Saskia Sassen on the Future of Cities
Professor Saskia Sassen recently spoke about the future of smart cities at the LIFT conference in France. Her twenty minute talk is worth watching. Professor Sassen reinforces the idea that modern cities must be more than just an assemblage of new, information technology driven systems. Design, politics, capital, ITC, and planning must be integrated if tomorrow's cities are to...
Social Networks and the Future of Cities
What happens to city planning when local citizens can work with developers to inform design strategies? The community group Active 18's influence on the urban design of its neighbourhood may well represent the future of how cities will be designed. In case you didn't know, the group represents residents of Ward 18 and the Toronto district known as the "Triangle."...
MESH Cities and Smart Cities—The Key Difference
According to wikipedia, Smart Cities encompass six main axes or functions. The functional categories are: smart economies; smart mobility; smart environment; smart people; smart living; and, smart governance. These six Smart City functions are, in theory if not in practice, an evolution of traditional theories of urban design. The topic areas are based on theories of regional economic competitiveness (in...
Are The Cities of Tomorrow Machines Or Symphonies?
Detroit as a perfect machine for making surface parking spaces in urban cores. Ref Streetsblog.org A new report from the US-based Brookings Institute describes five key success factors for smart cities—in our opinion an increasingly anachronistic and meaningless term for tomorrow's cities. While the authors' intent is well justified, they miss the aspirational potential of responsive, wired cities through their...
