Cities are not computers: Smart City, Dangerous Metafers, better cities

This may be ordinary expressions, and I have used it myself, but scientists and philosophers tend to like the state -of -the -art technology of that era when explaining the brain mechanism.

Greek writers thought that the brain would function like a water clock.Middle -aged European writers suggested that thinking would work in a gear -like mechanism.In the 19th century, the brain became like a telegraph, and in decades later, it became like a telephone network.

Soon, of course, the brain was resembled as a digital computer, and it could be considered that it could create or interact with the brain.Aside from the metaphor, the brain mechanism is not easy because it has not yet been elucidated.For example, that is interesting about science.

Of course, brain research does not stop just because there is no appropriate metaphor.However, it can confuse maps and terrain, or misunderstand appropriate metaphors and practical theories.This is likely to happen in a complex system that works too big or too small to observe the whole.

This also applies to the brain, which is a mass of thinking that generates (and researchers) that generates (and researchers think) from about 86 billion cells woven into electrochemical jelly -like networks.It also applies to cities that are a close network, where millions of individual feelings gather and form a community.

As with themselves, people who write about cities also tend to look for organized metaphors in the current science.The city is a machine, an animal, an ecosystem.Or a city may be like a computer.Shaannon Matter, a media researcher, a city planning expert and media researcher, thinks this is a dangerous idea.

Urban data Panopticon

The new book "A City is not a computer (city is not a computer)" released in August 2021 [Unprise translation] is an excellent article "A City Not a Computer:"Other Urban Intelligences is a summary of (through modifications and updates).Among them, the market is working on how this specific metaphor has ruined urban design, urban planning, and urban life in the 20th century.

It is performed on all sizes, such as monitoring individuals as if they were one of the small pieces, or monitoring the data of the wide screen necessary to maintain urban functions for residents.Matters say about the way information goes through the city network.It would be better to use a public library to a node than a central intensive dashboard, such as a Panopticon -type observation monitoring system that many cities are trying to build.The problem is that the indicators selected for tracking become the achievement goals.It itself becomes a metaphor, and it is usually wrong.

The first two articles were the most responsive at the time of publication, and the response is still great."City Console" is a vertical history of information dashboards and control rooms designed as panopticons for urban data.These information hubs collect information on the functionality of local government systems, crackdowns of crime, and the level of education for children.The so -called control center is for monitoring highways and sewage.

Among the books of the Matters, I like the case of Salvador Agende, the leader of Chile in the 1970s, a chair with a button that Captain Kirk would be satisfied, and a screen with red lamps flashing.It is a story that promoted the "CyberSyn plan" with a "operations room" installed all over the wall.Naturally, all cities did not have real -time data that filled the screen, but displayed handwritten slides instead.

It's a stupid story, but now many U.S. cities are directly connected to Cybercin, which collects and displays other city data in the compstat program.These are intended by the government in the first place, but it often emphasizes misleading numbers by justifying meaningless arrests and emphasizing transportation diamonds instead of passengers.。

All cities have failed to smart

In the next article, the title of the book, the market warns the ambition of a large Silicon Valley company to build a "smart city."At the time of this article, Amazon is still planning to build an urban headquarters in New York, and Google has also made a similar plan (Sidewalk Labs].Google's plan was to be a highlight of wooden high -rise buildings, street roads that were paved with glowing paving stones, and the design of the trash tubes that followed underground).

Related article: The setback of the "future city" that Google dreamed in Toronto means

Now, of course, most of the smart city, that is, most of the large -scale projects that make full use of technology have failed or reduced the scale.Hudson Yard in New York did not introduce Revel's sensors or surveillance techniques as promised (or threatened) by developers.Cities still collect and share all kinds of data, but they are not necessarily "smart."

When I talked to the market last month, I asked why all cities seem to have failed to make them smart.She thinks the reason is because he overlooks the most important part of urban building."Considering a city in a huge amount of calculations and data, it will give you an incorrect feeling of omnipotence," said the Matter.

Even if the city manager thinks the reality of Nama, it actually determines what the filter you choose."If everything is converted into a computer and the most poetic and fleeting side can be operated with data points," she continues."We don't realize that it's a metaphor."

Sprinted and showed the possibilities

The point is that it is not good.But the game is not over."I did not make a really influential plan, but the cities have sowed seeds and showed the potential," said the Matter."Several tech companies may practice what they have learned in a more inconspicuous way."

If the Sidewalk Labs promise of creating a reconstructed pavement that supports robot cars is not realized, people on foot or those who use bicycles will be relieved.Instead, Google and Facebook may be built in Silicon Valley in a company house that automatically sends signals to mobile phones and tracks residents with biological authentication.However, residents may not care.After all, there is no other place to build such a house.As with the 19th century workers, the Castle Castle Town may be a good option for tomorrow.If so, Alexa wiring will be passed through the walls of all buildings.

Related article: All new products announced by Amazon (Alexa), from watching robots to smart displays on the large screen

After majoring in chemistry at university, he acquired a doctorate in media research, and has been working on many jobs in the field of architecture and anthropology.This book discusses how to change the ideas of urbanism in various disciplines and create a city to support all residents.

What is particularly interested in a public library as a place where residents can learn and connect information about resources, education, work, and infrastructure.The library is now completely different from the 1990s and now that Mattan wrote her dissertation.Spatially, library and collection indications are replaced by public spaces, cafes, box offices, Internet access, and digital collections like a square.

It's a pity to lose physical media, but now the library says, "The library is not just a place to consume information and knowledge, but also a place where the local community builds its own collection and indicates it."。This is a kind of antithesis for the camera, speed sensor, and Bluetooth position sensor used by Smart City to suck data from residents.

The history of public health is also the history of the city

While the Matern wrote these articles and put together in one book, they were in the trend of the new Coronavirus infection (COVID-19).This is quite ironic, and pandemic does not occur without a city.If a huge number of people live at a distance that can transmit illness, viruses and bacteria cannot be very active.

The history of public health is also the history of urban theory and design.Corailer near London's public well created by John Snow, built by John Snow, built as a barrier to isolated (nominal) immigrants, which were essential requirements for trade during the Renaissance period.Map, the redesign of Paris, which was implemented by Napoleon III and Baron Ottoman in the 19th century (to make it easier to fight against cholera and other illnesses, to make it easier to calm the rebellious poor), the US housing situationThe public health movement in the early 20th century, which led to the improvement, was a terrible racist, "removal of slums" to fight "devastation".The history of urban theory and public health is tightly linked.

Related article: Pandemic returns to the era of "place and distance"

In the early 20th century, a new trend was born, combined with the threat of two infectious diseases, tuberculosis and Spanish colds, and the health awareness of the wealthy people who could hire an architect by individuals.As written by architectural historian Beatrice Colomina, it is the birth of modernism.A simple surface that makes use of the ingredients, the well -ventilated indoor and outdoor, lighting, ventilation, and flat surface.It's not just seeking beauty.It was a disease countermeasure.

If you deepen your understanding of the air-infection route of the disease, such as COVID-19, a radical transition, such as modernism, may occur again."We will reconsider the workplaces and offices so that we can create a more humanitarian work environment (this time) and maintain a social distance, and seek a flexible schedule, we have experienced a considerable sudden change.I have done it, "says the Matter."I had a lot of hope, and we noticed the need for parks, public spaces, and alternative transportation, but then I would like to see the melancholy discussions over infrastructure bills and expand what is used as infrastructure in the first place.It was revealed that there was no desire in the first place. "

City metaphor crisis

When I came here, I came to think that the sides of the sides of the city and public health may have a unique metaphor crisis.Our personal dashboard is causing this problem.

In the summer of 2020, when they were not looking for friends on Twitter, Tiktok or Facebook, they switched their web browsers to COVID-19 dead, mountains, air pollution, etc.Social media is nothing but dashboard in personal life.As usual, the collected data determines your knowledge.If the Cyber Shin Plan was pointing a metaphor's needle to a clean and gentle Roddenberry -style utopia, 2020 would have turned the dial for the collapse of Octivia Butlers and William Gibsung's work.。But if you want to avoid the end of the world, science fiction dystopia is a pretty bad metaphor.

Related article: Why is William Gibson's science fiction draws the "present" instead of the expected future (first part)

A skillful analysis of the metaphor of the city indicates that if the city goes in the wrong direction, not only the lack of imagination but also the major functions of the city (as a breakwater for disasters) cannot be fulfilled.Humans build a city as a fortress against failure, such as economic collapse, natural disasters, human malicious intent and timidness, and eliminate such things while the city is working.As the architect Mies Van Del Lohe stated, if the house is a "machine to live," the city is a place where those machines are connected to society.A city is a machine to survive in cooperation.

In the summer of 20 years, it was suggested that these machines could break down due to climate change and infectious disasters.In the past year, economic and racial unfairness around the world has become so obvious that it has gained a fatal result in the United States, especially in the United States.All the warning lights are blinking red.The story of the city is no longer possible with invisible data, such as surveillance cameras and stock trading.It must be something better, built on a human scale.

The construction environment is no longer a coincidence.Because it causes a catastrophe.We are not alive in the metaphor."The construction environment is a very many organizations and institutions, and is usually moving in invisible places," said the Matter."It is difficult to identify that responsibility."As she wrote, the city is not just a computer.Nevertheless, I may continue to develop easy ideas from this metaphor in the future, and justice and survival are now seriously upgrading the firmware.