ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Multifunction Polis

Multifunction Polis is a fancy name given to a smart city that was proposed a long time ago by the government of Japan and Australia. It was supposed to be a city where lots of cool things could happen all at the same time.

Imagine you live in a big city where everything you need is close by. Like your home, school, playground, hospital, and shopping centers all in one place! That's what this city was going to be like. But it wasn't going to be a regular city, it was going to be a super-duper high-tech city.

This city would have had some amazing things like robots that could clean the streets and homes, cars that could drive themselves, and lots of super-fast computers. It was going to be a city where people could work, study, and have lots of fun all in the same place.

The idea was to create an environment where researchers and scientists could work together on new ideas and technologies. They wanted to make things that would help people and the environment. This project was a big deal because it meant that Japan and Australia could work together and also learn from one another.

Unfortunately, it was never built because it turned out to be an expensive project, and both countries decided that it wasn't the right thing to do at the time. But the idea kept inspiring people for years to come and it also helped in the development of new technology that we see around us today.