Page 109 - IJES Special Issues for AIEC2016

International Journal of Environment and Sustainability, 2016, 5(2): 1-11 9

Cities are moving from the top down approach public transport? For instance, can we
and are turning to grassroots, bottom-up establish an optimal range of density for
processes for sensing the dynamics of citizen sustainable city form and decentralized sys-
participation, data analysis, information sharing tems generating on-site energy?
and dynamic decision making, supported by a
smart governance structure (Castan Broto and This thinking about urban futures goes far
Bulkeley 2013).Effective partnerships between beyond conventional or traditional ideas of
universities and cities are increasingly impor- aesthetics (of the ‘City Beautiful’ type) or
tant to deliver sustainable, innovative and smart functional and organizational city form (of the
urban development (e.g. ‘Smart Campus’). But ‘Ville Radieuse’ type): this is about the long-
while a wealth of expertise exists, knowledge term sustainability of urban settlements and
and experience is currently fragmented and communities. It forces us to look at cities in a
underexploited (Hodson and Marvin 2014). completely new way, and new types of city are
likely to emerge.
Conclusion: A New Set of Questions and
Challenges However, there will be no quick urban fix to the
problem of global warming. This means that we
In the near future, the relevance of face-to-face need to apply incremental approaches as well as
encounters in high-quality public space in cities seeking major economic and social change with
will not lose importance, despite the rise of the strategies that will work, to envisage and apply
IT network society. a new, daring and ambitious environmentalism
to radically re-engineer our urban settlements
The smart-city rhetoric is all about efficiency, and concepts.
optimisation, predictability and security
through surveillance, and so on. All these things The list of new challenges opens up many
make a city bearable, but they don’t make a city possibilities for innovative design thinking at
more poetic or valuable. While the knowledge of different scales; for instance, we are likely to
good urban design allowed us for centuries to develop new kinds of smart infrastructural
design cities that functioned well and had systems that better engage with the social and
beautiful proportions, now an entirely new set environmental conditions that continuously
of questions about optimal city form and urban reconfigure the city today. In all this, urban
management have emerged that have not design still warrants a very high priority as it
previously been asked, such as: sets the framework for any future urban
development at an early stage and remains
- How can we use new urban development central to successful low carbon outcomes in
approaches to transform and retrofit our which urban form, public space, density,
existing cities to emit much less greenhouse infrastructure and the integration of low-carbon
gas? technologies all have a strong interrelationship.

- What are the behavioural, technological and The 21st century promises to be very different
urban design options for better managing this from the 20th century - so why are cities being
change? planned using components that were developed
during the last 100 years?
- Which city form, density and size is best for
enabling low-carbon affordable mobility and Wong Mun Summ, WOHA

References Berners-Lee, M & Clark, D. (2013), The burning
question, Profile Books, London
Alexander, C. (1979), The timeless way of
building, Oxford University Press, New York
City, NY

Science Target Inc. www.sciencetarget.com