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What are cities? Some people say they consist of networks (transport, water, electricity, waste), and other think they are made of structures (houses, roads, pipes and wires). Most fundamentally, though, they consist of people. We are the city.
The way we are the city has been changing lately, assisted by smart gadgets most people have started to use, and the ubiquitous platformisation of almost any business from groceries to insurance. The speed of this change has created the pressure for city organisations to change the way they manage the city, deliver urban services and renew urban spaces.
Currently, most cities cannot cope with the speed of change. Legacy systems—physical infrastructures, outdated IT systems, organisational models and practices—are notoriously slow to change. Cities lack competence in understanding digitisation, experimenting with technologies and approaching challenges flexibly. Business models, funding models and procurement practices are underdeveloped, do not support technological innovation and are often unsuitable for multi-stakeholder strategic collaboration.
City governments are used to lead by strategies and policies. Those are still needed, but the process of developing them must become much faster. If planning takes five years, plans are out of date before they are even ready. Joy’s law says that “no matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else”. Shifting the mindset from “city as governance” to “city as an enabler” can help the city administration to tackle the challenge of speed. This book covers many examples of renewing the city by open collaboration, experiments, design methodologies and agile development, which can deliver results faster and in an iterative manner.
In order to create the digital and physical infrastructure which can accommodate a crowdsourced way of problem-solving and solutions from different developers, cities must also change the way they work with technology. Traditional city systems are monoliths—proprietary, complex, costly, and locked in to their vendors. Instead, cities need technologies and infrastructure which can connect different sectors together in a lightweight, modular manner, with components provided by multiple vendors, sharing enough core protocols and data to be interoperable. Such horizontal systems are necessary, for example, for data clearing, management and sharing; user dashboards; secure identification; capturing, managing and exchanging value; and digital security.
Horizontal integration between systems must be done wisely, though. Cities are not machines, for which you can develop an operating system. They are much more like organisms, as complex as the range of human activities in them. Cities are not companies, either—they do not operate like big corporations. The level of complexity in an average city far exceeds that of any company.
Cross-domain harmonisation of city systems should be done by using loosely coupled interfaces and “bring your own service” approach. Different subdomains can develop and run services which are just right for them. These systems are connected over a shared backbone only when the connection is necessary and only harmonising the minimum amount of data and interfaces. Maximum interoperability and resilience to future needs should be achieved with the minimum level of integration, focusing on data models and APIs which are connected using, for example, microservices and other flexible architectures.
Working with technologies and innovation should be seen as a core activity of a city, as much as urban planning. Cities and companies should systematically share good practices, replicate working solutions, exchange information with each other and develop solutions together. Lastly, cities need to understand investment and business models and become informed clients and partners for the companies. This volume serves as a fundament for such a Future Cities agenda. The notion of a hackable city provides an alternative to the relentless and rapid platformisation mentioned above and entails a people-centric view of city-making with the help of technologies and innovation.
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We wish to thank Gabriela Avram for hosting the Communities & Technologies Conference and Digital Cities workshop in Limerick. The workshop was organised by Michiel de Lange, Nanna Verhoeff, Martijn de Waal, Marcus Foth and Martin Brynskov. Nina Fistal and Tamalone van den Eijnden assisted in the production of the book during the editing process.
The Hackable City workshop was related to the research project The Hackable City. Collaborative City-Making in Urban Living Lab Buiksloterham . This project ran from 2015 to 2017 and was funded through a Creative Industries Embedded Researcher Grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The research project was hosted at the University of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS), Utrecht University and One Architecture. The Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Pakhuis de Zwijger and Stadslab Buiksloterham Circulair were partners in the project. For more information see: http://www.thehackablecity.nl .
The following persons were part of the research team: Bart Aptroot (Architect, One Architecture); Lipika Bansal (Researcher, Pollinize); Matthijs Bouw (Researcher, Director One Architecture); Tara Karpinski (Embedded Researcher, University of Amsterdam); Froukje van de Klundert (Embedded Researcher, University of Amsterdam and One Architecture); Michiel de Lange (Researcher, Utrecht University); Karel Millenaar (Designer, AUAS); Melvin Sidarta (Intern Research); Juliette Sung (Intern Visual Communication); Martijn de Waal (Project Leader, University of Amsterdam/Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences).
Many local parties contributed to the research project. We wish to thank Delva Landscape Architects, Studioninedots and Stadslab Buiksloterham Circulair for the cooperation to develop the entry Hackable Cityplot and a series of events for the 2016 International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam. We would also like to thank the advisory board of the research project, consisting of Coby van Berkum (President City Council Amsterdam-Noord); Ger Baron (Chief Technology Officer City of Amsterdam); Prof. Dr. José van Dijck—Distinguished University Professor at Utrecht University); Egbert Fransen (Director Pakhuis de Zwijger); Prof. Dr. Maarten Hajer (Distinguished Professor of Urban Futures at Utrecht University); Freek van ’t Ooster (Director—iMMovator Cross Media Network and Programme Manager CLICKNL Media & ICT); Prof. Dr. Ben Schouten (Lector—Play & Civic Media Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences); Mildo van Staden (Senior Advisor—Ministry of The Interior and Kingdom Relations). Finally, we would like to thank the many people who shared with us their knowledge and experience of the Buiksloterham area, especially Frank Alsema, Saskia Muller and Peter Dortwegt.
Contents
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Michiel de Lange
is an Assistant Professor in the Media and Culture Studies Department at Utrecht University. He is the Co-Founder of The Mobile City, a platform for the study of new media and urbanism; co-founder of research group [urban interfaces] at Utrecht University; a researcher in the field of (mobile) media, urban culture, identity and play. He is currently co-leading the NWO-funded three-year project Designing for Controversies in Responsible Smart Cities . He is co-editor of the books Playful Identities: The Ludification of Digital Media Cultures (2015) and Playful Citizens: The Ludification of Culture, Science, and Politics (forthcoming).
Martijn de Waal
is a Professor at the Play and Civic Media Research Group at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. At that university, he also holds the position of head of research at the Faculty of Digital Media and Creative Industries. With Michiel de Lange, in 2007 he co-founded TheMobileCity.nl , an independent research group that investigates the influence of digital media technologies on urban life, and what this means for urban design and policy. His research focuses on digital media and the public sphere. Key publications include The City as Interface. How Digital Media are Changing the City (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2012) and The Platform Society. Public Values in a Connective World (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2018), co-authored with José van Dijck and Thomas Poell. Previously, he worked at the University of Amsterdam and University of Groningen. In 2009, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Civic Media at the MIT.