Tag: W02 – Smart Cities vs Smart Citizens

 

Test Bed as Urban Epistemology –

Songdo city and 50000 more smart cities going to be planned as smart cities, What are the planning ethics for these cities?

How smart cities will be different than existing planned cities? (except smart network)

All these are going to be built from scratch, what about transforming current mega cities into smart cities. What ideology can be use for development of existing cities?

 

 

What Is a City that It Would Be ‘Smart’?

As mentioned by Haque, the model smart cities tend to be justified by the connectivity, readability and profitability of a model of city developed  in a top-down relation with the inhabitants. In this sense, looking forward to create a different relation to the development of the city, Which would be the model of a city in which technologies and further developments of the city are part of a more organic growing of the community as whole? which could be the models of participation for such city? and how could the efforts for innovation developed in the bottom can reach a more broad social level?
On the smart city; Or, a ‘manifesto’ for smart citizens instead
In his text, Hill uses Social Networks and Crowd-source platforms as models for both, explaining on-line social sociability, and the possibilities opened by a networked city in terms of the way we can create new models of governance in the smart city. In this sense, which could be other models of social interaction in the network that could be also used for thinking on our relation with the community, and our interaction with authorities? The forum, the open-communities or other forms of on-line interaction could be also taken in account for thinking about new models of governance?

Urbanization and Ubiquity

In his text, Townsend emphasizes on the role that historically the technologies have had on the development of the city, and in the way that the common live is shaped by this developments. He mentions how most of the decisions have happened as the result of the lobbying of companies and the decisions of certain urbanists to impose a certain model of the cities introducing such technologies in a way that has been more harmful than beneficial, creating the need for introducing new technologies to solve the problems of past decisions. In this sense, how can we seek to develop different relations to technologies that allow citizens to have a more active role in the development of the city? At the same, time, how can technologies be introduced in the city in an organic way that fosters a dialogical model of the city?

 

Smart City

• As the words of George Gilder, “cities as ‘leftover baggage from the industrial era’ “. The Internet make space limit smaller on citizen’s city life. In this case, is there a possible that cities will be gone before it become smart?

Hill’s Essay

• How to understand “It turns out that changing behavior is a way to subsequently change attitudes; this is entirely counter the thinking behind many smart system.”

What is a City that it would be smart

• For the first view of author. Does he mean that the smart things, online things, make people go away from group slowly and they are not good for city.

What Is a City that It Would Be ‘Smart’? – Usman Haque

“We cannot merely export the relatively young and naive interaction protocols of the web to our urban lives, since the increased participation may simply be more segmented and therefore neither sustainable nor desirable in the physical world”  – Clarify

“Smart citizens, not smart cities, are key” – what would be an architects role?

What is a City that it Would be “Smart”? – Haque

“…smart cities are somehow conceived apart from humans. They are simply to be inhabited and connected to as necessary, not created by citizens but their progenitors – developers, master planners, and investors.” If that is true, is the statement really so different if we take the “smart” out of it? Every day inhabitants also have little say over “dumb” aspects of the city. New buildings, street signage, etc. are also conceived by progenitors. Citizens’ concerns and wishes are consulted occasionally, and in any functioning democracy inhabitants should be encouraged to voice hesitations, needs and desires – but they are ultimately not the designers. A smart city, like any city, should of course be cultivated and evolved for the people, and with the best interests of the people in mind, but that doesn’t necessarily mean by the people. This is not to say that we should be ever trusting of investors and designers, as history shows us that they do not always know best. Then again, recent events may tell us that the masses also might not know best. Smart, informed citizens in conjunction with smart, transparent municipalities are key.

 

Essay: On the smart city; Or, a ‘manifesto’ for a smart citizens instead – Hill

“…there is a further tendency to ‘make these technologies, and hence put them in command rather than in dialogue with users.'” Do we really want them to be invisible? Maybe, but not in the way Hill and Sassen are implying. Ubiquitous, and therefore blending? Perhaps. But invisible?

“…but at its most basic level, sustainability necessitates a selflessness, a scaling of empathy beyond one’s immediate concerns…” A collective compassion and therefore betterment on a city-wide/state-wide/country-wide scale is honestly a bit easier to imagine in places where public welfare systems do not have a negative connotation. Places where people already see the benefits of giving something up (taxes, for example) for the good of the whole, with the knowledge that the whole will benefit them at some point. Can the US become somewhere like this? Smart city initiatives, like investments in the infrastructure of any kind require funds, and the funds need to come from somewhere.

 

Smart Cities – Townsend

“Looking smart, perhaps even more than actually being smart, is crucial to competing in today’s global economy.” (pg. 10) This is an interesting notion. Is it enough for governments and municipalities to make their cities seem just smart enough to attract the best minds that will actually make the city smart? Would this hands-off, yet responsive approach be enough incentive, or do the brightest want to be somewhere with more of a foundation from which to jump forward.

What Is a City that It Would Be ‘Smart’?

• “Note that, in contrast to the notion of a person being part of the city – a city remade every day through the interactions of its citizens – these smart cities are somehow conceived apart from humans.” How to understand it?

Smart Cities

• Townsend defined smart city as places where information technology is combined with infrastructure, architecture etc. Does infrastructure is so important for smart city?  When we build a new city now, should we consider about this city will be prepared for being built a smart city in the future?

Essay: On the smart city; Or, a ‘manifesto’ for smart citizens instead

• Dan Hill mentioned crowdfunding platforms, he used “Kickstarter” as an example to ask the question, who decides what is best locally, when using a global platform?  Do we need a standard for this division or even not in the process of building smart cities?