Could we live in tree cities grown from giant sequoia in the future?

This week our new Future Chronicles column, which explores an imagined history of inventions of the future, visits carbon negative cities: forest homes grown from giant sequoia, genetically engineered for rapid growth. Rowan Hooper is our guide.

In the second half of the 21st century, the first living city was established in urban forest around Portland, Oregon. Sequoia City comprised a grove of 40 trees, including a hospital tree, schools, farms and recreation facilities (zip lines, slides and altitude swings). As they grew, residential trees eventually each housed dozens of families, living in custom-grown rooms made of living plant tissue. Children raised in Sequoia City saw no distinction between humans and other lifeforms. To them, ecology – the study of life in relation to its environment – was something they understood…