITY BENCHMARK
Curitiba
Transit planning.
MASTER-PLANNED DISTRICT
Masdar City
Low-carbon systems.
MASTER-PLANNED DISTRICT
Songdo
Smart systems.
FiDi will become a real-world lab: companies will demonstrate technologies in a dense, working district while city teams evaluate them for purchase. The lab will connect clean energy, water reuse, rooftop food, car-free streets and mobility with neighborhood hubs for deliveries, waste and public toilets. Neighbors in Community Board 1, the Alfred E. Smith Houses, Chinatown, Battery Park City and Tribeca will help decide what gets tested and scaled.
The Trade Mart will bring tenants, buyers and visitors year-round, local businesses, demand for space and street life. A could link the showrooms with places to walk, meet and linger. Reclaiming the Streets and Vision Zero Reimagined offer more ideas for Lower Manhattan’s streets.
Four moves turn strategy into action. Build momentum with roundtables, media and the Future City exhibition. Fund growth in phases. Recruit the partners who deliver. Pick the FiDi sites where the market takes root.
Roundtables will test demand one issue at a time, building on the 2023–2024 micro cargo test. They will follow the Mart's structure: the industries that supply cities and the forces shaping them. Each will target one risk or opportunity; AI will run through all.
Each session will bring buyers, suppliers and investors together and publish the needs, pilots and next steps it finds.
The series is set for early 2027.
Forces and Industries
Invent.City’s planned Future City exhibition will show how today’s city decisions shape life for generations.
Organized around twelve industries and the forces transforming cities, above all , it will immerse visitors in New York, Lagos and London in 2100, and futures.
Funded primarily by sponsors, it will give companies a stage to demonstrate solutions and meet visitors, buyers, researchers and future Mart exhibitors. The website and newsletter will extend its reach between visits.
FiDi already draws the audience. The Downtown Alliance reports 11.3 million unique visitors to Lower Manhattan in 2024, people who neither work nor live downtown. The exhibition will give them a new reason to come: the future of cities, and the companies building it.
| Submarket | Address | Available Space | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Financial East | 28 Liberty Street | 186,469 SF | Class A tower; contact JLL for availability details. |
| Financial East | 17 State Street | 72,405 SF | Class A office tower at State and Pearl Streets. |
| Financial East | One New York Plaza | 35,382 SF | Class A office tower at the southern tip of Manhattan. |
| Insurance | 33 Maiden Lane | 24,200 SF | Full second floor; direct lease, rent negotiable. |
| Insurance | 125 Maiden Lane | 18,200 SF | Full 14th floor; direct lease, rent negotiable. |
New York is the world’s financial capital, first in the Global Financial Centres Index. The project area includes the New York Stock Exchange, steps from the New York Fed and global bank headquarters. Invent.City will put that capital to work: banks, private equity, venture capital, infrastructure funds and public finance for each phase of the Mart and the projects cities buy there. will co-invest in showrooms and projects.
CAPITAL STRATEGY
Funding the Platform
Four revenue streams and a sidecar fund
Invent.City will recruit investors, sponsors, agencies, nonprofits, companies and incubators. Each brings capital, buyers, evidence or delivery; the Mart gives them one place to work.
DELIVERY NETWORK
Grow Partnerships
Connect the institutions that build the market
Invent.City scores FiDi buildings and public spaces on visibility, access, flexibility, cost, ownership and event capacity. A three-stage picks anchor buildings and smaller sites for phased openings, expanding as demand proves out.
Cities will test solutions against real needs, suppliers will reach buyers at scale, and New York will gain jobs, visitors and working space. The base case: 13,173 jobs and $2.4B a year in direct activity.
Base planning scenario: 13,173 jobs; $2.4B in annual direct economic activity; $219M in annual modeled taxes and fees; 700K annual visitors; and 3 Million Square Feet of real-estate capacity.
A planning scenario, not a forecast. Activity, taxes and visitor spending are annual flows. Space is capacity; $71M is gross recurring capacity, not net new revenue. Different outcomes; do not add them.
| Base-case annual public revenue reconciliation | Amount |
|---|---|
| Tourism taxes and feesFrom 4.1, excluding tourism PIT | $ 86,751,875 |
| Trade Mart modeled public revenueFrom 4.2, including payroll-related and sales taxes | $ 132,569,719 |
| Gross recurring NYC real-estate revenue capacityFrom 4.3; gross capacity, not net incremental revenue | $ 70,675,722 |
How these numbers were built
The visitor case models volume, stay, spending, taxability and jobs; the Trade Mart case, area, density, wages, procurement and tax rates; the real-estate case, rent, costs, capitalization, assessment, phase-in and commercial rent tax.
Sections 4.1–4.3 publish the assumptions, formulas and sources. Existing assessments, taxes and abatements sit outside the real-estate estimate.
700K annual visitors $1.31B annual impact 6,173 supported jobs
| Tourism summary | Downside | Base | Upside |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual visitorsFrom 4.1.2 Details: Table 1, Base assumptions | 400,000 | 700,000 | 1,000,000 |
| Traveler spending ($/yr)From 4.1.2 Details: Table 2A, Hotel and other traveler spending | $379,000,000 | $864,500,000 | $1,620,000,000 |
| Total economic impact ($/yr)From 4.1.2 Details: Table 2B, Total economic impact | $576,080,000 | $1,314,040,000 | $2,462,400,000 |
| Tourism-supported jobsFrom 4.1.2 Details: Table 3, Tourism-supported jobs | 2,706 | 6,173 | 11,567 |
| Modeled taxes and fees ($/yr, no PIT)From 4.1.2 Details: Table 4C, Tax totals roll-up | $38,518,438 | $86,751,875 | $160,889,063 |
| Rounded taxes and fees ($/yr, no PIT)From 4.1.2 Details: Table 4C, rounded grand total | $38.5M | $86.8M | $160.9M |
| Tourism PIT is excluded pending a separate tourism wage-and-residency model. Jobs scale with direct traveler spending using NYC's 2025 spending-to-jobs ratio. Scenarios assume 1.25 guests per occupied room and a 75% taxable share of non-hotel spending. | |||
7,000 on-site jobs $1.51B annual direct activity $132,569,719 modeled public revenue
| Trade Mart summary | Base |
|---|---|
| On-site jobs (1,000 showroom + 6,000 supporting offices)From 4.2.2 Details: Table 1, Jobs based on area | 7,000 |
| On-site payroll ($/yr)From 4.2.2 Details: Table 2B, Base-case payroll detail | $1,165,000,000 |
| Local procurement ($/yr)From 4.2.2 Details: Table 3, Local procurement | $349,500,000 |
| Total direct activity ($/yr)From 4.2.2 Details: Table 4, Direct campus activity | $1,514,500,000 |
| Note: Direct activity shown here is kept separate from tourism and real-estate modules to reduce double counting. | |
That 3 Million Square Feet is 1 Million Square Feet of Trade Mart plus 2 Million Square Feet of supporting offices. Invent.City will put it to work in phases.
3 MSF back to work $1.8B illustrative implied value $71M/yr gross capacity
| Real estate summary | Downside | Base | Upside |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stabilized leased area (sf)From 4.3.2 Details: Table 1, Leasing assumptions | 3,000,000 | 3,000,000 | 3,000,000 |
| Annual rent ($/yr)From 4.3.2 Details: Tables 1 and 1A, rent total | $165,000,000 | $165,000,000 | $165,000,000 |
| NOI ($/yr)From 4.3.2 Details: Table 2B, Total NOI on 3.0 MSF | $102,000,000 | $106,860,000 | $111,750,000 |
| Illustrative implied value at 6.0% cap ($)From 4.3.2 Details: Table 2C, Implied value from capitalized NOI | $1,700,000,000 | $1,781,000,000 | $1,862,500,000 |
| Modeled recurring NYC revenue capacity ($/yr)From 4.3.2 Details: Table 4C, Total modeled recurring NYC revenue capacity | $66,744,900 | $70,675,722 | $74,303,100 |
| Rounded recurring NYC revenue capacity ($/yr)From 4.3.2 Details: Table 4C, rounded total | $66.7M | $70.7M | $74.3M |
| Gross capacity is shown separately from modeled taxes and fees because current assessments, existing taxes, exemptions, abatements, and transitional values have not been deducted. | |||
