Signals of the Future: from VIP Cyclists to Governing for Future Generations
Here’s the last month’s dose of future insights. From why bikes deserve the same infrastructure ambition as cars to why more nations should copy Wales’ innovative governance for future generations.
VIP Cyclists?
A 93km, covered, cycling and walking route is being proposed for Dubai. Called the Loop, the geodesic structure would snake around the city allowing active travel choices all year round. The project, by URB, would also include vertical farms, recycled water, and pocket parks, with energy generated from kinetic paving in the running tracks.
While the benefits of cycling in terms of improved health and reduced congestion are well known — and numbers and demand are growing in many developed world cities — safe and attractive infrastructure is too often an afterthought. Overseas, I’ve biked a cycle suspension bridge in Amsterdam and taken the Cycle Snake through downtown Copenhagen, Here in the UK, however, cycling infrastructure involves dodging cars, inhaling pollution, and cursing at left-turning lorries.
Are there signs that cyclists, too long at the bottom of the hierarchy, are beginning to get the infrastructure they deserve?
With the amazing new underground cycle parking facility just opened in Amsterdam, A 20-km path shaded by solar panels in South Korea, and construction underway on the 101km Bike Freeway in the Ruhr Valley in Germany, there are certainly some exciting exemplars. Will more cities and developers make ‘statement’ cycling provision part of their branding? And, more importantly, will the basic infrastructure across our towns and cities allow everyone — especially kids — to cycle safely?
Mediated Journeys
Google is rolling out Immersive View for a clutch of global cities, including London. It melds billions of Street View and aerial images to create an immersive and rich 3-D model of the city. You can soar above the roofs or swoop down to check out what a restaurant you’re thinking about for dinner looks like inside. It layers useful information like weather, traffic, and how busy a place is, with a slider to see what it’s like at different times of day. You can check out a city or neighbourhood virtually before visiting.
So many of our journeys are now mediated by data platforms. Already, I rely heavily on City Mapper or Google Maps when walking, driving, or getting public transport — even if it’s just to check how long a familiar journey will take.
Digital, data-based platforms — driven by algorithms -rule our lives. I was teaching planning students this morning about the ethical aspects of digital planning and the care they will need to use data wisely. Data is not objective. Choices are involved on what data is captured, how it is interpreted, and what’s presented to us. Data models also tend to ignore or underplay what can’t easily be measured, like nature or culture. These concerns are only going to multiply.
What will it mean when every journey or visit we make is corporately-curated? When augmented reality is continually layered over our physical city? When algorithms that know us intimately decide what we should see?
There are of course huge benefits in arriving more quickly and with greater certainty and in simplifying choices. But there are downsides too, for the residential street that has become a traffic cut-through, for the corner café not profiled on the platform, or for the segment of the population not generating data deemed worthy of capture.
And what of the human experience in a city of being surprised, of sheltering from a shower, of looking up at our surroundings as we walk rather than looking down at our device?
Public Realm Czar
New York has appointed a public realm czar, a signal of the growing recognition of the importance of public space to the vitality and economic success of cities. Ya-Ting Liu will coordinate between city government, community organizations, and business to ‘create extraordinary public spaces’ She has substantial investment — $375 million — to direct and will also oversee the creation of clear guidelines for permanent outdoors dining.
Architects like Jan Gehl and Richard Rogers have long argued for the primacy of the public real, the latter arguing that ‘Public spaces — our streets and squares, parks and pavements — are the stages for public life; the public realm is at the heart of our life as social animals.’ For me, the best public spaces are all about ‘public-ness’, with different generations, overlapping uses, and space for people and nature. And this is particularly important for dense cities: ‘In New York City’, says the Deputy Mayor ‘the public realm is everyone’s living room. It’s where we eat, play, and gather’.
Too often, in the past, public space has fallen through the cracks, with a lack of coordination across different bodies and nobody taking responsibility,. Recently, however, developers have begun to understand the importance of the spaces around and between buildings, that high quality public realm, which is accessible and green, drives up value. Some of the flagship regenerations in London — Kings Cross, the Olympic Park and the recently-opened Battersea Power Station — have epitomised this thinking. And city administrations are taking space from traffic and giving it to people. In recent months I’ve enjoyed hanging-out in the reclaimed Plaza de Espana in Madrid, the pedestrianised quaysides of the Seine in Paris, and the transformed Strand in London.
In future, as well as having a Chief Financial Officer or a Chief Technology Officer, will we see other cities following New York’s lead and appointing a Chief Public Realm Officer?
Governing for Future Generations
This week saw Sophie Howe end her term as the first Commissioner for Future Generations in Wales. At the same time, a Commission for Future Generations bill was tabled in the Dáil in Ireland. While in Westminster Lord John Bird is promoting a Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill in the House of Lords.
Are we going to see more governments taking greater responsibility for the future?
Wales has trailblazed on this issue with the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act of 2015 (championed by Jane Davidson). And it seems that many other countries are learning from this experience.
Of course, passing legislation is important, but the words also need to change action on the ground. The School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University and RTPI Cymru looked at the impact of the Act on planning last year. We found that the Act had been game-changing, driving better integration, reducing cherry-picking of policies, and encouraging more focus on place-making.
Of course, there’s still a lot more to do to change behaviour and practical delivery, but I think enshrining responsibility for the future in law and appointing senior government figures to champion are vital. I look forward to supporting the work of the new Commissioner Derek Walker and to seeing more administrations around the world adopt their versions of the Welsh model.
