urban planning

To the smart city and beyond? Developing a typology of smart urban innovation

Curated on August 14, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Maja Nilssen in Technological Forecasting and Social Change: “The smart city is an increasingly popular topic in urban development, arousing both excitement and skepticism. However, despite increasing enthusiasm regarding the smartness of cities, the concept is still regarded as somewhat evasive. Encouraged by the multifaceted character of the concept, this article examines how we can categorize the different dimensions often included in the smart city concept, and how these dimensions are coupled to innovation. Furthermore, the article examines the implications of the different understandings of the smart city concept for cities’ abilities to be innovative.

Building on existing scholarly contributions on the smartness of cities and innovation literature, the article develops a typology of smart city initiatives based on the extent and types of innovations they involve. The typology is structured as a smart city continuum, comprising four dimensions of innovation: (1) technological, (2) organizational, (3) collaborative, (4) experimental.

The smart city continuum is then utilized to analyze empirical data from a Norwegian urban development project triggered by a critical juncture. The empirical data shows that the case holds elements of different dimensions of the continuum, supporting the need for a typology of smart cities as multifaceted urban innovation. The continuum can be used as an analytical model for different types of smart city initiatives, and thus shed light on what types of innovation are central in the smart city. Consequently, the article offers useful insights for both practitioners and scholars interested in smart city initiatives….(More)”

Technology, Activism, and Social Justice in a Digital Age

Curated on August 2, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by John G. McNutt: “…offers a close look at both the present nature and future prospects for social change. In particular, the text explores the cutting edge of technology and social change, while discussing developments in social media, civic technology, and leaderless organizations — as well as more traditional approaches to social change.

It effectively assembles a rich variety of perspectives to the issue of technology and social change; the featured authors are academics and practitioners (representing both new voices and experienced researchers) who share a common devotion to a future that is just, fair, and supportive of human potential.

They come from the fields of social work, public administration, journalism, law, philanthropy, urban affairs, planning, and education, and their work builds upon 30-plus years of research. The authors’ efforts to examine changing nature of social change organizations and the issues they face will help readers reflect upon modern advocacy, social change, and the potential to utilize technology in making a difference….(More)”

To Better Predict Traffic, Look to the Electric Grid

Curated on August 2, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Linda Poon at CityLab: “The way we consume power after midnight can reveal how we bad the morning rush hour will be….

Commuters check Google Maps for traffic updates the same way they check the weather app for rain predictions. And for good reasons: By pooling information from millions of drivers already on the road, Google can paint an impressively accurate real-time portrait of congestion. Meanwhile, historical numbers can roughly predict when your morning commutes may be particularly bad.

But “the information we extract from traffic data has been exhausted,” said Zhen (Sean) Qian, who directs the Mobility Data Analytics Center at Carnegie Mellon University. He thinks that to more accurately predict how gridlock varies from day to day, there’s a whole other set of data that cities haven’t mined yet: electricity use.

“Essentially we all use the urban system—the electricity, water, the sewage system and gas—and when people use them and how heavily they do is correlated to the way they use the transportation system,” he said. How we use electricity at night, it turns out, can reveal when we leave for work the next day. “So we might be able to get new information that helps explain travel time one or two hours in advance by having a better understanding of human activity.”

When compared with 2014 traffic data, they found that 8 out of the 10 patterns had an impact on highway traffic. Households that show a spike of electricity use from midnight to 2 a.m., for example, may be night owls who sleep in, leave late, and likely won’t contribute to the early morning congestion. In contrast, households that report low electricity use from midnight to 5 a.m., followed by a rise after 5:30 a.m., could be early risers who will be on the road during rush hour. If the researchers’ model detects more households falling into the former group, it might predict that peak congestion will start closer to, say, 7:45 a.m. rather than the usual 7:30….(More)”.

Open innovation and the evaluation of internet-enabled public services in smart cities

Curated on July 31, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Krassimira Paskaleva and Ian Cooper in Technovation: This article is focused on public service innovation from an innovation management perspective. It presents research experience gained from a European project for managing social and technological innovation in the production and evaluation of citizen-centred internet-enabled services in the public sector.

It is based on six urban pilot initiatives, which sought to operationalise a new approach to co-producing and co-evaluating civic services in smart cities – commonly referred to as open innovation for smart city services. Research suggests that the evidence base underpinning this approach is not sufficiently robust to support claims being made about its effectiveness.

Instead evaluation research of citizen-centred internet-enabled urban services is in its infancy and there are no tested methods or tools in the literature for supporting this approach.

The paper reports on the development and trialing of a novel Co-evaluation Framework, indicators and reporting categories, used to support the co-production of smart city services in an EU-funded project. Our point of departure is that innovation of services is a sub-set of innovation management that requires effective integration of technological with social innovation, supported by the right skills and capacities. The main skills sets needed for effective co-evaluation of open innovation services are the integration of stakeholder management with evaluation capacities.”

How games can help craft better policy

Curated on July 30, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Shrabonti Bagchi at LiveMint: “I have never seen economists having fun!” Anantha K. Duraiappah, director of Unesco-MGIEP (Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development), was heard exclaiming during a recent conference. The academics in question were a group of environmental economists at an Indian Society for Ecological Economics conference in Thrissur, Kerala, and they were playing a game called Cantor’s World, in which each player assumes the role of the supreme leader of a country and gets to decide the fate of his or her nation.

Well, it’s not quite as simple as that (this is not Settlers Of Catan!). Players have to take decisions on long-term goals like education and industrialization based on data such as GDP, produced capital, human capital, and natural resources while adhering to the UN’s sustainable development goals. The game is probably the most accessible and enjoyable way of seeing how long-term policy decisions change and impact the future of countries.

That’s what Fields Of View does. The Bengaluru-based non-profit creates games, simulations and learning tools for the better understanding of policy and its impact. Essentially, their work is to make sure economists like the ones at the Thrissur conference actually have some fun while thrashing out crucial issues of public policy.

A screen grab from ‘Cantor’s World’.

Can policymaking be made more relevant to the lives of people affected by it? Can policymaking be more responsive to a dynamic social-economic-environmental context? Can we reduce the time taken for a policy to go from the drawing board to implementation? These were some of the questions the founders of Fields Of View, Sruthi Krishnan and Bharath M. Palavalli, set out to answer. “There are no binaries in policymaking. There are an infinite set of possibilities,” says Palavalli, who was named an Ashoka fellow in May for his work at the intersection of technology, social sciences and design.

Earlier this year, Fields Of View organized a session of one of its earliest games, City Game, for a group of 300 female college students in Mangaluru. City Game is a multiplayer offline game designed to explore urban infrastructure and help groups and individual understand the dynamics of urban governance…(More)”.

‘Mayor for a Day’ – Is Gamified Urban Management the Way Forward?

Curated on July 25, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Gianluca Sgueo: “…aims at describing the use, exploring the potential – but also at understanding the limits – of the use of ‘gamification’ strategies into urban management. Commonly defined as the introduction of game-design elements into non-game contexts, with the former aimed at making the latter more fun, gamification is recognised among the technological paradigms that are shaping the evolution of public administrations.

The paper is divided in three sections.

SECTION I discusses the definition (and appropriateness of) gamification in urban management, and locates it conceptually at the crossroads between nudging, democratic innovations, and crowdsourcing.

SECTION II analyses the potentials of gamified urban management. Four benefits are assessed: first, gamified urban management seems to encourage adaptation of policy-making to structural/societal changes; second, it offers a chance to local administrators to (re-)gain trust from citizens, and thus be perceived as legitimate; third, it adapts policy-making to budgetary challenges; fourth, it helps to efficiently tackle complex regulatory issues.

SECTION III of this paper turns to consider the risks related with the use of gamification in urban management. The first consists of the obstacles faced by participatory rights within gamified policies; the second risk is defined ‘paradox of incentives’; the third is related with privacy issues. In the concluding section, this paper advances some proposals (or, alternatively, highlight valuable theoretical and empirical research efforts) aimed at solving some of the most pressing threats posed by gamified urban management.

The main features of the case studies described in SECTIONS II and III are summarised in a table at the end of the paper….(More)”.

Neuroscience for Cities Playbook

Curated on July 6, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Tool resulting from a collaboration between Future Cities Catapult, Centric Lab and University College London: “It brings forward a framework of how neuroscience research can be put into practice in cities. This has been presented as a set of new tools, methodologies and strategies for organisations big and small, to adopt neuroscience insights into their supply chain.

With an aim to reach out to a wide audience from businesses to urban planners and academicians and policymakers, We are sure you will find the playbook a useful resource to explore the potential applications of this important area of research.

This playbook helps cities in three stages. The first is identifying the core environmental stressors, which have the widest mental and physical effects on city citizen, even a small reduction will make a fundamental difference in quality of life. The second is understanding the unintended human consequences of urban trends such as urban sprawl or automation. The final is highlighting the different opportunities for enhancing the user experience of cities through neuroscience-informed technology and urban planning.

The idea of using neuroscience to help design cities only arose in last ten years, and the technology to make it possible in the last three years. We are now on the cusp of a revolution in how metrics from neuroscience inform urban innovation strategies and increase the quality of life of the cities inhabitants. Developments in neuroscience are showing us new ways to understand how people experience the built environment, revealing new opportunities for innovation and improved experiences, leading in turn to greater productivity, wellbeing and attraction. Neuroscientists are also discovering important insights about outcomes for the less advantaged in our cities, providing compelling evidence in support of interventions to tackle the negative health impacts of city living, and ways to reduce barriers to access and opportunity.

Success will be a reduction in mental and physical health outbreaks; less cases of depression, dementia, anxiety disorders, etc. It can be seen in economic terms; a healthy population is a productive population….(More)”.

Meet the Numtots: the millennials who find fixing public transport sexy

Curated on July 6, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Elle Hunt in The Guardian: “Who makes a Facebook meme group about trains? The Numtots, that’s who: a global network of millennials who want to make cities better

A metro-map style logo for the New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens Facebook group. Illustration: Mitchell Sheldrick/New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens.

The year is 2025. There are no cars, only public transport and bicycles. Four-lane highways have been replaced by bike paths. Pedestrians share the pavements with cyclists. The air is clean (because the buses are electric), and the living is easy.

This is the future the Numtots want.

Predominantly millennials with a passion for public transport, urban planning and internet humour, Numtots’ interests intersect in New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens, the Facebook group from which they derive their nickname. There, nearly 100,000 of them discuss and debate their perfect city, or transit lines in their area, or perpendicular traffic flow and improvisational vehicle pathing….Numtots – or just ’tots – are the sorts of older teens through to thirtysomethings who identify as being “irrationally excited” for the forthcoming Maryland purple line; who claim their first word as a child was “bus” (“I think I was destined to become a Numtot …”); who stridently propose ideas for “what the Amtrak system should look like” (“Fight me if you don’t like it”); and who mercilessly make fun of Richard Florida’s leather jacket….

Numtots’ guiding principles are broadly summed up by the page’s URL: “What would Jane Jacobs do?”…The enthusiastic response to the group – and the Generation Y-led “yimby” movement for high-density housing it dovetails with – suggests there may be something fundamentally millennial about urbanism. “I think at first people were really excited that they had a place to talk about living in cities,” says Orenstein, also 21. “But as the group has picked up steam, more people are joining that weren’t interested in the issues but are finding that maybe, actually, they are.” It makes sense: improving public transport, transitioning to renewable energy and investing in future-focused infrastructure are not often vote winners, being costly and slow to enact – but young people have more of a stake in seeing them put into action….(More)”.

Smart Cities: Digital Solutions for a More Livable Future

Curated on July 4, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI): “After a decade of experimentation, smart cities are entering a new phase. Although they are only one part of the full tool kit for making a city great, digital solutions are the most powerful and cost-effective additions to that tool kit in many years. This report analyzes dozens of current applications and finds that cities could use them to improve some quality-of-life indicators by 10–30 percent.It also finds that even the most cutting-edge smart cities on the planet are still at the beginning of their journey.

Smart cities add digital intelligence to existing urban systems, making it possible to do more with less. Connected applications put real-time, transparent information into the hands of users to help them make better choices. These tools can save lives, prevent crime, and reduce the disease burden. They can save time, reduce waste, and even help boost social connectedness. When cities function more efficiently, they also become more productive places to do business.

MGI assessed how dozens of current smart city applications could perform in three sample cities with varying legacy infrastructure systems and baseline starting points. We found that these tools could reduce fatalities by 8–10 percent, accelerate emergency response times by 20–35 percent, shave the average commute by 15–20 percent, lower the disease burden by 8–15 percent, and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 10–15 percent, among other positive outcomes.

Our snapshot of deployment in 50 cities around the world shows that wealthier urban areas are generally transforming faster, although many have low public awareness and usage of the applications they have implemented. Asian megacities, with their young populations of digital natives and big urban problems to solve, are achieving exceptionally high adoption. Measured against what is possible today, even the global leaders have more work to do in building out the technology base, rolling out the full range of possible applications, and boosting adoption and user satisfaction. Many cities have not yet implemented some of the applications that could have the biggest potential impact. Since technology never stands still, the bar will only get higher.

The public sector would be the natural owner of 70 percent of the applications we examined. But 60 percent of the initial investment required to implement the full range of applications could come from private actors. Furthermore, more than half of the initial investment made by the public sector could generate a positive return, whether in direct savings or opportunities to produce revenue.

The technologies analyzed in this report can help cities make moderate or significant progress toward 70 percent of the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet becoming a smart city is less effective as an economic development strategy for job creation. Smart cities may disrupt some industries even as they present substantial market opportunities. Customer needs will force a reevaluation of current products and services to meet higher expectations of quality, cost, and efficiency in everything from mobility to healthcare.

Smart city solutions will shift value across the landscape of cities and throughout value chains. Companies looking to enter smart city markets will need different skill sets, creative financing models, and a sharper focus on civic engagement.

Becoming a smart city is not a goal but a means to an end. The entire point is to respond more effectively and dynamically to the needs and desires of residents. Technology is simply a tool to optimize the infrastructure, resources, and spaces they share. Few cities want to lag behind, but it is critical not to get caught up in technology for its own sake. Smart cities need to focus on improving outcomes for residents and enlisting their active participation in shaping the places they call home….(More)”.

The Palgrave Handbook of Bottom-Up Urbanism

Curated on July 1, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Mahyar Arefi and Conrad Kickert: “Who shapes our cities? In an age of increasing urban pluralism, globalization and immigration, decreasing public budgets, and an ongoing crisis of authority among designers and planners, the urban environment is shaped by a number of non-traditional stakeholders.

The book surveys the kaleidoscope of views on the agency of urbanism, providing an overview of the various scholarly debates and territories that pertain to bottom-up efforts such as everyday urbanism, DIY urbanism, guerilla urbanism, tactical urbanism, and lean urbanism. Uniquely, this books seeks connections between the various movements by curating a range of views on the past, present, and future of bottom-up urbanism. The contributors also connect the recent trend of bottom-up efforts in the West with urban informality in the Global South, drawing parallels and finding contrast between social and institutional structures across the globe. The book appeals to urbanists in the widest sense of the word: those who shape, study, and improve our urban spaces….(More)”.