A domain where the research is particularly active during this past few years is at the crossing between technology and society. The current world situation calls for a progressive but radical change. This evolution has been smoothen by the policies of the European Union, but today we see a quick acceleration of tis trend because of economical and environmental concerns. The future of our towns is dependent to the way we will manage to work out the economical, social and environmental developments in synergy.
Within this context, it seems interesting to state the ambitions of the EU for the coming decade. The strategy titled “Europe 2020” aims to revive the economy and is the development of a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. These priorities, which are mutually reinforcing, must allow to the Union and its Member States to ensure high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion. This will be made possible by relying on greater coordination between national and european policies. In other words, each Member State will be required to follow the European directives and support the common objectives through an harmonisation of local legislation.
The main axes are the following:
1. Smart growth,developing an economy based on knowledge and innovation. Between now and 2020, an estimated 16 million more jobs will need a high level of qualification, while the low skilled asset demand is expected to fall to 12 million. The improvement of the initial training is paramount – as well as the means to acquire and develop new skills during a career.
2. Sustainable growth, which promotes a better efficiency energetics as well as a greener and more competitive economy.
3. Inclusive growth, which supports high employment rate and a strong social and territorial cohesion.
The targets for 2020 are:
– Three quarters (75% ) of the population 20 to 64 years should be employed, (the average of the EU 27 is now 69 %).
– Reduce the poverty rate of 25%, which means 20 million people out of poverty.
– Reduce to less than 10% the population between 18 to 24 years leaving school without a diploma, and raise to at least 40% the percentage of the population between 30-34 year with an higher degree.
– 3% of European GDP invested in Research and Development, combining private and public sectors, which is a point higher than the current rate (compared to 2.6% of GDP invested in R & D in the USA and 3.4% in Japan )
– objective “20/20/20” climate change , a 20% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 1990 levels, raising 20% the energy efficiency and reach 20% of energy production through renewable sources. This should allow the creation of 1 million jobs in Europe.
These objectives are linked and, at least theoretically, they are reinforcing each other. Progress in education matters will improve the capabilities of the labor pool, reducing the risk of impoverishment. On top of it, the increase in the average skill level will fuel the growth of a knowledge economy based on innovation, research and development. The European economy will become more competitive, creating wealth and jobs, closing a virtuous circle. Moreover, we can expect a “green economy” making our societies more environmentally-friendly, and therefore more profitable, as the side effects of a development not following environmentally sustainable practices are likely to result in very expensive containment measures.
One of the themes which is common to all these dimensions is technology. Much of the progress made in the recent past in the field of Information Technology and Communication (ICT) allow an holistic design for the city of the future, which is often linked to the concept of Smart City.
Within the huge number of essays on this topic a few elements are recurring. They will serve as a basis for identifying key concepts of urban form of the future.
In general way, the conceptualisation of Smart Cities follows from what we explained earlier on. The economic and technological changes that relate to globalisation belong the fabric of this domain. Cities find themselves facing the need to combine economic competitiveness and urban development, in a sustainable manner and style, preserving – or by creating – an outstanding quality of life. The concept of Smart City brings together all major current concerns.
However, we noticed a specific issue while studying this theme. The literature on this new city concept comes from engineers or urbanists, for the most part. In general, the humanities and social sciences seem not yet to have made this a thematic object of research. For instance, the following diagram, quite popular, is from the website “European Smart Cities”. The research team was constituted by members of the regional centre of science of the Vienna University of Technology, the Institute for Research on housing, urban mobility and implanted in the university technology Delft and the Department of Geography of the university of Ljubljana.
The basic model, found in many publications, promote a taxonomy with 6 domains, 31 sub- groups, and 74 indicators.
The result is a rather technocratic vision of the city, which is -at best- hard to apply. It is a holistic approach that pretends to understand everything and explain and master everything through a mathematical formula. However, understand and manage are two very different things: although knowledge and reason are the foundation of the modern world since the eighteenth century, the feeling is that this taxonomy goes too far in this direction. Science and its applications are supposed to give “The Answer” to everything. This assumption might not be fundamentally wrong if science was replaced by knowledge and wisdom; however, it’s impossible not to notice the return of a positivist conception with regards to analysis of the world aspects. The point is not to contest the importance that scientific observation and factual analysis can bring, but some recent research seem to have been published by a disciple of A Comte (1798-1857). It seems like the “hard science”, where every- thing can be quantified, and that define social laws as immutable, is taken as the cornerstone of every discussion and possible development. In this vision, the smart city concept goes between “Supreme Theory” and “Abstracted Empiricism”, two derivatives that CW Mills attributed to the sociology of the 1950s. The Supreme theory claims that purely formal studies can provide an analytical framework to the study of society. The abstract empiricism suggests that knowledge production is not based on a solid methodological basis, but on statistical results or surveys. This conceptual atrophy leads to forget or underestimate fundamental reflections that are sometimes the very essence of the studied object.
In any city there are three distinct factors:
– Aspects that do not change, or evolve with a speed which is by far slower than human life. It’s the case of history, for instance, or geography, or climate. The Coliseum is in Rome; the Statue of Liberty in New York. The average rainfall in Tokyo in November is 100 mm; Marseille is on the sea and Stockholm is on an archipelago. Now, while in course of centuries this can change (Pisa, when founded, was on the sea, while today it’s around 10 Km from the coast because of sediments brought by rivers), changes happen in course of centuries.
– Aspects that change slowly, and require a lot of effort and commitment. Cultural aspects, for instance, or major urban modifications. Jordaan district in Amsterdam, for instance, was only a few decades ago a working-class neighbourhood; nowadays is arguably the most expensive area in Netherlands. Detroit population dropped by 60% since 1950, and 25% since 2000.
– Aspects that can be changed easily. These aspects, which are often “cosmetic”, may nevertheless have an impact on the quality of life in a specific town. Use of NFC payments for public transport, for instance, or specific traffic restrictions, or else laws allowing (or disallowing) specific behaviours like smoking in public places.
Any city is a economical and social product. Urban spaces are often conceived as a functional organisation in which different areas have specific functions (residential areas, commercial ones, industries, . . . ). This politic, however, does not necessarily leads to good results.
The city peripheries (hinterlands) are often de facto on the margins of the city social and economical dynamics. The highest crime rates and the “urban violence” is often rooted in these areas. Therefore, we can see that a good number of social issues are first and foremost a spatial issue.
What it’s important to notice is that often Smart City projects are addressing only the third category. A common example is a service which seems to be widely used to indicate the smartness of a city: parking sensors with a dedicated app showing the available space at real time. While the usefulness of such developments can be debated, and positively argued, it does not tackle any of the city issues at its roots, but rather promote a digital divide exacerbating the existing separation between different realities within the same city.
As we discussed earlier on, the new trends in urban planning are focused on environmentally- friendly and technology. These urban utopias, such as Smart Cities, conceptualise certain elements that could be the building blocks of the cities of tomorrow. Their main defect is, however, not consider concrete historical realities, such as social polarisation. With a little imagination, it is nevertheless possible to consider the current trends in a positive way. We briefly discussed about the fragmentation of society, that transforms a city creating “self-segregation” zones based on attraction / repulsion process.
However, some current development allow people with a different logic, to co-exist and to share the same space. We are talking here about the are eco-neighborhoods, that reconcile economy and ecology, and often also social links. This type of habitat was very marginal and rural rather than urban until a short time ago. The passage from the countryside to the city is due to an evolution of mentalities and legislations favouring a more environmentally friendly living, This trend can therefore be seen as extremely positive as it tackles not only the cosmetic aspects of cities, but leverages technological advances developing a sustainable vision for future generations, on both social and economical level.