Re Stop Saying 'Smart Cities'

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Karl Auerbach <karl () cavebear com>
Date: Sun, Feb 18, 2018 at 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: [IP] Re Stop Saying 'Smart Cities'
To: <dave () farber net>


My comment here is not directly apropos of "Smart Cities"..

Paolo Soleri was an aspirational urban designer who's core idea was that
cities should no longer give primacy to automobiles.  I first met him
when I was a student at UC Berkeley in the very early 1970's.

In late 2012 or early 2013 I had a surprise opportunity to re-meet him
at Arcosanti (north of Phoenix, Arizona.)

My question was this: How ought we to adapt cities to recognize that
with the advent of the internet and social media the interactions
between people are often not face-to-face but are accomplished over a
distance?

Unfortunately he was not sufficiently engaged with modern electronic
human interactions to give much of an answer.

I, personally, believe that we must retain a large element of direct
human-to-human contact because pure electronic communications engender
too much misunderstanding and lead to unneeded conflicts. People who
have met one another tend to be more forgiving when they use electronic
means than those who have never met.

The development of the self-driving vehicle gives us a rare opportunity
to consider eliminating wide streets and parking as primary skeletal
element of cities (self-driving vehicles can be relegated to thinner
streets and parking can be moved out of the people-intensive areas.)

             --karl--



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