Retrofitting old cities
It is not always possible – or economically viable – to build a smart city from the ground up. Many cities have a long history and have grown without a clear plan for how they will work in the future. These cities are hard to change.
Many older cities are being re-developed and renewed, however. As a PhD graduate, I worked at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Located in an old neighbourhood close to the historic downtown district, the USC campus was located in a very different LA to that which we are accustomed to seeing in the more glamourous Hollywood and Beverley Hills.
After the Global Financial Crisis, however, the old downtown area of LA has been undergoing a renaissance. New populations of young professionals are taking up residence in areas that just a decade earlier were considered dangerous places to live. The old downtown area today is unrecognisable from the city I experienced in the early 1990s.
LA is also a hub of the digital economy, with an expanding population of high tech start-ups and new generation film production. Alongside this economic renewal, the City of Los Angeles has invested millions in redeveloping its cultural
and social assets.
This same phenomenon is now being experienced in old cities across the globe, which are being retrofitted to become centres for technology and design. New technologies associated with the internet of things, for example, are being used to overhaul lighting systems and traffic flow and improve safety.
‘Decentred’ cities
A critical challenge for planners and governments is how to retain the benefits of cities while managing the inevitable pressure on infrastructure and amenities that attract people to cities in the first place.
As cities grow, public transport and road networks come under pressure, beset by ‘gridlock’, housing affordability and pollution. Cities organised around a single hub no longer make sense. In comparison, cities that have multiple centres of activity can continue to grow and function with all the associated economic benefits.
Cities around the world are growing at a faster rate. The Tokyo-Yokohama district, for instance, is estimated to have a population of more than 38 million people spread across the expansive greater Tokyo Bay area. As it has grown and expanded, it has encompassed several cities and CBD areas that are increasingly interdependent. This has required local and regional governments to work more closely with national governments to create infrastructure that meets the needs of several cities at once.
Cities are a critical part of the social and economic systems that drive growth and prosperity. But many cities around the world face a new threat to their economic success. Increasingly, the logic that drives the economic and social benefits that cities give us is being rattled by the same digital technologies disrupting business across many different industries.
Not surprisingly for many cities, these developments present either a threat or opportunity – the threat of decline, or the opportunity to renew and become ‘smart’ cities of the twenty-first century. There are a range of trends and developments in the ways cities are being designed and re-invented that show us the city of the future.
New ‘smart cities’
One solution is to start from scratch. New ‘smart cities’ are being brought into existence, fully-formed, at an increasing rate, with China alone planning and building around 10 new smart cities each year.
One of the more celebrated examples is Songdo in South Korea. The National Government spent around $US40 billion to build the city of Songdo. Opening in 2009 and built on reclaimed land, this city is now home to around 90,000 people – and is expected to be at least twice as large by 2020.
What makes Songdo different is its “invisible infrastructure”. Rather than simply relying on physical infrastructure such as roads and railway lines, Songdo is built on a new set of technologies and public utilities designed to make it smart. WiFi is ubiquitous, and most schools, homes and businesses are capable of high quality telepresence connections to each other and the outside world. Businesses and individuals share data and information in ways that enable real time analysis to assist in preventing traffic jams and ensuring trains run on time to meet the ebb and flow of passengers.
Songdo is not only a smart city, but also a green city. Rather than conventional garbage collection, for example, waste is collected from homes and businesses by being drawn through a centralised waste vacuum system. Buildings are designed to minimise energy use and, where possible, contribute to meeting the energy needs of people living and working in these same buildings.
The city is also a “connected” city. It has been located and designed as an “aerotropolis” – a city connected by a short plane trip to a staggering one-third of the world’s population.
Sustainable cities
As our cities get larger and face the prospect of competing for talent, jobs and growth opportunities, cities of the future will also need to address the relationship between the city and the natural environment.
Around the world, cities are also looking at investments in environmental renewal as a key component to becoming cities of the future. The ancient city of Tianjin in China, for example, has faced growing ecological and environmental damage as it has continued to develop. As part of a national plan to redress China’s disappearing natural waterways, Tianjin invested in developing the Ribbon Park and a new eco-city. The Ribbon Park incorporates new open spaces – something that is rarely associated with development in China – and harnesses the capture of stormwater to flush out the river where the city is located.
Australian cities of the future
The need to rethink urban development to ensure Australian cities become cities of the future has begun to capture the attention of Australian Governments.
If the current trends are anything to go on, our main cities – especially Sydney and Melbourne – will continue to grow. They will form our two core mega-cities of the future, perhaps with Brisbane continuing to catch up. Around them we are likely to see greater connectivity to metro-centres close by – Parramatta and west of Sydney, and the burgeoning eastern and south-western corridors of Melbourne. For the increasing populations that live in these cities, the CBD will not be the focal point for their economic and social lives. The quality of life will increasingly be determined by development and amenity within districts or locales – cities within cities. Beyond the capitals, cities such as Newcastle, Wollongong, Geelong and Ballarat will remain satellite cities dependent on the growth and prosperity of the main cities.
This development may not be the optimal one for Australia. In a report released in 2016, consulting firm Ernst and Young reviewed the challenges that both Sydney and Melbourne face in keeping up with other regions as smart cities. Perhaps surprisingly, technological capability was not the most significant challenge. Instead, these cities face problems of ensuring housing affordability, avoiding traffic gridlock, as well as being an enjoyable place to live.
What is clear from the international evidence is that the worst of these problems are avoidable with careful planning. No longer is it possible to leave the future of cities to fate. Much of this evidence also suggests that successful cities of the future will be very different in many ways from those that dominated economic and social life in the past. It is also clear that people are attracted to cities that have a unique character and qualities that promote lifestyle or liveability. Not surprisingly then, new and old cities look to create sources of cultural and social energy as well as economic dynamism. Perhaps, ironically, those cities that can preserve their past – in the form of buildings, traditions and localities – and the things that make them different from other cities, but develop the new ‘invisible infrastructure’ required for new technologies to co-exist, could turn out to be those that we will depend upon for their ongoing relevance in the
twenty-first century.