Smart Urban Futures: Outlining the Smart City Planning Project
Keywords:
Smart city, Models, Spatial Analytics, Urban Planning, Complexity, Uncertainty
Abstract
Cities are constantly evolving complex systems, and ongoing digitalization is making them even more complex. The toolkit for urban scientists is expanding with computational methods from AI to machine learning, data mining and advanced spatial analyses. Together with vast amount of data of urban phenomena and new lifestyles emerging from virtuality and cybernetic systems, this ‘smartification’ makes the planning and analyses more challenging while providing new tools to respond to them. In this article I propose a project for better understanding and guiding the future smart city based on dynamic urban theories such as those studying complex adaptive systems, urban morphology, urban economy and mobility systems. I argue that we need to carry out empirical research on ongoing change to learn about novel, becoming spatial and functional patterns in the city, and apply both theories and imaginary visions to be able to grasp the likely qualitative transition in human’s life following the ubiquitous use of technology. The project is built around three coupled modules, urban space, mobility and urban economics, and it will be carried out in the city of Tallinn, Estonia. The expected results would help planners, decision makers, urban scientists and developers to better understand the transition we are facing, to be able to support the change and steer it towards better social and economic outcomes.
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Watts D. J. and Strogatz S. H. (1998) Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks, Nature, 393: 440-442.
Allen, P. M. (1998) Cities as Self-Organising Complex Systems. In: Bertuglia, C.S., Bianchi, G. and Mela. A. (eds.) The City and Its Sciences. Physica-Verlag HD. Physica-Verlag, Heidelberg, 95-144.
Ascher, F. 2004. Metapolis. A Third Modern Urban Revolution. Change in Urban Scale and Shape in France. In: Bölling, T. L. &.Sieverts, T. (eds.) Mitten am Rand. Auf dem Weg von der Vorstadt über die Zwischenstadt zur Regionalen Stadtlandschaft. (Zwischenstadt Band 1). Wuppertal: Verlag Müller + Busmann KG.
Batty, M. (2009) Cities as Complex Systems: Scaling, Interaction, Networks, Dynamics and Urban Morphologies. In Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science. Springer. 1-62
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Batty, M., & Marshall, S. (2009) Centenary paper: The evolution of cities: Geddes, Abercrombie and the new physicalism. The Town Planning Review, 80(6): 551-574.
Bettencourt, L., & West, G. (2010) A unified theory of urban living. Nature, 467(7318): 912-913.
Boschma, R. & Martin, R. (2010) The aims and scope of evolutionary economic geography (No. 1001). Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Economic Geography Group.
Brenner, N. & Schmid, C. (2012) Planetary urbanization. In Gandy, M. (ed.), Urban Constellations. Berlin: Jovis, 10-13.
Caniggia, G., & Maffei, G. L. (2001) Interpreting Basic Building: Architectural Composition and Building Typology. Alinea. , Florence: Altralinea Edizioni.
Capra, F. (1996) The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. Anchor: New York
Castells M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Blackwell, Oxford.
Conzen, M. R. (2004) Thinking About Urban Form: Papers on Urban Morphology, 1932-1998. Bern: Peter Lang.
De Roo, G., & Hillier, J. (2016) Complexity and Planning: Systems, Assemblages and Simulations. Oxon: Routledge.
Engin, Z., van Dijk, J., Lan, T., Longley, P. A., Treleaven, P., Batty, M., & Penn, A. (2020) Data-driven urban management: Mapping the landscape. Journal of Urban Management, 9(2): 140-150.
Gabrys, J. (2014) Programming environments: Environmentality and citizen sensing in the smart city. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 32(1): 30-48.
Giddens A. (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of The Theory of Structuration. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Harvey, D. (1999) Time—space compression and the postmodern. Modernity: After Modernity, 4: 98-118.
Hayles, N. K. (2006) Unfinished work: From cyborg to cognisphere. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(7-8): 159-166.
Hillier, B. (2007) Space is the Machine: A Configurational Theory of Architecture. London: Space Syntax.
Holland, J. H. (2000) Emergence: From Chaos to Order. Oxford: OUP.
Kauffman, S. A. (1993) The origins of order: Self-organization and selection in evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA.
Krugman, P. (1996) The Self-organizing Economy. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell.
Li, X. G., Gao, Z. Y., Li, K. P., & Zhao, X. M. (2007) Relationship between microscopic dynamics in traffic flow and complexity in networks. Physical Review E, 76(1). 1-7.
Mitchell, M. (2009) Complexity: A guided tour. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moudon, A. V. (1997) Urban morphology as an emerging interdisciplinary field. Urban Morphology, 1(1): 3-10.
Oswald, F., Baccini, P., & Michaeli, M. (2003) Netzstadt. Springer Science & Business Media. Basel Boston Berlin: Birkhäuser.
Partanen, J. (2018). ‘Don’t Fix It if It Ain’t Broke’: Encounters with Planning for Complex Self-Organizing Cities. (Tampere University of Technology. Publication; Vol. 1514). Tampere University of Technology.
Portugali, J. (1999) Self-organization and the City. Springer Science & Business Media. place of publication Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
Portugali, J., Meyer, H., Stolk, E., & Tan, E. (Eds.). (2012) Complexity Theories of Cities Have Come of Age: An Overview with Implications to Urban Planning and Design. Springer Science & Business Media. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
Townsend, A. M. (2013) Smart cities: Big data, civic hackers, and the quest for a new utopia. New York/London: WW Norton & Company.
Walker, B., & Salt, D. (2012) Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World. Washington: Island press.
Wang, P., Hunter, T., Bayen, A. M., Schechtner, K., & González, M. C. (2012 Understanding road usage patterns in urban areas. Scientific Reports, 2, 1001 1-6. [accessed online 15.12.2020 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01001]
Wang, W., Bubb, H., Wets, G., & Wang, F. (2014) Advances in Mobility Theories, Methodologies, and Applications. (Editorial). Advances in Mechanical Engineering. 1-2 DOI:
10.1155/2014/831689
Watts D. J. and Strogatz S. H. (1998) Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks, Nature, 393: 440-442.
Published
2021-03-26
Section
Articles
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