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    “In contrast to architecture and landscape architecture, however, urbanism is a synthetic field, subsuming not only the discipline of planning and the practice of urban design but also concepts of the relationship between them. These three issues will help instigate new disciplinary methods and domains of investigation.” (Mostafavi, HDM 35)

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    Beyond the Smart City - Mark Shepard

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    “In contrast to architecture and landscape architecture, however, urbanism is a synthetic field, subsuming not only the discipline of planning and the practice of urban design but also concepts of the relationship between them. These three issues will help instigate new disciplinary methods and domains of investigation.” (Mostafavi, HDM 35)

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    82 views8 pages

    Beyond The Smart City - Mark Shepard

    Uploaded by

    NotCarlos TheJeda
    “In contrast to architecture and landscape architecture, however, urbanism is a synthetic field, subsuming not only the discipline of planning and the practice of urban design but also concepts of the relationship between them. These three issues will help instigate new disciplinary methods and domains of investigation.” (Mostafavi, HDM 35)

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    HARVARD DESIGN MAGATINE Harvard University Graduate School of Design Architecture Landscape architecture Urban planning and design 2014 23 us28.95 cow 37 iii MARK SHEPARD BEYOND THE SMART CITY: EVERYDAY ENTANGLEMENTS OF TECHNOLOGY AND URBAN LIFE Itis obviously, therefore, o the emerging trends in the communication system and tothe production and distribution technology that has come into existence with modern civilization that we must look forthe symptoms which will, indicate the probable future development of urbanism as a mode of socal life.—Louls Wirth* By now itis commonplace in major metropolitan centers to find urban life increasingly entangled with a range of mobile and embedded media, communication, and {information technologies. On any given day, we gai access to transportation systems using a magnetic stip card or radio-frequency ID tag to pay a fare. We coordinate meeting times and places through SMS text messaging ‘on a mobile phone while on the run. We checkin at our favorite venues using soctal media apps on our mabile phones, and leave tips for strangers about what to do there, We cluster in cafes and parks where WiFlis tree . | to check email on a laptop. We drive cars with on board navigation systems that map optimal routes to destination, updating in real-time to take into account current trafic pattes, construction activity, and special events. We pass through public spaces blanketed by CCTV surveillance cameras monitored by machine vision systems running advanced face detection and object tracking algorithms. These conditions have altered how we move through and inhabit the city, and influence the choices we make ther. Atthe same time, data that these systems collec, process, transmit, and store enable greater contol over the performance of urban systems and provide new insights into how the city is inhabited collectively Embedded sensors moniter, manage, and regulate utility services and critical urban infrastructure, Camera networks ‘monitor street intersections and issue traffic violations using automatic license plate recognition sofware. Social redia platforms like Twitter and Foursquare provide new P| ‘Percale 2 DonFashe sense prototype, Gowanus Coral,» Superfund sit, oki, Hew York. September 20%. © i! Perel Dosfushe ‘ways of tracking how we move, whom we are with, where ‘We go, and what we think of where we've been. Data on luending venues, popular neighborhoods, peak times, and common frequencies enable us to map pattems of mobilly and activity in a more dynamic and fine-grained manner. In anage of Big Data, some suggest, we have the opportunity toconnect, aggregate, analyze, and integrate information about the urban environment in ways that enable us to better visualize, model, and predict urban processes; simulate probable outcomes: and lead to more efficient and sustainable cities.? ‘The Smart Chy and ts Citizens The proliferation of Smart City initiatives in diferent parts ofthe world tlastates the dominant model for integrating, information and communications technologies (CT within, urban environments, Massive urban development projects such as Masdari the United Arab Emirates, Songdo City in South Korea, or Plan Valley in Portugal exemplify the beyond the Smart ys Everday En push by global ICT companies in consort with realestate developers and government agencies to bulld cities from seratch outfitted with so-called smert urban infrastructure. This top-down, centralized approach nominally promises to optimize the distribution of services and maximize nergy efficiency, making cities more vable, sustainable, and competitive. itis also big business. The global ‘market for Smart City solutions is projected to reach $20 billion by the year 2020,2 and the major ICT players hhave alot invested in promoting this approach. When 1844 reorganized its business model in 2002, it shifted las focus away from hardware design and manufacturing to enterprise software development. Within the broader ‘marketing rubric of a Smarter Planet—encompassing, hheatth, energy, marketing, and financial services ‘arkets—its Smarter Cities program was established to specifically target municipal governments with an interest in centralizing the control and management of data feeds from diverse city agencies within a single location + elemenis of echalogyandurbas ie Contrasting this model is one that places emphasis ‘on the Smart Citizen rather than smart technologies. Shifting the focus from technology and the city tothe role citizens might play in managing the urban environment, this bottom-up, distributed approach aims to directly ‘connect people living in cities with information about their local environment, and solicit their participation in reporting conditions and taking action to effect positive change.’ One such initiative involves an ad hoc system of water-level sensors placed ina local sewer system by a collective of artists and activists «The project engages local residents in reducing the amount of pollution rom combined sewer ovecfiows that open when the sewer system Is overloaded due to excessive storm-water runoff. The system alerts residents when the overflows happen so that they might reduce their wastewater production during an overflow event. Other initiatives include a community-ed air quality sensing network that gives people a way to participate inthe conversation about air quality.” Ai quality data collected by government agencies is sampled ata limited ‘number of locations and processed to indicate relatively coarse regional conditions, but itis not very useful for understanding fine-grained dynamics of pallution aifecting local conditions. The project distributes inexpensive air quality sensors designed to allow anyone to coltect high-resolution readings of NO, ané CO concentrations outside their home and share them via an cline open data service. White these competing models promise compelling solutions to problems of urban regulation and manage- ‘ment, each presents differing limitations, Taat the Smart City model extends 2oth-century urban design strategies that gave birth to cities such as Chandigarh and Brasilia should be cause for concern. The critiques of top-down tabula rasa urbanism are well known and do not need repeating here. Perhaps more disconcerting, however, |s the degree to which the approach exemplified by Masdar, Songdo City, end the like promote a techno- cratic view of the city and urban development, the corporatization of civic governance, and the dependence ‘on proprietary software, systems, and services leading to form of technological lock-in that runs counter to ‘more traditional concessionary pracurement madels, “The Smart Citizen madel would seem to addcess these concerns in its more organic, aé hoc, evolutionary, and distributed approach. Its focus on people, not technology, as the primary actors in the system reaffirms notions of participatory governance, where social and cultural factors are emphasized over high-tech solutions with big price tags. Yet problems regarding the need for ‘Some form of centralization inevitably arise when one attempts to scale local solutions to larger urban systems, where interoperability between diferent systems and the development of open standards for sharing data between them become paramount. Moreover itis perhaps what these models share that {s problomatic for urban life in Smart Cities inhabited by Smart Citizens. Both take as their purview the more functional and mundane aspects of city governance and management, and fall to address some ofthe deeper social, cultural, cognitive, and perceptual conditions of contemporary urban space. While creating more efficient and sustainable urban environments is a worthy and Increasingly urgent goal, urban life itself has never been something circumscribed by concerns for aptimization and efficiency. Forms of urban ife found incites have always been messier than that, and we have long known that one ofthe keys to great cities is thelr capacity to sustain the diversity and variety of urban ie, ‘New Sites of Interaction and Exchange Cities have always been sites of interaction and ‘exchange —of people, goods, services, information, ideas—and technology has long been complicit in social change and transformation ofthe urban environment. As German sociologist Georg Simmel noted at the beginning of the 2oth century, before the introduction of buses, subways, and trains in Berlin, people weren't accustomed to staring at each other for the course of ‘minutes or hours without speaking.* Today, reading ‘a book and listening to an IPod on the subway are ‘established spatial practices by which we manage these awkward social situations. Along with these ‘new technological transformations come new social situations, and with them new spatial practices for negotiating dally urban life. Harvard Design Magazine 37 ‘Questions concerning attention/ distraction and the influence of new technologies on the perceptual conditions of urban space and the cognitive states of those who live in cities are long-standing, Walter Benjamin's ft-cited observation that ar primarily received collectively in a state of distraction? and Simmel’ discussion ofthe origins of the blasé attitude remata relevant to an analysis of contemporary urban environments. More recently, Clive Thompson has described a new kind of “ambient awareness” emerging out of social media such as Twitter and Facebook status updates. individually these short strings of text are relatively meaningless, providing ‘quotidian updates on the minutia of the dally ives of friends and acquaintances. Yet by skimming these short bits of information, Thompson suggests, we construct a peripheral awareness—a co-presence of sorts—with these absent others. As information is distributed across physical and virtual environments, our attention becomes vided not just within our field of vision, as Simmel noted, but also between two radically different Fields of vislon, one human and one nonhuman. Looking just upstream inthe pipeline of current research and development in urban technologies provides glimpse of what is coming. To the extent that ‘consortiums of business interests, government agencies, ‘and real-estate developers drive these technological ‘developments, we can expect to see new forms of ‘consumption, control, and management emerge. Techno: evangelists herald a coming age of urban infrastructure capable of sensing and responding tothe events and activities that transpire within and around it. Able to remember, correlate, and anticipate, this near-futura sty is projected as one that reflexively monitors our behavior ‘within itand becomes an active agent inthe organization of our dally ives. Most people will support the intro- duction of "smart trafic control systems that more efficiently manage the flows of trafic on city streets. ‘Some are likely to become irritated when discount coupons for their favorite espresso drink (as identified by their credit card transaction history) suddenly appear on thelr mobile phone as they pass by a retail coffee Franchise, Most, however, ae likely to protest when a subway turnstile denies them entry because thelr purchasing history, recent mobility patterns, and current galvanic skin response reading (as measured by sensors ‘embedded in the steel turnstile bar) mateh the profileof a terrorist, ‘peste Kohn Petersen Fox, Song, arial Incheo, Kore, toe completed 2020 Phat, GUST/ Courtesy, Nat Pedersen Fx). Aves i Quay ledairgualty sensing neworko designers, tecelosts am. Neterands and New Yori 2012, Courtesy. be Ch Beyond the Smart iy: Everyday entanglements Te sottype, developed bya con. evlopers eects students

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