Expanding
Cities – Diminishing Space: Will Cities Remain Liveable, Accessible,
Human-Oriented Places: for Whom and How?
Judith
Ryser
(Judith Ryser, A DiplArchEPFL/SIA, MSc
(UCL), MCIOJ, Isocarp, CityScope Europe, Senior Adviser Fundacion Metropoli, judith@urbanthinker.com)
The CORP 2018 brief of 'Expanding Cities – Diminishing Space'1
rests on the unassailable credo in technofixes. The argument here is that while
technologies have always influenced urban change, cities have evolved with
techno-fixes in combination with many other development processes. As evidence
shows that with globalisation development has become more unevenly distributed
in urban space what matters is whether techno-fixes are contributing or
alleviating uneven spatial and social justice and urban quality of
life.
Keywords: city shape, urban change, holistic solutions, city
governance, urban expansion
“CITIES ARE GROWING” – ROLE OF TECHNO-FIXES
Regarding urban dynamics, CORP2018 affirms that cities are
always expanding - sideways, upward, downward, and in use over time – by
attracting and concentrating people hungry for more space. In that way they are
encroaching on assumed precious countryside, living above their ecological
footprint by consuming more than their fair share of finite resources and
polluting the environment. Indeed, population is driving urban growth with 3.3
billion people living in cities in 2014 (54%) expanding to 5 billion by 2030
(66%). 2 Under pressure city managers are looking for short term
fixes: punitive, such as traffic congestion charging, or divisive, such as
attributing more road space to the strongest lobbies. For planners though a key
question is whether there is a pathological threshold of space-time
concentrations in cities.
CORP18 also affirms that retreat – probably meaning shrinkage
- and regeneration areas are getting smaller with the contribution of short
lifespans of certain types of modern buildings. What is not mentioned but
matters for urban quality of life is the pressure on the public realm and open
spaces inside cities, due to speculative activities generated by rising land
and property values, in turn driven by more users of the city - residents,
workers, visitors. but equally importantly by remote investors, financiers, real
estate property owners, landlords.
Help is claimed to be at hand. The 'smart city' ideology
states that technologies can fix urban problems and control urban activities.
CORP2018 confirms that "by means of information and communications
technologies cities are transformed into smart organisms designed to work
perfectly to create a high standard output in terms of knowledge, carbon
footprint, mobility and logistics, big data, etc." A critical issue is
what role techno-fixes are playing in the production of increasingly
privatised, non convivial spaces.
It is worth remembering that, in the past,
techno-fixes have not reduced physical-material urban demands and, contrary to
expectations, have often led to their growth. For example, the introduction of
mass international telecommunications technology in the 1960s had increased -
not reduced - face to face interaction, thus contributed to expanding
transportation, including transatlantic flights. Current techno-fixes –
including 'smart city approaches' – may well improve urban efficiency and
profitability, but at a social price which has not been factored into the
equation. For example, Alistair Bathgate, the leader of Blue Prism, a software
company which substitutes human labour with robots rejects 'robo-geddon', but
his reference to RWE-Npower where 2 managers suffice to oversee 300 robots
carrying out the work of 600 dismissed full time staff seems to contradict his
optimistic view.
'SMART CITY': DEFINITIONS AND STRATEGIES
Smart cities, initially promoted by ICT corporations, spread
throughout the world, although definitions of 'smart city' vary widely, ranging
from narrow focus on infrastructure to enabling citizens and communities to act
smarter. One 'smart city' definition close to the 'smart city market' promoters
has been devised by ITU. 4
"A smart sustainable city is an innovative city that
uses information and communication technologies (ICTs) and other means to
improve quality of life, efficiency of urban operation and services, and
competitiveness, while ensuring that it meets the needs of present and future
generations with respect to economic, social and environmental
aspects."
'Smart cities' became almost interchangeable with
'eco-cities'5 when the latter resorted to the techno-approach of
'smart cities'. A differentiated definition of eco-cities arose from a global
survey of 79 eco-cities6 which identified their common features as
they shifted from conceptual experiments to practice-led projects embedded in
policy. Subsequently, the International Eco-City Initiative quantified eco-city
policies and technological implementations by developing and using eco-city
indicators, standards and frameworks.7 Based on the analysis of 170
eco-city initiatives their Bellagio report evaluated their international
effectiveness as a measure of 'sustainable urbanism'. A desk appraisal of
eco-cities and smart cities in Asia identified communalities and diversities of
conceptual-cultural, eco-design, and eco-innovation policies and practices and
concluded that quality of life remained the essential criterion of
sustainability.8 Another comparative analysis explored transferable
lessons about eco-cities between Europe and China.9 Austin Williams
goes as far as discarding any attempt at defining eco-cities or smart cities in
China, although he uses the terms to analyse China's recent urban development
processes with focus on China's use of ICT and other advanced technologies in
urban development.10
The stance here is that planning and urban development are
not led just by physical or technical drivers but are interdependent with
citizen interventions. It is beyond the scope of this short position paper to
verify/falsify the quantitative part played by ICT in urban development, management
and usage.11 Instead the paper refers to the IEEE models12
to illustrate a mainstream techno-perspective of smart cities in urban
development which also acknowledges citizen demands. Beyond that, it selects
two opposing standpoints, a theoretical-ideological-formal non-techno-fix one
developed in 'The Robust City'13 and a pro-techno-fix one based on
'China's Urban Revolution'[1] to discuss the
contribution of technology to urban development and how it relates to other
planning considerations and citizens' aspirations.
IEEE MODELS
Without entering into their technological details of the IEEE
models[1] what needs mentioning is that the ICT
trends identified by IEEE aim to support urban functions, such as
infrastructure monitoring, act as backbones of digital media enterprises,
household security, citywide transportation monitoring, etc. All that requires
ICT infrastructure ranging from low bandwidth wireless technologies for free
citywide services to dedicated fibre optics for backbone needs. The IEEE paper
attributes little attention to issues of data security and privacy when
publicly collected information is made available to third (mainly private)
parties, which is IEEE's way to engage citizens but intends to deal with
security, privacy and environmental sustainability at a later stage.
The model shows the concept of 'smart city as complex
ecosystems' consisting of three overlapping components: technology aspects
(sensing, actuating, networking, data analytics, etc), institutional aspects
(urban planning, communities, governance, etc), and human aspects (education
and governance, social capital, lifestyle, etc). Neither culture nor
environment figure in this concept of the 'smart city market'.
CORP2018 mentions that "sometimes the impression
prevails that technology is seen as a self-purpose". The interests of ICT
corporations are clearly underpinning the IEEE models. This is usefully related
to a geopolitical shift from industrial to managerial and currently financial
capitalism.[1] It is worth considering that financing has
become an inherent part of many global ICT corporations.
The IEEE emphasis lies on technology. The diagram of
the 'technological ecosystem in smart cities'[2]
shows the key five players: IT, telecom, energy & infrastructure,
automation & building control and governance. Human and institutional
aspects - assessed in quantitative and qualitative metrics - are seen to assist
in creating value for the entire ecosystem in terms of financial values,
quality of life, health, education and time.
A key issue is standardisation to facilitate interoperability
of all these ICTs and data sets collated from a wide variety of sources.
Standards are seen to smooth adoption of new technologies and to provide a
trusted framework for city authorities and practitioners. Coordination and
standard provision are taking place at three levels: strategic, process and
technical. Indicators for city services and quality of life are providing
guidance to city leadership for strategic sustainable development of
communities. Standards for procuring and managing smart city projects and
activities are assisting cities in adopting smart city technologies. At the
technical level, information technology standards are set for smart city ICT
reference frameworks and indicators related to smart city infrastructure needs.
The diagram shows the main international standard bodies operating in these
three domains.
"ARE 'SMART CITIES' THE SOLUTION
OR PART OF THE PROBLEM OF CONTINUOUS URBANISATION AROUND THE GLOBE?"
The techno-fix lobby is convinced that electronic management
and monitoring of cities will fix all urban dysfunctions and may be able to
contain the urbanisation process. In reality, techno-fixes are at best a means
to specific ends to improve urban conditions for citizens. Yet, they are often
used as tools to achieve other goals, such as surveillance and centralised
control of urban activities. The 'smart city' approach builds urban development
strategies mainly on techno-fixes, including those emanating from supply side
motivations, ranging from sectoral material gains to ideological
postulates. No matter how 'smart cities' are defined or what magic ICT
toolboxes they are applying, they have not proven to be a panacea for solving
all urban problems.
1.1
Management of continuous urbanisation beyond smart cities
It may be easy to be mesmerised by the many advanced
technologies which are being applied to urban development, but other
interventions besides techno-fixes play a part in the control and management of
urbanisation. In democratic societies, accountability to the citizenry is key
to the development process and the legitimacy of its control. Accountability is
rooted in the political decision making apparatus, embedded in turn in
institutions which comprise planning. In this context planning is political as
it is subjected to the political apparatus empowered to devise planning laws
and regulations. Therefore, the issue of managing continuous urbanisation
cannot be reduced to the role of 'smart cities'.
Long term strategies of urban change have to address problems
beyond short-term techno-fixes, not only because they are taking a long time to
implement in a democratic context, but they have to negotiate assumptions
regarding the wants and desires of future city dwellers who are notoriously
diverse, moreover with changing minds about their livelihood influenced
by circumstances mostly outside their control. Holistic solutions for
longer term urban futures are a long standing ex ante aspiration of planners.
By definition such solutions are impossible to verify against the 'hic-et-nunc'
reality. Strategic planning is at best speculative, albeit guided by rational
arguments and supported by empirical measures resting on a historic 'evidence
base'.
1.2
Techno-fix-less urban growth
Some planning positions omit techno-fixes altogether.
An example is 'The Robust City'.[1]
Discarding democratic political realities and institutional constraints it
builds on the premise that urban form is more durable than anything else in
cities and therefore the best guiding principle of urban development. Inspired
by the formal ideas of garden cities, this mainly two dimensional vision of
concentric city growth focuses on housing, supports unrestricted use of the
private car and proposes large amounts of 'green' areas as reserves for future
infrastructure location. However, this techno-fix free alternative is not
convincing as a future of sustainable cities.
1.1
Pragmatic view of smart city solutions for ultra-rapid urbanisation
Austin William's position is that contemporary proposals for
future urban betterment - techno fixes as well as utopian dreams – have to be
mapped or integrated into existing material space-time and evaluated
accordingly. His understanding of Chinese eco-cities or smart cities which he
does not feel need defining is based on the current stage of China's urban
revolution. He acknowledges that sheer economic growth had been underpinning
physical urban development until recently. Having reached enormous progress in
economic wellbeing of Chinese society and facing structural change with ensuing
slow down of this growth, the Chinese have started to incorporate ecological
considerations in their urban development strategies. No enthusiast of environmental
design his view is that this strategic reorientation is not motivated by
environmental concerns but expresses a pragmatic endorsement of global trends
towards sustainability to attract inward investment. Even rather insufficient
measures against urban air pollution are seen in this perspective.
He reviews a wide range of eco-cities - interchangeable with
'smart cities' - which have recently emerged all over China, how China uses
ICTs and other advanced technologies in urban development, and what role global
ICT corporations and international design interests are playing. Among the many
urban experiments figure also 'failed' attempts at 'smart development'. He
acknowledges that the pace and type of such developments conceived to overcome
nature was facilitated by a centralised political regime, therefore not easily
comparable with sustainable development elsewhere. He embraces the many
techno-fixes to which China's urban revolution has resorted and sees them as
opportunities for China's future economic expansion based on more R&D and
innovative, higher value added products, for example in the field of renewable
energy generation.
1.2
Tianjin Eco-city
The Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city project conceived as a
Low Carbon Living Lab (LCLL) is quite typical for Chinese eco-cities in the way
it resorts to techno-fix contributions a self-drive electric car infrastructure
functioning in a normal traffic system by GM; a low energy lighting system by
Philips; a self emptying rubbish disposal system by Envac Sweden; government
buildings collecting rainwater for reuse, being powered by geothermal energy,
having window shutters which move with light and being heated with solar
energy. Overall Tianjin is expected to derive 28% of energy utilisation from
renewable sources40% less energy consumed compared with similar buildings, 30%
recycled materials used in building construction. Tianjin gained several
'green' awards.
1.1
“Unprecedented technologies: smart technologies, smart
cities”
From these few examples of 'smart urban development' it is
not possible to identify which technologies are relevant to urban development,
management and sustainability in the short or the long term. Most probably
their importance may change over time while further technological innovations
are joining them. While 'smart technologies' include monitoring systems, big
data, data analytics, sensors, satellites, customer records management systems
(CRM), intelligent transportation systems (ITS), ICT monitoring and control
instruments for use of utilities, networking and communications, cloud
computing, low power WAN technologies, 3/4G, open data made available for free
by cities and other public sector agencies and many more. Others are in the
pipeline and will also influence urban development, although their impact would
have to be monitored, analysed and assessed once they are in use. Among those
directly influencing urban life are robotics, artificial intelligence, drones,
driverless electric cars, cyber physical systems (CPS), 5G, the Internet of
Things (IoT) and edge computing. The frailty of many of these technologies
should be kept in mind. A power cut, a network failure, hackers steeling data
can jeopardise bring whole systems and bring them to a standstill.
Despite diverse uses of 'smart technologies any holistic view
of cities will have to take off from the 'is-state', regardless of how unevenly
understood and interpreted it may be. Moreover, it has to rely on incomplete,
imperfect and out of date empirical 'facts' on which to build urban change.
These constraints provide a temporary real world context for the contributions
of 'smart technologies' and how they may help or hinder urban development and
sustainable urban living.
2
“WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE LIVING IN THE
CITY?”
The techno-fix agencies tend to conceive and use people
essentially as sources to advance their smart technologies. They are monitoring
their behaviour often without their knowledge and using the observations mainly
without their consent as inputs to big data. IEEE[1]
concludes that companies capable of tapping into this source of information
reap advantage through differentiation.
2.1
Techno-fix notion of citizen engagement
IEEE assesses cities according to commercial criteria whereby
comprehensive citizen engagement strategies would establish a closer dialogue
between citizens and their cities to reap benefits from citizens and collective
wisdom of the urban community. IEEE considers citizen engagement as a
complementary aspect of smart cities. However, citizen engagement is equated
with the ICT industry's reliance on smart city techno-data gathering and
management. Harnessing these technologies provides the opportunity for
technofix providers to tap into the collective intelligence of cities, and
partly understand what citizens (workers, businesses, tourists etc.) do
and need in their daily lives in cities. In its overview of technology
challenges and enablers of the smart city market IEEE is listing the following
innovative tools to communicate with citizens: phone-in reporting
possibilities, hackathons, events with developers and crowdsourcing city data
from citizens. Alternatively, the EU is promoting co-design and user-centric
processes for advanced technology services.[2]
IEEE, the EU and other techno-fix promoting agencies believe that such
connections between techno-providers and citizens are contributing to citizen
empowerment to improve their daily lives.
2.2
Where are the citizens in other planning and development
models?
Citizens as active users and contributors to cities do not
fair much better in the form based 'The Robust City' scenario evoked above.
They figure merely as abstract economic and social forces to make the point
that the proposed physical city structure is best able to accommodate the
noticeable changes these forces are undergoing over the long term. Citizens in
the People's Republic of China are equally insignificant in the civilising
mission of the state. In its laudable pursuit of lifting the Chinese population
out of poverty also in remote areas the state is resorting to macro-economic
strategies with little concern for local impacts and supports techno-fix based
practices without seeking user consent.
This paper takes a more humanistic stance and argues that
what matters in equal importance with utilitarian survival strategies are
subjective, emotional or ideological standpoints as an important part of
'virtual' and non material reality, besides rational 'objective' facts. Urban
change fixers who are discarding them may well end up in disappointment, at
least in countries where social movements have some clout. The premise here is
that urban technologies are only one element of urban change, and behavioural,
socio-cultural, economically aspirational dimensions are of equal weight in
transforming cities into more liveable, accessible and humanoriented
places.
Are people willing to be tied into a 'there-is-no-other-way'
techno-fix environment without their say or being labelled off as technophobes?
Are there viable 'low-tech' alternatives which are less ephemeral and less
resource consuming, with users exercising greater direct control over them? Why
should people not have the right to choose an alternative, more sustainable way
of life based on the preservation of non-renewable resources and careful use of
renewable ones, focused on quality of life rather than accumulation of material
goods, convivial urbanity rather than neck-breaking competitiveness? Are cities
not about for and about people and their quality of life? Saskia Sassen makes
the case for diversity to preserve urban innovation capacity which depends on
cohabitation between the powerful and the powerless in a cosmopolitan whole.21
Why are there suspicions about the techno-fix world with its
supply generated push to consumption, its inbuilt redundancy philosophy, its
practice of creative destruction, its ambiguity between overt and covert
agendas, its oligopolistic critical mass, its little transparent power
structure, its use of commercial secrecy to protect its links with the
political establishment? Why should the only model of urban living rely on
binary opposites, either or, instead of and-or? The Chapter on "How to
Mobilise Cooperation between 'Top-Down' (techno-neo-liberal economy driven) and
'Bottom-Up' (human and collectivity driven) Urban Change is making the case for
synergy between a wide range of approaches to urban regeneration and
development which combines techno-fixes with other modus operandi.22
There is a lot of frustration among the urban public about
their built environment, access to it and mobility through it. Lack of
openness, be it between the 'techno-fixers' and the public or the politicians
and the citizens is creating mistrust and frustration. Those who choose to move
to the margin of urban society are and remain few and far between, but other
reactions are rife, such as withdrawal from material into virtual reality of
social media and techno-gadget based communication.
3
“HOW TO DESIGN SAFE, LIVEABLE, HEALTHY
PLACES TO LIVE?”
Perhaps the first question should be: who is supposed,
authorised or legitimised to design (and build and manage) liveable healthy
places to live? There are many competing contenders: planners, urban designers,
architects, neighbourhood communities, individuals and also the techno-fixers.
Due to their position of strength developers, land-owners, financiers demand to
have their say as well. This leaves the users, the citizens in a weak position.
At best they are able to get hold of a piece of land on which to design and
build their own homes. The North Amsterdam experience is such an example, very
limited in numbers and scope, although it has produced interesting innovative
institutional and realisation solutions rather than design or techno ones.23
Similar governance and co-design innovations have been developed and applied in
Antwerp, while in Brussels area based 'contrats de quartiers' (neighbourhood
contracts) were offered to residents to be able to remain in the Canal area
also after regeneration.
Perhaps as important as techno-fixes are innovations of
governance practices to achieve urban development fit for the 21st
century able to satisfy citizen expectations. Urban governance, akin to
national governance consists of vertically integrated decision making
structures: political or other power-based silos with their self-interests.
They may explain the paucity of integrated undertakings, be it in planning,
urban policies or anything else claiming to deal with society as a whole.
Nevertheless, the complexity of contemporary cities requires some division of
labour. The 'is-state' is divided and competitive instead of cooperative and consensus
building. The challenge of holistic urban development is how to get from
here to there: how holistic aspirations can be democratically corroborated.
Governance innovation is just as important for successful inclusive and
participatory urban development than any techno-fixes which have clearly their
place but need to be integrated into the context of other demands and
priorities. Planning has clearly a role to play in this urban dynamic. It is
important though to acknowledge the limitations of planning and reconsider to
role of planning in a world of rapidly changing technical as well as societal
circumstances which are constantly reshaping cities.
Unfortunately, economic concerns, underpinning also the
techno-fix industries, are overshadowing the environmental and social
dimensions of balanced sustainable urban development. They are not only
affecting urban policies but also the monitoring and evaluation methods. This
means that the true dysfunctions of such economy dominated policies are hard to
come by as they are rarely incorporated at their proper weight in evidence base
research. Equally unfortunate is the observation that little seems to be learnt
from past mistakes. Neither are ready-made sound bites critically examined and
adjusted in the light of patent discrepancies with reality. For example there is
no evidence of the constantly advocated trickle down effect of investing in the
strongest sectors; quite the reverse it leads to increasing social and spatial
polarisation instead.
A spatial example is how urban policies are paying
lip-service to the merits of the public realm and its importance in fostering
urban life of congregation and conviviality, but tend to give in to speculative
pressures. When land and property prices are rising influenced by greater and
more intensified use of the city by residents, workers, visitors, but also due
to investors, financiers, real estate property owners, landlords, developers
are demanding to privatise the public realm and thus reducing public open
spaces in the city for all to use freely. Even if they are made accessible in
some ways, privatised open spaces are controlled and restricted by private
interests and defy the notion of the urban commons.
4
IN LIEU OF CONCLUSION
This paper discussed the role of techno-fixes in urban
development and the impact on planning and people. It leads to the following
questions:
•
What role does techno-fix play in such urban change?
•
What role is there for urban planning and how does it relate
to techno-fixes in a highly dynamic development culture driven by the
neo-liberal economy?
•
What urban places will such a symbiosis between reinvented
planning and techno-fixes produce and will they be safe, healthy and
liveable?
Innovative technology has always contributed to urban
development and change and has been a driver for improved liveability. What
matters for ICTs and 'smart city' techno-fixes as well as their users is that
they are universally accessible and facilitating urban living. This means
diverse solutions, including decentralised ones which local communities can run
themselves. There are many exciting examples of mobile telephony in remote
regions of sub-Saharan Africa. In Europe, the city of Stockholm has installed,
owns, manages and rents out a 'grey fibre' network throughout the urban region
early on, making communication services accessible to all users geographically
and available to all ICT service providers as communication infrastructure.
[1]
Rodger Lea, Smart Cities" An Overview of the Technology Trends Driving
Smart Cities, March 2017, IEEE, https://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/periodicals/ieee-smart-cities-trend-paper-2017.pdf
[1]
Austin Williams. China's Urban Revolution, understanding Chinese eco-cities,
2017, Bloomsbury
[2]
e.g. European Union's citizen city project, The market place of the European
innovation partnership EIP-SCC on smart cities and communities aims to match
techno-fix solutions with projects http://ec.europa.eu/eip/smartcities/
[1]
Tony Hall The Robust City, 2017, Routledge
[1]
For a concise account of these structural shift in world economies, see Liem
Hoang Ngoc, Les Theories Economiques, petit manuel heterodoxe, 2017, La Dispute
[2]
Rodger Lea, Smart Cities", op.cit
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