Ensuring the livability of urban cities

While doing some research on the book that I write, I stumbled on a book I had on my shelf for some years now. “e-topia”, from MIT Dean William Mitchell, is a study on how the digital network changes the requirements and possibilities of urban life. To be fair, the book was written in 2000, so it has aged somewhat, although it’s still worth the couple of pennies you can buy it for on Amazon’s alternative markets.
I’ve re-read the last chapter of the book with great interest, where Mitchell highlights the influences that will ensure the livability of the cities of the future:

• Dematerialization
• Demobilization
• Mass customization
• Intelligent operation
• Soft transformation

The first two were no surprise, although the first one became so ubiquitous nowadays that we hardly think about it anymore. We read newspapers on our smart phone or iPad, and hardly send any physical letter anymore. But dematerialization also means that stuff get smaller and lighter all the time (hence the concept of the ‘weightless economy’ –we now call it ‘cradle to cradle’).

Demobilization is a reality now, we replace many of our physical transport needs of ten years ago by video calls or social media. Not all, but a substantial part.

I was a bit surprised to see mass customization in the list. To me, this trend makes production more complex, resulting in more energy need and waste. But Mitchell rightly argues that due to mass customization less has to be produced. I guess we are both right: customizing your Nikes won’t diminish the amount that is produced, but customizing your newspaper (in order to get only the info you want) certainly would. In a way the trend towards ‘Cloud computing’ is also an example for this: we customize our computer with the applications we really need (taking them from the Cloud), hereby reducing the need for super-performing, large memory computers.

Intelligent operation is at the verge of happening, with the development of the Smart Grid for electricity and Smart water systems for water distribution. The Internet of Things will definitely make any form of consumption of natural resources smarter.

With soft transformation Mitchell refers to the way we treat older parts of our urban environment, which now doesn’t require much destruction in order to be uplifted. I’m not too sure about this one, although, for one thing, mobile technology and adoption certainly reduced the need to lay pipes in every street and building.
All in all an interesting (and very digestible) read…

(click to buy on Amazon)