‘New Towns | New Territories’ INTI Conference - All videos available online at http://tegenlicht.vpro.nl/inti

HOW CITIES SHOULD BE SMART?

Notes from New Towns | New territories
INTI conference, 27 September - Rotterdam

The conference explored the latest innovations in global urbanisation, privatisation and new organisational models of urban development as well as the impact and challenges for professional practise.


Within some weeks the Dutch broadcasting organization VPRO will add online documentation of the conference at 'tegenlicht.vpro.nl'


New Towns | New Territories refers to both new cities in a very literal way as well as to innovative models of urban development practise. An increasing privatisation has also led to an increased dynamic between client, investor, developer, designer, builder and user.
What are these new cities? How are they organised ? How are they financed ? who is in charge for what and who legitimise it? Which governance model?
How do these new cities balance short-term interests and long term responsibilities? And, perhaps most important: how will these new approaches change the quality of life in our future cities ? How can we measure the performance of a private city ?

4 case studies:
New Songdo, South Korea
Lavasa, India
Strand East, United Kingdom
PlanIT, Portugal

Session 1: city in a box, city as a package to be sold

New Songdo, South Korea
New Songdo City has been hailed as one of the first truly “smart Cities” of the 21st century. The cutting-edge technology present in every square meter of this development is testament to the developers’ dreams of a high tech futuristic city. The real innovative aspect of this project, however, is the fact that the city is being sold as a package. For the first time you can buy “ A city in a box”, every component included in one-time purchase, making construction infinitely faster and more streamlined.

The new Songdo (south Korea), the greenest city comes in a box. Sold! Replicable, standardized and radically cutting the link with the context (any relation with the genius loci anymore).

Jean-louis Massaut, Director of Smart+connected Communities, Cisco presented this case.

Why Cisco interested in New Towns?
At present they control the 80% of 50 billion connected devices.
In Songdo everybody and everything is connected.
Cisco created a special company called U. Life Solutions that operates smart connected community services for property developers and users. They also offer to the public partner (the government) some services like traffic management, pollution degree in the atmosphere, etc. U.Life Solutions expects to start deploying Smart+Connected Community Home Solutions that comprises advanced home networking systems and Cisco TelePresence this year. With this solution, residents will be able to conveniently control lighting, air conditioning/heating systems, gas, curtains and all other home devices using touch-screen wall pads, mobile remote controllers and even smartphones, computers and tablet devices.
The Cisco TelePresence unit will enable real-time video communication and provide a window not just to family members, but also to a host of service providers such as schools, banks and the government.
'http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/smart_connected_communities.html'

Three economic zones around Seoul City. Songdo is one of them. Three new New towns that have been created to attract business and economic development.
From Seoul to Songdo is just a never ending urbanised territory. 'http://blogs.cisco.com/emerging/smartconnected-community-services-to-roll-out-shortly-in-songdo/'
'http://blogs.cisco.com/government/cloud-based-services-infrastructure-transforms-busan-metropolitan-city/#more-44979'


The New Towns on the coastal zones (Chinese and Dutch cases); 'http://www.dhvgroup.com/Projecten/2010/2010-06-04-Design-of-an-eco-city-for-a-million-inh'

Tiffany Tsui, Director Strategic Business & Sustainable Development of the region China at Royal Haskoning DHV, The Netherlands presented several cases

1/Tianijn binhai near area delta diamond (ecological water city)
2/Nansha, new city, Guangzhou. Integrated water management and spatial planning.
3/Mekong Delta
4/Mastrplan for Caofeidian Ecological coastal city
5/ Schiphol airport

Reflections time|
The Public dimension of the city. The city as a cultural product. Cities cannot only be a matter of management.
The management angle should be complement by the cultural matter/public involvement. Making city is making living. Attention to consider a city a product to be sold! (Director NAI) Just a city by promising, by marketing.
A city does express its cultural background but how do you translate the social life of the city in the package you sell? . It is a matter of society , the way you think about the city
what are the real drivers for the city ? In Songdo Cisco is deploying a platform to answer new pressing societal needs. In China new towns answer to the need of urbanised areas to accommodate increasing flows of people who move to the urbanised territories. Of course we fell a loss of architecture and urbanism in the European vision but we probably we might accept it if it would solve the depths we have (in terms of eco-sustainability, nature) (NAI).
ICT masterplanning enables to calculate and reduce costs while improve quality and efficency.

How can you build the water city?
It is ready to be lived the ‘package city?”
Can you create a liveable city from nothing?
Which relations between private and public actors ?
How do we make a city socially diverse?
At which point are we? At the very beginning of the plans? Or we are at the very end of an old process started some years ago?

Session 2: Whether New New Towns are able to set up community and citizens’ involvement?

Strand East, London > 'http://strandeast.com/'
Commercial and residential accommodations. Homes + services to create a neighbourhood within long terms vision/strategy.

The first large scale development project in the area around the Olympic Park - Sugar House Lane in Stratford is the location for a 13 acre site bought by Inter Ikea which is the construction sector of the company. They intend to build a mixed-use development which will offer retails and office space along with 1,500 homes as part of their master plan. Strand East is a neighborhood for 6000 inhabitants initiated, financed and owned by LandPROP (a subsidiaqy of lnterlKEA). The project was conceived as part of the wave of redevelopment that flooded this area when the London Olympics were announced. This mixed-use neighborhood is built with the same middle-class target group as the familiar IKEA stores, but at a new scale: housing, recreational and business facilities will be built on the site of an old industrial terrain. LandPROP is also concerned with creating a strong sense of community in this area, and their long-term interest in the project is evident: all 1200 dwellings will be rental units, with LandPROP as landlord.
Ikea is working on affordable housing but making profits from that.
As a developer, LandProp benefits from all these changes: higher rents, better infrastructure, and a gentrified center that attracts a wealthier population. Because they've kept managerial control of the entire project, LandProp will play a pseudo-municipal role. Even the public space will become semi-public, with LandProp having final say over how the spaces can be used and which stores can rent the commercial space. LandProp cites thís intimate involvement as proof of its long-term commitment to the project, and indeed, the company seems to be serious about sticking around. According to LandProp Manager Andrew Cobden, "We're not here to make the big profìts and walk away, we'll retain ownership of the commercial buildings and we'll continue to invest in the infrastructure." And a note for potential buyers: there is no IKEA in Strand East. The closest store is 20 minutes' dríve away in Edmonton.

'http://inter.ikea.com/en/divisions/property/'
'http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/jul/27/lets-move-to-stratford-olympic-park?INTCMP=SRCH'

Questions coming up:
A private developer is in charge of this development. It would have happened if a public developer would have been involved?
How to create identity through temporary uses?
How the authority will dial with tradition, memory and a long term vision for those territories?
How can be people living around those areas convinced about the benefits of the development of these areas?

Session 3: City as a laboratory
What are cities today?
What if we look at the city as a device?
City of things. The city is a complex system. What about if I can make it more liveable (enabling cities to reach their ambitions ) with technology. How do I use technology to engage people to live in this city.
A city built from scratch just east of Porto, PlanlT Valley will simultaneously serve as testing platform for partner companies and smart technologies, innovation centers, incubators for technology start-ups. Using the company's unique Urban Operating System'" (UOS), Living PlanlT will manage daily processes and gather data via 100 million "smart" sensors deployed throughout the cíty. Thus, the city is intended as a replicable model for potential future cities based on a unique network system.
Living PlanlT has an answer to the question that has dogged designers and technologists for the last two decades: What is a smart city'? For Living PlanlT a start-up technology company founded by Steve Lewis and Malcolm Hutchinson in 2006, the future of cities is in their organizational model, not in the bricks and asphalt. The parts of cities that you don't see-the systems, the services, the sensors and smart grids-play smart grids-play an increasingly ambitious role in urban planning. For Living Planll this unseen side is the backbone of new cities.
They've developed an integrated system that acts as an operating platform for managing every single aspect of city life. They've developed an integrated system that acts as an operating platform for managing every single aspect of city life. From waste to water to electricity to traffic, Living PlanlT's Urban Operating System (UOS) allows service providers that historically functioned in a completely independent manner to share information and streamline city management.
Two years after founding the company Living PlanlT began buying up land in Parades municipality, just east of Porto, Portugal. Why Portugal? According to Lewis, "The key factors in our decision were European leadership in environment and sustainability, and Portugal's demonstration of those principles.
Portugal has demonstrated that government policy and action have resulted in significant use of renewable energies and innovative solutions for waste and water treatment. lmplementation of the Lisbon Strategy through the Portuguese Technological Plan and other similar innovative strategies made Portugal a obvious choice." Portugal's national government responded enthusiastically to the project,
making it an official Project of National lnterest (PlN) in 2009. PIN status benefìts the project in the following ways: more flexible and faster land rezoning, reduced corporate taxes, expropriation was put in place to eliminate speculation, and effective government support and assistance is only a phone call away.
Today, the masterplan covers 1670 hectares; about l/6th the size
of Lisbon. With a range of housing options, small businesses, R&D parks, hotels, schools, restaurants and community facilities, PlanlT Valley is sort of like a super-smart, condensed version of Silicon Valley.
The model applied is very much a Private-Private-Partnership), hundreds of partners (and eventually thousands) are gathered together in what Lewis calls an "integrated ecosystem" run by Living PlanlT's UOS. Partner companies gain a monopoly on services within the city and benefit from Living PlanlT's efficient coordination, intellectual property and operations support. For Living PlanlT the difficult groundwork is done. At the user-phase, maintenance of the UOS is complimented by continued re-thinking, refinement and further development.

As a prototype, PlanlT Valley is expected to fail in some ways, but also to point the way to realistic solutions for future models. ln the near future, those models are expected to help solve the urban overflow problems in China and lndia.
The city's main target group is researchers working for the R&D branches of the partner. companies. Every partner is required to have a physical presence in PlanlT Valley, and this means families following the researchers. According to Lewis: "ln other words, the city's residents will experiment on themselves. They don't want a campus, they want a city...

Modularity > they want to be able to adapt the model. Keep the evolution of the city going on in the process ..
“ give the power to the people to decide what they want and what they expect from their city”. Creating a system to generate cities that can be industrialized.


Questions coming up:
Plan IT is something people are not even expecting.. is this anticipating needs or creating new needs just for commercial purposes??

Technology gets old very fast, how you do not trough this city away when gets old. How dial with technology-led cities and city systems aging?

City must be more than just smart.
Improvements should be able to accommodate coming innovations in technology
How can we develop systems and networks that can evolve and be adapted and modified. A backbone infrastructure that allow to improve present systems. (Andrew Comer, Partner and managing Director for Environment & lnfrastructure at Buro Happptd. United Kingdom)

What is the economic model for the city?
How is gonna function the economic eco-system? What kind of services you need to enable ? and then they move to the physical aspects of the master-planning .

We need to focus on the people and governance (Accenture > Ciudad creative digital. they work for developers and municipalities to identify opportunities).

How do we dial with democratic deficit? How do we make stakeholders engaged? Asking for more attention to the people . how do we determine that these places are fundamentally human?

It is not about implementation of technology but it is about how technology comes together with business models, new governance models, new operating models to deliver outcomes that improve the lives of people.

“I’m skeptical about new smart cities. I advocate the idea that we have to re-conceptualize and adapt cities we do have one before we desert building new cities from sketch. It is really difficult to replicate the attraction, the economic structure, the fascination of the old cities that have evolve in centuries. Why they are what they are?” (J. Kostaras, Senior Research Associate at the lnstitute for lnternational Urban Development, USA)

What is the potential of new smart cities to attract diversity, mixity, sense of diverse lifestyle , role of the participatory democracy developed over the years and the vibrancy built up over the years ? Do these new cities are able to have that? How do you replicate that? Ho to make these cities attractive ?

Probably those cities need sort of” rebellion” against their own planned model to find out their own life.

Closing session : What’s next?

Governance | The city as an enterprise
How do we inject human dimension in these new smart cities ? New business models How do we make cities vibrant?
Who are the people we want to attract ? What are the companies?
How to avoid to have new cities that at the end will be empty? (generally professionals on this field say ‘ I do prefer in Amsterdam than in Almere as I do love urbanity!!’.)
Allow free market enterprise but responsible with democratic institutions to manage the development (transparency, civic participation). But then, ‘who decide who is involved?’ There should be a balance between civic society and government.

But what if there is a democratic deficiency?
In China now there are the “City operators”> property developers with a local government mandate

Technology |
“Stop call them Smart cities!” The city of tomorrow do not put forward the technology. The Innovation Agenda cannot be looking for a new sensor to be applied to the Urban Operator System..but it should work and invest on governance (Mathieu Lefevre, Executive director new City Foundation NCF)

'http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2012/09/why-we-need-better-science-cities/3154/'
We are probably too much focused on technology instead of being focused on the outcomes. In the Smartness there’s no narrative. Moreover efficiency and economics of scale make all these cities the same all over the world.

The new smart cities are even more deterministic than ever and they define in detail how should be human life deeply influencing our decisions and ways of living, without , however, giving a solution to the problems posed by metropolisation.

What makes a city a “Smart City” as opposed to a city where some “smart things” happen?
Read the article "The new architecture of Smart Cities" posted on the Urban technologist online magazine by Rick Robinson, Executive Architect at IBM specialising in emerging technologies and Smarter Cities.
http://theurbantechnologist.com/2012/09/26/the-new-architecture-of-smart-cities/

New Songdo City has been hailed as one of the first truly “smart” cities of the 21st century. The cutting-edge technology present in every square meter of this development is testament to the developer’s dreams of a high-tech, futuristic city. The real innovative aspect of this project, however, is the fact that the city is being sold as a package. For the first time ever, interested parties can buy a “City in a Box”, and know exactly what they are getting—down to the door handles and hinges. Every component is included in a one-time purchase, making construction infinitely faster and more streamlined. China has already purchased two Songdos, and Middle Eastern buyers are said to be interested.
"City in a Box" will be further discussed at INTI conference "New Towns|New Territories" that will be held in Rotterdam on the 27th of September.
For more info http://www.newtowninstitute.org/spip.php?article692

Mise en question de la technologie comme solution des problèmes urbains par une équipe d’artistes de NY: http://www.sentientcity.net/exhibit/?p=59