Imagining the Future City

Satellite image of Dubai, UAE, at night.

When I look at this image of Dubai, I see the past and I sense the future. Ignore for the moment that Dubai is one of the more unsustainable cities in the world, and focus on the urban aesthetics of the photograph. Afterall, aesthetics is often what we need when trying to imagine the future, especially the future of something as widespread as our urban fabric.

The meandering orange lines remind us of highway networks for the most dominant form of transportation in the world: personal automobiles. Grid cells throughout Dubai reify the presence of those cars. The few dark clouds remind me of power plants, probably built on fossil fuels, used to power its glimmering lights. The stark contrast between the black spaces and the built-environment suggests an urban design at odds with its surroundings.

But it still allures me. The lights, for example, suggest an energy, a buzz, a flow that we often overlook in our largest and most busiest cities around the world — the ceaseless movement, transfer, and conveyance of data that undirgirds every aspect of our urban lives. Or if data doesn’t yet emanate from some various movements of the city, it soon will. This is a fact that will become more pronounced as those cities grow, and as younger and newer cities join the list.

Why am I drawn to this image? Well, it partly has to do with Thomas Kuhn, author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn introduced me to the idea a Copernicun Revolution. In short, a Copernicun Revolution is a critical moment in some discipline or field when the tables are literally turned . . . as when Copernicus told the world that the Earth revolved around other celestial bodies. Looking back upon the development of scientific knowledge from our stable vantage point, we might say, “Ahh! Scientific progression is so logical and linear!” Kuhn, however, reminds us that major breakthroughs often come out of left field. Societal standards and engrained habits or assumptions — inherited from the knowledge-bearers who came before us — keep most of us, if not all of us, focused on right field, backs turned to a new way of seeing.

Is it a duck? Or a rabbit?

One more tangent (I promise it all relates!). Kuhn, and many of my mentors, was fond of this image to the left. When you first saw this image, you probably thought of one animal, either a duck or a rabbit. Hardly anyone ever thinks of both animals instantaneously. So imagine that you live in a society, surrounded by norms and friends and slogans and life-goals, that unquestionably declares that this image is of a duck. It’s as true as 2+2=4. It’s a fact. It’s simply the way the world is, and it has never even been questioned (this is ideology, my friends). Now this is what interests me — how and why would someone ever radically deviate from the norm to declare that this is rabbit?

The same holds true of our cities. By and large, “urbanity” is a homogenous fabric that drapes every major city in our world. The bells and whistles may be different (the architecture, the vibe, the scene), but an underlying logic permeates each and every one. Just as I materially perceive telephone/electricity poles, four-lane highways, sidewalks, paved drainage ways, sewage pipes, and bus routes in Austin, Texas, so too do I perceive the same structure of living in Tokyo, Japan. Every city has a different style, but they’re all wearing trousers and vests.

How then, when looking at our existing urban forms, do we parse through the concrete and steel to catch little glimmers of future possibility? When staring at our urban “duck,” where might we see the emergence of a few “rabits”? How might we catch wind of, or even instigate ourselves, a CopUR[BA]Nican Revolution? And might it already be happening, right now?

It is already happening, and this massive change of the urban landscape falls under the umbrella term “the smart city.”

Even though you’ve probably heard of the phrase “smart city,” you’re probably asking, “Wait . . . what does it actually mean?” Good question. “Smart City” has been tacked onto just about every urban proposal that you come across in the headlines. Here are the movements that I am aware of thus far and that lay claim to the title:

1. The Smart Grid. Currently, most electrical grids are old-fashioned. Energy is often generated in one spot, and then distributed across a massive network of wires. They are designed to meet peak demand at any possible moment. Such a system is very inefficient. The smart grid rectifies this inefficiency by distributing power production across multiple points (thousands if we include solar on the tops of homes). Also, a true smart grid allows the power generation system to make subtle, brief changes to the energy demands of offices and homes.
2. The Smart Economy. Think of Silicon Valley, where the economy depends upon tech-savy businesses and people inventing, disrupting, and adapting. Everyone has smart phones, everyone hails Uber, and everyone speaks code (both the programming language and the lingo). Practically every city in the United States lays claim to this meaning of the “smart city” (don’t believe all of them).
3. ______________. This third one is what interests me the most, and I’ve left it blank because I’m not sure what to call it other than “the smart city.” It does include Information and Communication Technology (ICT), but it also transcends the infatuation with shiny-new gadgets. This is why I separate it from the two above — while it includes elements from each one, it transcends their limitations. It’s more concerned with the future potentiality of human culture (politics, societal norms and habits, economics) in the urban landscape given the reality of ICT, climate change, the sharing-economy, public austerity, resource scarcity, demographic changes, and on and on.

Michael Dixon, General Manager for IBM’s global smarter cities business, reminds us that smart cities are not a “maybe” for cities’ future. It’s a certainty. The question instead revolves around asking what kind of city it will produce. How will the urban fabric change? Will it be the same for every city? Will ordinary people, like you and me, be empowered by this transformation? Or will it serve other interests? Dixon notes that, “Cities are not ‘smarter cities’ or not. We are at the beginning of a long period in the evolution of our cities, and people are excited by the prospect.” Given cities’ past track record, I, too, am excited by the prospect. As I said in my last article, if cities are the primary cause of our environmetal dilemmas, then it logically follows that they can be the primary solution.

Maybe the solution is on the way, coming under the banner of “smart city.” But it won’t just come out of nowhere, magically and by itself. Copernicus’ daring observations were the product of intense discipline, study, and focus. He had to step outside the epistemological limits of his time to formulate entirely new ways of seeing the world and universe. That is what we must do when we look at the city. It is a system, a structure, a fabric built upon inherited assumptions declaring “this is just how it is.” But 6 lane freeways, personal automobiles, centralized energy production, centralized knowledge production, industrial agriculture, fossil fuels, etc., etc., etc. are not set-in stone realities, going along their merry way because “that’s just how things are.” Surely there are radical, [currently] unforeseen ways of re-doing, or transcending, these systems. Do you see any possibilities lurking in the corners of our cities?

(This is the first article in a series to follow, during which Patrick will be cataloguing the emergence of the smart city in urban planning discourse. His research thus far has been literature-focused. During the month of July, he’ll be exploring smart city initiatives and philosophies in and near Tokyo, Japan. He will continue his research into the fall and spring, with a goal of finishing his Masters thesis in a timely manner . . . or just in time to graduate and nab a job)