Tech is Changing our Cities and our Government Doesn’t Know
In January 2018, the food delivery app Deliveroo donated all of its data collected from the cyclists who use the platform to the Mayor of London. The reason for doing so, it says, is to increase awareness of cycle safety, but is this really an act of pure generosity or a calculated move to increase its own efficiency? You know what, the Deliveroo logo does seem to look like two fingers the more I look at it.
From the Mayor of London’s perspective, this ‘gift’ appears only to have positive repercussions, as they are gaining valuable information which will help to increase the efficiency of their investment in cycling infrastructure. Win-win, right? Well, this willingness for Government agencies to accept and make use of data collected by private companies begins to spark questions about whether or not the Government is aware of the ingrained bias programmed into these collecting platforms. Is this data really representative of the average commuter? Or is it simply assisting in making Deliveroo more profitable? Furthermore, in most cases, the Government has neither the resources nor the willingness to thoroughly investigate the spatial implications of this donated data in both the short and long term. According to TFL’s Strategic Cycling Analysis (2017) there are 670,000 cycle trips made per day in London, and before long, we may have a cycle infrastructure which in its primary focus efficiently connects London’s most popular takeaway spots, which is great if you work in a takeaway, I guess.
So we are beginning to see a tension, between the focus of data and software which is inherently two dimensional, and the often one step removed three-dimensional implications of this technology; in this case, the urban planning of our cycle infrastructure. We are also seeing a need for the Government to increase its capacity to understand and predict the algorithmically generated spatial problems of the future, to not only stop problematic trends but to identify opportunities for holistic, ethical development. Knowledge is data, data is power, and at the moment the Government doesn’t even speak the same language.
Deliveroo is not an isolated example of a technological innovation having a profound influence on our cityscape, because as quickly as there are technologies which create spaces, there are equally those who render existing spatial conventions useless. Monzo, the digital-only bank is facilitating the closure of bank branches on our high-street. Cloud-based data storage providers such as Google, Dropbox and Apple have revolutionised the workplace, and in the process changed the way we use our cities, we no longer need to commute in order to work. Companies such as WeWork and StartUp Home are capitalising on the increased demand for live/work environments. An article in the Financial Times describes another change to our urban environment as Deliveroo and Uber Eats facilitate the rise of ‘Dark Kitchens.’ These kitchens require a completely different spatial condition to the traditional restaurant and are occupying cheap industrial land or vacant car parks. Local plans could not have predicted the shift of restaurants to be an entirely footloose, dispersed typology in our urban environment. What does this mean for our highstreets? Clearly, these digital platforms are rapidly changing the face of our urban environments, often in intentionally covert or unexpected ways, and our planning system is not fit to cope with the speed of change.
The Westminster Local Plan was edited in 2016 to add minor amendments to the approved 2013 version. The current plan as it stands does not contain either the words Digital, Automation or Innovation but uses the word Future 55 times. The only mention in fact to the idea of technology is when talking about pollution reducing cars and sustainable materials. In fact, there were no technologically focused consultants who contributed to the process of making the plan. So what’s going on? There are two factors at play in this scenario, the first is that there the Westminster Council is likely not aware of the fact that technology has a profound impact on the development of its future form, and therefore does not consult with any technological consultants in the creation of such a plan. The second is that there is a discrepancy between the speeds at which these two forces act. The sluggish, bureaucratic process of creating a Local Plan often takes as long as 5–10 years, and work on the revised version frequently begins immediately after the existing has been approved; sometimes even before. This means that it is not uncommon for parts of the document to be outdated before the plan is even in circulation. For example, its description of typical floor space use percentages in Policy S1 ‘Mixed Use in the Central Activities Zone,’ is almost ignorant of common predictions that half of the UK’s workforce is likely to consider home and the office as the same space by 2020. In fact, StartUp Home, established after the Local Plan for Westminster was approved in 2013, is already having an impact on the spatial fabric of London.
With the rise of new models of digital commerce, it is likely that we will see new spatial conditions appearing in our cities, and without proper consideration and foresight by the Government, these new developments will exploit the loopholes in our planning system. It is likely that we will see more and more developments falling into the Sui generis use class outlined by our current planning system, and benefiting from the ambiguity which comes with this.
There is simultaneously a problem of speed as well as a language barrier in this current system, which leads to the creation of policy which is more rapidly outdated than ever before. The current dynamic is broken. Of course, Local Plans are not the only policy which dictates urban development frameworks, however, what they do provide is an insight into the mindset of what local councils consider as benchmarks for future development and an outline of their priorities. How can these plans which set frameworks for the future development of our urban environment be created in a vacuum, without any consultation of the factor which is having the biggest influence to the change of that very environment? Local councils must begin to appreciate the impacts these technologies are having, the biases which they contain and the spatial impacts it may have on our cities. It must shift its approach from one which is reactive to one which is proactive before our spatial urban environment is entirely dictated by these technologies.
Let us not forget, it was technological innovation which led to the invention of the automobile in 1886 by Karl Benz and triggered a chain of events that saw some of the biggest changes to our cities in history. A vast majority of which having profound detrimental impacts on community cohesion, health and mental well-being in built environments. In a world where we see more technological innovation than ever before, there is an even greater need to understand the spatial implications of such changes.
