www.sciencetarget.com Advocacy f or the Compact, Mixed - Use and Walkable : Designing Smart and Climate Resilient Places

Steffen Lehman n * The University of Portsmouth , Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries , Portsmouth PO1 2UP, United Kingdom Abstract. Urban areas currently account for 60 to 80 per cent of global energy consumption, 75 per cent of carbon emissions and more than 75 pe r cent of the International Journal of world's natural resources. A conference on the appropriate transformation of Environment and urban systems is therefore important and timely, as it is essential to deal with Sustainability [IJ ES ] ISSN 1927 - 9566 the future increase in urban populations, current overconsumption and ’ Vol. 5 No. 2 , pp. 1 - 11 growin g footprints despite finite resources and limited availability of land. (2016) Therefore, it’s timely to highlight the need for taking steps to address greenhouse gas emission reductions and the global nature of the challenge. While the knowledge of good urban de sign allowed us for centuries to design cities that functioned well and had beautiful proportions, now an entirely new set of questions about optimal city form and urban management have emerged that have not previously been asked. In this keynote address, firstly I will outline the qualities of authentic urban places and offer a definition of ‘’; and then I will argue that still warrants a very high priority of good public space for face - to - face encounters as it sets the framework for success of any future urban development at an early stage and remains central to any successful low carbon outcomes. In all this, urban form, public space, density and the integration of low - carbon technologies all have a strong interrelationship. Keywords . Low - carbon city; climate resilience; over - consumption; authentic public space; ; new urbanisation models; smart city * C orrespondence: [email protected]

Introduction : T ransforming C ities ‘What is the City but the People?’ cities will need to be designed, retrofitted and managed to decarbonize the ir energy supply William Shakespeare and minimize emissions and waste in all forms, Many times, cities have been called the encourage urban biodiversity, and allow eco - powerhouses of our economy, and they can be systems to flourish and provide inhabitants generators of wealth, innovation and social with the basic elements of wellbeing in a inclusion; they provide economic opportunities resource - and energy - efficient manner. So it and a good quality of life, and workers with comes as no surpr ise that the World Business specialized ski lls flock to cities to be near to the Council for notes that sorts of firms that hire them (New York City, ‘re - envisioning the design and management of San Francisco and London are good examples of cities, green buildings and infrastructure this). More people now live in cities than in systems will be central to the urban evolution’ rural areas, and urbanisation is expected to (World Bank 2010; WBCSD 2010, p. 39). continue, most notably in cities in the emerging Through out history, cities have been a focus and developing world (led by booming of innovation. The concept of a “Smart City” economies in China, India, the Middle East, promises to enhance the quality, perfor - South America and Africa). To manage this mance and interactivity of our urban process of transformation and urban growth,

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environ ments, bringing significant conve - people of different cultural, ethnic and class nience and value to citizens. Viable Smart backgrounds has never lost its significance. Cities are now emerging around the world. Mixed - use buildings with appropriate density While the term has been around for more create a sense of ‘urbanness’ and vibrancy, than a decade, it is only in the past few which are essential criteria for any liveable city. years that emerging technologies, such as Mixed - use buildings make the most of an urban big data and Internet of Things, offer the area and can better complement what is already potential for the dynamic, integrated digital there. Much of this urban feel is dictated by the infrastruct ure on which our 21st century ‘urban grain’, the fine scale and the mix of all smart cities will be built. kinds of activities, both private and public. Each city has a basic underlying (partially Public space is shaped by the width of the intangible) system that gives it its identity and streets, boulevards and laneways, and the sense of place. It is impossible to come to an dimension of blocks, building heights and gaps agreed definition of what constitutes good between buildings, creating a pleasant scale and urban design for vibrant cities, and what rhy thm with a rich layer of surfaces and constitutes the ability to express, in a single textures, details, materiality and surfaces to be building, bigger urban ideas. Great cities are not experienced and enjoyed as one walks or cycles always practical or efficient; they can be through the city. The ultimate goal of urban romantic, multilayered and poetic places, but design should be rich experiences like these and they must also, increasingly, be resili ent. The opportunities for human rel ationships, which essentially visible structure of any city is laid activate the potential for intervention at the out by its pattern of streets, boulevards, neighbourhood level, enriching our lives as parklands and building blocks, and its network citizens. We all know such places – where urban of public spaces, waterfronts, gardens and design has improved quality of life and brought squares. health, joy, social relationships and equity to urb an living; as others have said before me, a Walkability and connectivity (horizontally and liveable city is a happy one . This liveability is vertica lly) have again become very important also enhanced when buildings are made from urban design principles: streets are for people durable, locally sourced construction materials and trees, not just for cars (Gehl 2010). In the and when the re - use of old meaningful twentieth century, streets, squares and public structures is incorporated into t heir design. spaces have lost their prominence and relevance in shaping the culture and use of Sociologist Richard Sennett has extensively cities, which have become dominated by the discussed the relationship between private and automobile. Active mobility is on the rise again: public life, asking what has happened to public if a city is walkable or can easily be experienced life and public space in cities today (1974). Why by b icycle − as in Copenhagen, Stockholm, can’t these qualities become the basis of our Barcelona, Paris or Munich − it greatly adds to urban t hinking and future developments once its liveability and quality. again? Since it is very difficult to change urban form retrospectively, we need to shape the next Thousands of tiny details make up the character generation of cities on the basis of such of a place, overlaid by cultural, spiritual and substance of urban form and a high - quality social qualities that form its identity. The cities public space network that allows for informal we admire have evolved over a long period of and random social interaction between pedes - time and, in line with economic, technical, trians with easy access to a mix of uses; with cultural and social changes, have human - scaled appropriate density, mixed - use programs and urban solutions (often designed in an era when walkability, accepting these as drivers of our one could still cross town on foot and enjoy urban strategies. In this book the authors will neighbourly relation ships) that have been argue that energ y efficiency, low carbon modified gradually as human society pro - emissions, reduced embodied energy and gressed. The idea of the city as a mixing pot for

Science Target Inc. www.sciencetarget.com International Journal of Environment and Sustainability , 2016, 5( 2 ): 1 - 11 3 sustainable life cycles should also be added as drivers of our future urban . Urban design is intimately dependant on the economic cycle. Usually, much of the worst development emerge s from a building boom, when there is too much development and not enough reflection. For centuries or even millennia, good and thoughtful urban design has combined and balanced artistic with scientific and technological knowledge to shape civic places tha t are rich in cultural diversity and history, and sought to continue the richness and Figure 1: The European city model (here complexity of the older city districts. The aim Barcelona) features freque ntly variations of 3 to was always the creation of ‘place’, a concept maximum 10 - storey urban perimeter blocks, defined as a meaningful specific location with supporting the public realm, mixed - use emotional, spiritual and symb olic dimensions compactness and streetscape. (Sitte 1889/1945; Jacobs 1961; Rossi 1966;

Rowe & Koetter 1978; Alexander 1979; Norberg - Schultz 1980; Madanipour 1996; Cities and T heir P ublic S paces, Always Kostof 1999; Krier 2003; Bosselmann 2008). E volving The attributes of compactness, mixed - use and The commercialisation of urban public space walkability are a city’s elegant and enduring and the increasing involvemen t of the private qualities, where monumental civic buildings sector in the design of public space have touch us and where quality density manifests frequently been criticised. In the age of itself through diversity in variations of 3 to communication technologies and networks, old maximum 10 - storey urban blocks, supporting public space typologies are being retrofitted to the public realm and streetscape (see Figure 1). contemporary needs while new types of public They are also well - known principles of timeless spaces are emerg ing. In this regard, Mehta notes urban design that should be applied to all new ‘while modern societies no longer depend on developments, and an experienced urban the town square or the piazza for basic needs, designer will always be aware of how to apply good public space is required for the social and them generously to existing urban situations to psychological health of modern communities’ ensure pleasant, human - scale, compact yet (Mehta 2014, p. 53). comfortable, mixed - use precincts and neigh - In all this we sh ould remember that cities were bour hoods (avoiding monotonous, repetitive never intended to be completed. Any city is buildings, which are so easy to create). inherently evolutionary, in constant trans for - Today, many developments lack the monu - mation, and much in its character lies in the mental grandeur, aesthetic unity and continuity complexity and diversity of its urban spaces. that we associate with the great urban However, with the impact of globalization, a chievements of earlier eras. But we can build popu lation growth, demographic change, on these distinctive characteristics of our cities climate change and the urgency of global while maintaining their sense of place, cultural warming, achieving sustainable urban develop - diversity and walkability, to produce meaning - ment has become significantly more relevant as ful public - spirited works. In arguing for a new well as urgent and complex. The questions that ethics of the ur ban condition, we can point out characterize the contemporary city have now that the traditional of European cities shifted; the spaces between buildings keep - such as Barcelona, Paris, Berlin or Athens - is changing and the notion of ‘Smart City’ is also ecological urbanism (Lehmann 2005; discussed everywhere. Since the Industrial Brugmann 2009). Revolution the process of urbanisation has

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become ever more resource - intensive. The needs, waste water and surplus heat generated urbanisation process, constantly regenerated, by buildings). dramatically affects all energy, water and Mega Trends Shaping Our Urban Futures: material consumption. For these reasons, the New City Typologies Emerging urban perimeter block as housing type has many advantages: apartments share a circu - According to many experts, the impact of lation system, construction and wall spaces, and humanity on the earth is already overshooting one can get easily goo d thermal performance the earth’s capacity to supply humanity’s needs and save construction materials by building − exceeding the carrying capacity − which is an blocks 3 to 10 storeys high. My research over unsustainable position (Rees 2006). As the the last decade has shown that energy use can Global Footprint Network (2013) points out, drop by up to 30 per cent if people move from humanity is now using ecological resources and free - standing suburban houses to inner - city services at a rate it would take over 1.5 Earths apartmen ts in perimeter blocks (Lehmann to renew. We are on track to require the 2010). resources of two Earths well before 2050. Today, more than 80 per cent of the world’s Cities are the single largest contributor to population lives in countries that use more t han climate change. In the last century, the avail - the ecosystems within their borders can ability of cheap fossil fuels has been a driving provide and renew. These ‘ecological debtor’ force for rapid and the shaping of countries either deplete their own ecological urban form. It has also ena bled the increase of resources or get them from elsewhere. For urban footprints and the development of car - instance, Japan’s residents consume the dependent . Today we recognize that, in ecological resources of 7.1 Japans; it takes 4 order to deal with the new set of challenges, a Italys to support Italy, while Egypt uses the shift in scale and ambition is necessary, from ecological resources of 2.4 Egypts. Not all individual - building scale to entire urban pre - countries demand more than their ecosystems cin cts and neighbourhoods, with a renewed can provide, but even the reserves of ‘ecological focus on public space. Thus, the challenges vary creditors’ like Brazil, Indonesia and Sweden are from region to region: in Europe, the shrinking over time. We can no longer sustain a development task is less about building new, widening gap between what the environment is but rather about improving and upgrading the able to provide and how much our infra - existing urban fabric. European cities h ave been structure, economies and lifestyles require. The built and their form is deeply rooted in a past need to move to low carbon climate - resilient that often freezes it in time and place. city planning is obvious. On the other hand, in the US, Canada and In 2007 and 2013, the pivotal IPCC reports Australia, the issue is to overcome car pointed out that human - induced greenhouse dependency and the legacy of sprawl (Hall and gas emissions are mainly a result of burning Tewdwr - Jones 2009). The situat ion is quite fossil fuels and land - use changes, but that there different again in the Asia - Pacific and Middle - are also a range of other indicators impacting East regions, where building entire new cities on emission levels (for instance, the link with from scratch is an option. For instance, with population and economic growth, consumption, China’s rapid urbanisation process, we find new energy and water usage, industrial production, concepts of city emerging, allowing for radical waste management, food supply, land - use plan - new thi nking about urban precincts and ning, transport patterns and policy decisions, architectural group forms and advocating for an which are all critical). In the last 20 years end to context as the all - determining factor. progress in the area of i nternational climate Here, the future is not about what buildings policy has been modest at best. Annual green - look like, but how groups of buildings support house gas emissions have increased by over one the public realm, perform and interact , and how third since 1992 and keep rising. Acute conflicts they connect with each other to balance their of interest among industrialized, emerging and operational needs (for instance, the energy

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developing countries remain persistent obsta - dependent sprawl becomes unaffordable – c les to a comprehensive global climate treaty. will this lead to a suburban exodus? We also face increasing energy costs, transport - Social media can reveal issues and quickly congestion and housing shortages in most cities circulate stories; for instance, large corpo - (Haas 2008; Berners - Lee and Clark 2013; Urry rations polluting the environment. 2013). Despite all this, energy demands and the use of primary energy from fossil fuels – and - Mobili ty has emerged as a new paradigm. consequently carbon emissions – are rapidly Mobility now characterises and dominates our rising.Unfortunately, the green dream of lives, as we travel faster and farther, but still weaning the world off fossil fuels remains far spend more time in transit (between home off. and work), which will lead to new roles for public spaces. Why does today’s mobility s till Experts have identified the following mega mean high - carbon travel? trends affecting cities and shaping our urban futur e: - Smart environments: Surveillance cameras, smart meters and computers are getting - Globalization: global economic power is installed everywhere, inside buildings and shifting from Europe and North America to outside in public space − but unseen: ubiqui - Asia and Latin America. tous computing is already with us, with - Demographic change: urban populations are computers in our cars, phones, fridges and increasing, with an ageing population in many toys. But we still have to use keyboards to countries. input information. Information processing devices are steadily getting smaller and will - We are moving towards a global knowledge soon be virtually everywhere, completely econo my, and the rise of this knowledge - invisible and without the need for keyboards. intensive economy is reshaping our cities and By 2030, we will be surrounded by computers workplaces. that perform auto nomously, but will be utterly - The global middle class is rapidly expanding, unaware of their presence. 3D - printers will increasing consumption levels, especially in allow for personal fabrication in every home. developing countries; at the same time, urban The ability to produce our own products in sprawl is still happening in many places, our very own homes will upset and completely without regard for its consequences on urban change traditional models of manufacturing. infrastructure and loss of agricultural land. - Exp erts are moving away from simplistic - Climate change: greenhouse gas emissions linear approaches to urban development, to keep rising; reductions are not happening as com plex dynamic network systems and planned, nor as fast as necessary. systems thinking, understanding the impor - - The world could be running out of some tance of interlinked and inter - reliant systems. resources, while we still waste so much - More and more municipalities require an energy, water, raw materials, food and space. evidence base for their urban policies; they - Environmental degradation and fossil - fuel have a strong focus on low carbon mobility, dependent systems jeopardize people’s quality renewable energy, waste management, re - of life. For instance, the supply of drinking source recovery and the reintegration of water has become criti cal and sea levels may biodiversity in the urban environment; some rise very quickly. cities even have ambitious targets such as being ‘c limate neutral’ or becoming the - Urbanisation continues, causing challenges of ‘greenest city’ in their region. social inclusion and equity, while there is more and more competition between cities to These mega trends are changing the way we attract investment and a skilled workforce perceive cities and how we understand the (which is the most important resource of all). relationship between our own lifestyle, the city With rising energy and fuel costs, car - and the environmental crisis. Clearly, now that

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we are he ading towards a global population of 9 Embedding computerised sensors into the or 10 billion people by the end of this century, urban fabric could lead to the so - called ‘internet we will not be able to keep our high - energy - of things’ that is promising better living through consumption lifestyles. big data (for instance in the new - built sm art Songdo City in South Korea, see Image 2). A Smart City Definition However, there needs to be a real debate about In this context, we have to ask: What exactly are the smart city; for instance, what we want ‘smart green cities’? technology to do for cities (Greenfield 2013). Th e basic principal behind ‘green eco - cities’ is And the challenging question: who will own all living within the means of the environment and the data the smart city g enerates and who will resources. For the benefit of the people living in control it? Paul Mason noted recently (2015) the city, eco - cities reduce their greenhouse gas that ‘all these technologies are rapidly emissions by producing energy through renew - transforming our cities, and we need to think able sources such as solar, wind, hydropower hard about who controls a system where all and biomass, use low carbon public transport, people and things are tracked, all of the time.’ green infrastructure and reduce the embodied Clearly, w e can’t allow the tech giants or IT energy of buildings (Roseland 1997). Eco - cities providers to rule smart cities – it needs a better produce energy on - site, so they require little or solution and community involvement. Open no energy from the outside and favour lo cal, source urban data generated from public renewable and easily recyclable materials. services should always remain publicly owned Resources are conserved and recovered (a position that the City of Madrid has ado pted through waste management, recycling and the for their smart city project). natural bio - filtration of stormwater (Lehmann

2014). ‘Smart cities’ are cities where the seams and structures of the various urban systems are made clear, simple and responsive through technology and design (which all became pos - sible with the ubiquitous internet connectivity and the miniaturisation of electronics). Engineering firm Arup defines a smart city as ‘a city where thr ee specific networks interact and are integrated: the communications grid, the energy system and the so - called logistics internet (which tracks people and things through transport and supply systems)’. City Figure 2: There is frequently a reference to transport systems and logistics are the obvious Singapore as a smart city that has become b eneficiaries from such smart systems, where denser and greener at the same time, while higher efficiencies and more productivity is displaying leadership in green urbanism and promised (just think of real - time train arrival place - making. New Songdo City in South Kor ea messages for waiting subway passengers). From (Figure 2) is a new - built smart city whose roads the smartphones in our pockets and the and water, waste and electricity systems are cameras on the lampposts, to senso rs in the dense with electronic sensors, but lacks green sewers, the sidewalks and the bike - sharing place - making (Image: Nicolette Mastrangelo ) stations, the contemporary city is permeated with networked information technology that collects data. If we trust the smart city’s Interestingly, we can now bring the notions of promise, technology could even solve our social the green and the smart city problems that otherwise resisted; for instance, together: combining the postmodern flaneur more equity in the distribution of resources. with the techno - utopian engineer. While global

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city hubs usually evolve naturally over time, the Ideally, a smart city integrates the flows and success of Freiburg, Copenhagen and Singapore supply chains of all key resources – energy, illustrates that sustainable smart city models waste, water, food and transport – using inno - can be deliberately created to establish a vative technologies to achieve a more resource - positive reputation; and that densification and efficient city (Lehman n 2012b). In many ways, an increase of green space at the same time is infrastructure again plays a key role. The recent possible. A smart city might be a low - carbon United Nations Environment Programme report city, or a city that’s easy to move around. The City - level Decoupling: Urban Resource Flows and Compact City, the Green City, the Regenerative Governance of Infrastructure Transitions (UNEP, City, the Eco - City, the Smart City, and so on – 2013) explores the key role of cities as s ocietal they can all be the same place (see Figure 2). ‘nodes’ where much of the current unsustain - able use of natural resources takes place (and New Decentralized Infrastructure for the where the greatest potential exists for Smart City sustainability - oriented innovations), focussing C ities thrive and, contrary to expectations that on the key role of infrastructure in directing com mu ni cations technology would make loca - material flows and the refore resource use in the tion less relevant, we are finding that twenty - urban context. first - century life is increasingly dependent on But there is also critique of the smart city the clustering of diverse information techno - concept and the dangers from accumulation of logies at one place, as a dense network of urban big data. The data explosion is radically trans - amenities (from playgrounds to swimming forming our lives, where systems are systems of pools and libraries), institutions, innovation and interconnected systems, bec oming ever - more human capital. Maintaining innovation all the complex, and we may lose the ability to under - way through to project delivery is important. stand how they work. As the complexity of We can see this with Masdar (UAE) and Tianjin systems grows, so too do their vulnerabilities. E co - city (P.R. of China), two outstanding demon stration projects that have set them - Therefore, experts ask: Could the increased selves up as hubs for green smart technology dependency on technology actually make the enterprises and research, so called ‘living city less resili ent? While new technology can be laboratories’. Social inclusion and the use of ICT advantageous, it does not replace compact, are perhaps the most important a spects of walkable, mixed - use communities and a good Tianjin Eco - city, where 25 per cent of all relationship between housing and employment. housing is subsidized for low - wage workers and Today, we are able to capture ‘big data’ about their families. Once completed, it is hoped that cities and their urban systems through the u se in Tianjin Eco - city around 90 per cent of all of ICT that allows us to gain reliable and travel will be made on foot, by bicycle or via analytical insight into different urban scenarios, public transpo rt. either existing or likely to evolve. This enables We can also find interesting ideas about smart us to better monitor and lead the operation of city development in New Songdo City: this our urban systems and to use these predictive newly built city on reclaimed land, 50 models to identi fy potential risks or future kilometres southwest of Seoul, is the test site demands. It also allows for better, evidence - for a new type of ICT infrastructure: offering based decision making through anticipation of effortless access to high qu ality services, likely demand and events, rather than merely knowledge transfer, mobility, communication reacting to demands or pressures. IT experts and connectivity to social infrastructure. The point out that in our post - Fordist networked Smart City project is another good s ociety social exchange and productivity are example of how information technologies can increasing with density of communication and be applied to optimize infrastructure and traffic information flow. Obviously, services cannot be flow, and provide substantial services to the designed in isolation if infrastructural co - population. benefits are to be harnessed. Forward - looking

Science Tar get Inc. www.sciencetarget.com 8 © Lehmann 201 6 | Advocacy f or the Compact urban infrastructure decision s are essential as New Citizen - Centric Applications f or t he these have long - lasting ramifications. Smart City Decisions made in infrastructure development City - wide smart services can improve urban today will determine the effectiveness of cities governance and deliver real benefits to the in delivering services for decades to come. population. Thus, urban governance is chang - Smart grid and distributed energy generation ing; as Hendriks notes: ‘Governance usually technologies h ave become cost - effective alter - refers to the steering o f service domains or natives. This is why the district and precinct problem areas characterized by interdepend - scale is the appropriate scale for decisions dence among various involved parties and relating to the relationship between public organizations’ (Hendriks, 2014, p.555). space (supporting walkability) and infra struc - According to Pennell, 'the term smart city has ture (supporting the provision of sustain able grown to collectively address the way in which services). policy makers to day are harnessing the Adam Greenfield criticises the naivety with digitization of the world to counter challenges which the smart city is getting embraced, facing citizens living in urban areas; challenges arguing that the smart city may be neither very ranging from the administration of inefficient smart nor very city at all. He challenges the citizen services through to securing resources prevalent cultural understanding of the current for future generations and economic growt h.' deployment and promised possibilities of (Chris Pennell, 2016) networked IT, noting (2013):’ The potential of For most of the time, improving urban areas has the devices now available is rich, but our aware - meant modernising or retrofitting existing ness of the powerful ways in which these infrastructure through an increasing array of systems and their use will alter our world – our digital applications, but developing city - wide policies, economies and built environmen t – is smart services is costly and for many cities not limited.’ He argues that not only is the existing an option. The smart city concept has recently definition of the smart city too narrow, but it been rethought and cities are considering also promotes an undesirable vision of a future alternative approaches aimed at delivering the city with centralised computational surveillance widest benefit with the most efficient use of and control, driven by those in power. their limited resources. Increasingly, this approach is being built ar ound citizens, negat - ing departmental silos in the administration of cities, and better utilizing the increase of smart devices and private sensory networks. Citizens and business are being asked to pay for this investment through tax increases, while in exchange, citizens expect instantaneous and personalized services. Citizens also want to be considered as active components in the process. This is leading to the rise of the notion of the "citizen - centric collaborative city", where technology is used to l everage citizen’s partici - pation for urban sensing through the constant Figure 3: T he perfect surveillance at Rio de exchange of information between residents and Janeiro’s Intelligent Operations Centre, created city institutions. Urban Living Labs (ULLs) have by IBM, using thousands of CCTV cameras emerged as a mode of governance that brings distributed over the city centre to control and stakeholders together to experiment and manage traffic movement, parking and urban produ ce solutions in real world set tings flooding: ‘Permanent control of the entire city, (Voytenko, McCormick, Evans and Schliwa 24/7’ (Image: World Resources Institute , 2 013) 2015; Evans, Karvonen, Raven 2016).

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Cities are moving from the top down approach public transport? For instance, can we and are turning to grassroots, bottom - up establish an opti mal range of density for processes for sensing the dynamics of citizen sustainable city form and decentralized sys - participat ion, data analysis, information sharing tems generating on - site energy? and dynamic decision making, supported by a This thinking about urban futures goes far smart governance structure (Castan Broto and beyond conventional or traditional ideas of Bulkeley 2013).Effective partnerships between aesthetics (of the ‘City Beautiful’ type) or universities and cities are increasingly impor - functional and organiz ational city form (of the tant to deliver sustainable, innov ative and smart ‘’ type): this is about the long - urban development (e.g. ‘Smart Campus’). But term sustainability of urban settlements and while a wealth of expertise exists, knowledge communities. It forces us to look at cities in a and experience is currently fragmented and completely new way, and new types of city are underexploited (Hodson and Marvin 2014). likely to emerge.

However, there will be n o quick urban fix to the Conclusion : A New Set of Questions and problem of global warming. This means that we Challenges need to apply incremental approaches as well as seeking major economic and social change with In the near future, the relevance of face - to - face strategies that will work, to envisage and apply encounters in high - quality public space in cities a new, daring and ambitious environmentali sm will not lose importance, despite the rise of the to radically re - engineer our urban settlements IT network society. and concepts. The smart - city rhetoric is all about efficiency, The list of new challenges opens up many optimisation, predictability and security possibilities for innovative design thinking at throug h surveillance, and so on. All these things different scales; for instance, we are likely to make a city bearable, but they don’t make a city develop new kinds of smart infrastructural more poetic or valuable. While the knowledge of systems th at better engage with the social and good urban design allowed us for centuries to environmental conditions that continuously design cities that functioned well and had reconfigure the city today. In all this, urban beautiful proportions, now an entirely new set design still warrants a very high priority as it of questions about optimal city form and urban sets the framework for any future urban management have emerged that have not development at an early stage and remain s previously been asked, such as: central to successful low carbon outcomes in - How can we use new urban development which urban form, public space, density, approaches to transform and retrofit our infrastructure and the integration of low - carbon existing cities to emit much less green house technologies all have a strong interrelationship. gas? The 21st century promises to be very different - What are the behavioural, technological and from the 20th century - so why are cities being urban design options for better managing this planned using components that were developed change? during the last 100 years? - Which city form, density and size is best for Wong Mun Summ, WOHA enabling low - carbon affordable mobility and

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