Smart is as Smart does

4 min read

My grandfather built a house with a few hand tools using raw materials that he – literally – found (not bought) within about a square kilometre, and his father could build a wagon from scratch. From trees!

But that’s changing. The fire-eating, smoke-belching private car is slowly being toppled from its pedestal, and all around the world people are demanding that technologies are modified to serve our needs rather than forcing us to adapt to the requirements of the technologies. We need human-scale neighbourhoods and peoplecentred cities. And cities are responding – whether it’s through optimised communication infrastructure, improved public transport, non-motorised transport systems, green building codes, pedestrianisation, or mixeduse precincts, city administrators and developers are starting to build cities that work for people. Smart cities for smart people.

Of course, we’re talking about a pretty basic house, but it’s still standing – and the wagon was useless without eight pairs of oxen. A hundred years on, and specialisation enables us to create immensely complex structures, processes and widgets, but only through the co-operation of numerous experts. And not one of those experts can produce, or even reproduce, the whole. We have relinquished control of the creation and maintenance of our own environment, which leaves us disconnected, alienated and vulnerable.

Ironically, the very inventions that have liberated us tend to slowly and subtly ensnare us. Take the car – symbol of freedom and independence. Most modern cities are characterised by networks of motorways and snarled traffic, and until recently almost all ‘solutions’ were aimed at increasing the efficiency of getting a few thousand cars from the suburbs into the city every day.

So, while we think we’re getting smarter, maybe we’ve actually been getting dumber.

And we don’t have to revert to the ox wagon, or burning mussel shells for cement. We love technology, and we’re not about to give it up. We just need to tame it – make it work for us, rather than against us. It’s early days still, and we have a lot to learn but there are pockets of excellence and examples of genuinely creative thinking from all over the world.

• Take bike share for example. First started in Europe in the 1960s, it’s only really come into its own since technology has developed sufficiently to allow smart monitoring, secure but accessible storage, and smart payment. Better than a train – you pick up a bike at A, cycle it to B, where you lock it back into a smart-lock system. China and North America lead the way but other countries – including South Africa – are starting to follow.
• Non-motorised transport zones tie in well with bike share, and with walking. Cape Town has been working on a nonmotorised transport network for years. It’s still small, but it’s growing every day.
• The US city of Philadelphia has reclaimed two hideously polluted rivers, turning them into lovely linear parks used for outdoor recreation, and maybe also even commuting by canoe. The embryonic Two Rivers Urban Park in Cape Town is an ongoing attempt to do something similar.
• The use of renewable energy is being driven by cities, not countries. Take how Cape Town dug deep to support the teensy weensy little Darling Wind Farm while the rest of the country was still worshipping coal.
• We’ll have cars for a long time still so traffic congestion is a real issue. Ann Arbor in Michigan, US, has installed a system to dynamically synchronise traffic lights on more than 100 intersections so it can respond to changing traffic conditions – including one-off or sporadic events such as football games or festivals.
• Cars are not likely to disappear, but they are changing. Scandinavia pretty much leads the way in switching to electric cars, and Norway has set 2025 as the cut-off date for the sale of new internal combustion cars. And, of course, Scandinavia uses mostly renewable energy so those electric cars really are green, refuelling from an ever-growing network of plugin stations.
• Even in the internal combustion-worshipping US, Boulder, Colorado has made great strides with a citywide network of recharging stations – all on an interactive data map.
• Feed-in tariffs, which are still in their infancy, will ultimately make this whole system work so much more effectively. The dream – and it’s still not a full-on reality – is that you can drive to work in your electric car, plug in where you park and, once the peak electricity demand is over, top up your battery in the middle of the day. Drive all that stored energy back home, and plug the car into your garage to supplement peak demand – either for your own consumption or to feed into the grid. Come two in the morning, when demand is low, the car charges up again.

The problem with pockets of excellence, though, is that they are just that – pockets. All of these innovations are great, but there is something very important that’s missing. And that is where the ever-growing emphasis on mixed-use developments and/ or neighbourhoods comes in. More and more developers are realising the need to create spaces that fit people – places where they can work, live, play, eat, love and pray, where they can feel part of a community. Spaces that are truly integrated. But they’re still the exception. We haven’t yet reached the critical mass, the tipping point after which it’s such a no-brainer we’ll all wonder why we hadn’t done it years ago. But we’ll get there.

Watch this space …