Interesting People mailing list archives
Re Stop Saying 'Smart Cities'
From: "Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2018 21:39:35 +0000
---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Bob Frankston <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com> Date: Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 4:30 PM Subject: RE: [IP] Re Stop Saying 'Smart Cities' To: <dave () farber net>, ip <ip () listbox com> The “smart cities” meme is similar to the idea of smart networks especially when I see especially when I see “fit to purpose”. It’s no surprise that the major advocates of smart cities are old line telecommunications companies and network operators. And it’s no surprise that there is an emphasis on video because it generates a lot of traffic. What we need are empowering cities with Ambient Connectivity as a new infrastructure. And we need API access to city information. This is why we can use applications that show train schedules instead of having to wait for the railroads and trolley operators to build devices to show the schedules. The API’s needn’t be provided by the city – they are a pattern that others, like private transport operators, can share information to be used by anyone to create services. The Atlantic did an article about yet another many million dollar project to display the time next subway train was arriving. It failed and was replaced by a very inexpensive reboot that could just APIs to display the information. And, of course, with APIs the displays in the stations are only one view of the information. You use software in your device to inform you even when you’re not at the station. One way to think about infrastructure is that it is a systems architecture that factors out common elements rather than having to build siloes that are expensive because they are unique purpose built systems which aren’t synergetic with other project. How long will it take to appreciate the lesson of the Internet and the value of creating opportunities using software. Especially when highways are so much more visible and look like progress. Bob Frankston http://Frankston.com @BobFrankston *From:* Dave Farber [mailto:dave () farber net] *Sent:* Sunday, February 18, 2018 06:23 *To:* ip <ip () listbox com> *Subject:* [IP] Re Stop Saying 'Smart Cities' ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Charles H Fine <charley () mit edu> Date: Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 4:49 AM Subject: Re: [IP] Stop Saying 'Smart Cities' To: dave () farber net <dave () farber net> CC: Dave Farber via ip <ip () listbox com> Hi Dave. In *Faster, Smarter, Greener* <https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/faster-smarter-greener> (MIT Press, October 2017), We use the term CHIP mobility to suggest that urban systems need better *Connectivity* amongst *Heterogeneous* modes, with *Intelligent* apps and systems that deliver *Personalized* mobility solutions. We advocate that urban planners think of the city as a platform that provides infrastructure (roads, trains, bike lanes, sidewalks, data, etc.) and encourages (and regulates — lightly please) entrepreneurs who fill in the gaps with connection solutions — physical and digital; new modes — that are fit to purpose; intelligence — in apps vehicles and infrastructure; with personalized solutions — computed and packaged. We assert that these four vectors of improvement are universal — rich cities, poor cities, big cities, small cities — will all be improved if they can improve along these four dimensions. No “smart cities” in sight — but intelligence is certainly part of the solution to reducing urban vehicle density and making multi-mode transit competitive with vehicle rides. Charles H. Fine Chrysler LGO Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School; President and Dean, Asia School of Business, Kuala Lumpur On Feb 17, 2018, at 09:35, Dave Farber <dave () farber net> wrote: ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com> Date: Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 8:28 AM Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Stop Saying 'Smart Cities' To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com> Stop Saying 'Smart Cities' Digital stardust won’t magically make future cities more affordable or resilient. By Bruce Sterling Feb 12 2018 < https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/stupid-cities/553052/
The term “smart city” is interesting yet not important, because nobody defines it. “Smart” is a snazzy political label used by a modern alliance of leftist urbanites and tech industrialists. To deem yourself “smart” is to make the NIMBYites and market-force people look stupid. Smart-city devotees all over this world will agree that London is particularly smart. Why? London is a huge, ungainly beast whose cartwheeling urban life is in cranky, irrational disarray. London is a god-awful urban mess, but London does have some of the best international smart-city conferences. London also has a large urban-management bureaucracy who emit the proper smart-city buzzwords and have even invented some themselves. The language of Smart City is always Global Business English, no matter what town you're in. So if grand old London is smart, with its empty skyscrapers, creepy CCTV videocams, and sewers plugged with animal fat, then we probably needn’t fret about the Elon Musk sequins and stardust of digital urbanism. Better to reimagine the forthcoming urban future as a mirror of Rome, that “Eternal City,” where nothing much ever gets tech-fixed, but everything changes constantly so that everything can remain the same. * * * Rome and London are two huge, sluggish beasts of cities that have outlived millennia of eager reformers. They share a world where half the people already live in cities and another couple billion are on their way into town. The population is aging quickly, the current infrastructure must crumble and be replaced by its very nature, and climate disaster is taking the place of the past’s great urban fires, wars, and epidemics. Those are the truly important, dull but worthy urban issues. The digital techniques that smart-city fans adore are flimsy and flashy—and some are even actively pernicious—but they absolutely will be used in cities. They already have an urban heritage. When you bury fiber-optic under the curbs around the town, then you get internet. When you have towers and smartphones, then you get portable ubiquity. When you break up a smartphone into its separate sensors, switches, and little radios, then you get the internet of things. These tedious yet important digital transformations have been creeping into town for a couple of generations. At this point, they’re pretty much all that urban populations can remember how to do. Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent—these are the true industrial titans of our era. That’s how people make money, that’s how they make war, so of course, it will be how they make cities. However, the cities of the future won’t be “smart,” or well-engineered, cleverly designed, just, clean, fair, green, sustainable, safe, healthy, affordable, or resilient. They won’t have any particularly higher ethical values of liberty, equality, or fraternity, either. The future smart city will be the internet, the mobile cloud, and a lot of weird paste-on gadgetry, deployed by City Hall, mostly for the sake of making towns more attractive to capital. Whenever that’s done right, it will increase the soft power of the more alert and ambitious towns and make the mayors look more electable. When it’s done wrong, it’ll much resemble the ragged downsides of the previous waves of urban innovation, such as railways, electrification, freeways, and oil pipelines. There will also be a host of boozy side effects and toxic blowback that even the wisest urban planner could never possibly expect. These smart cities won’t be a solutionist paradise that’s as neatly groomed as the new Apple Headquarters. The cities that promulgate, and also suffer, this new dynamic action will look more or less like Amsterdam, Singapore, Tallinn, Dubai, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Toronto, Shanghai, Sydney—and yes, London—for the simple reasons that those are the people who are already doing it. That’s where it’s at. [snip] Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now> <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/20210374-e5f5acac>| Modify <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&> Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now <https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?&&post_id=20180218062332:249CF62E-149E-11E8-8133-D12F40F85E54> <http://www.listbox.com> ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/18849915-ae8fa580 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-aa268125 Unsubscribe Now: https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-32545cb4&post_id=20180218163954:3F444C24-14F4-11E8-AED0-FED1CD48223B Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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