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Recent Discussions |
City 2.0: Forging a new urban outlook?June 2012Alastair Donald, Mindy Gofton, Martin Bryant and Lisa Raynes introduced a discussion on the lure of the social city and what role it can play in regenerating city space.‘Open source cities’; ‘smart cities’; ‘intelligent cities’. The choice of prefix may change, but enthusiasts seem increasingly convinced that digital technologies are transforming not only the nature of communication, but also the way we design, build, use, and interact within cities. On awarding the TED 2012 prize to The City 2.0, the organisers disputed the idea that this city of the future was a ‘sterile utopian dream’. Rather, they argued, we are seeing a real-world upgrade, tapping into humanity’s collective wisdom to create places of ‘beauty, wonder, excitement, inclusion, diversity, life.’ There are many other claims made for new technologies. Hewlett Packard’s version of City 2.0 asserts that the Information Age is reinventing the city for scalability and sustainability. IBM argue that intelligent technologies are turning neighbourhoods into ‘manageable ecosystems’. According to engineers Arup, new malleable systems increase citizen awareness of the relationships between activities, neighbourhoods, and wider urban systems. Unlike the inflexible, monolithic 20th century city, the Smart City, they say, is a place that citizens collectively modify.
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Some background readingsRoad Map for the Digital City, New York City website Cisco's Big Bet on New Songdo: Creating Cities From Scratch, by Greg Lindsay, Fast Company, 1 February 2010 What role did social media play in the Manchester riot?, posted by Richard Frost, The E Word 10 August 2011 Clarkson's just Clarkson – would you have cared, pre-YouTube and Twitter? by Padraig Reidy, Guardian CiF, 1 December 2011 What the 2012 TED Prize Means for ‘The City 2.0’, by Nate Berg, The Atlantic Cities, 06 Dec 2011 Open Source Urbanism | Open Source City, by Domenico Di Siena, Urbanohumano 3 February 2012 Social Cities of Tomorrow, Background to international conference & workshop in Amsterdam, February 2012 Mappiness, the happiness application, London School of Economics / ESRC project The City 2.0, Recipient of the 2012 TED Prize, Unveils Its World Changing Wish, gnom newsire service 29 Feb 2012 How the 2012 TED Prize, The City 2.0, Aims to Crowdsource the Future, by Anthony Flint, the Atlantic Cities 1 March 2012 I am the crucible of the future, The City 2.0 Beta Help me create a manifesto for a model mayor, by Dave Hill, Guardian CiF 4 March 2012 Conservation: reflecting a fear of the future? by Mark Iddon, Manchester Salon First Tuesday, June 2012 Street performers told to cough up or shut up, Larry Neild, Liverpool Confidential 6 June 2012 Smart Cities, Raconteur 7 June 2012 Public spaces in Britain's cities fall into private hands, by Jeevan Vasagar, Guardian 11 June 2012 ![]()
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The delightful and quirky confines of the Manchester Craft & Design Centre will provide a poignant backdrop for this discussion on how the area's own future can be sculputered from the resources available in abundance in the area. For more on the 30th anniversary events at the MCDC, click here and please sign up to their mailing list for reminders of events, workshops and exhibitions. Click on this Love Architecture link for more information about the full panoply of events in that Festival.
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