Paul Drewe
Setting the Scene
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) may yet change dramati- cally the practices of spatial planners and related disciplines. For the moment, however, that reconstructive challenge is incomplete and immature. We are sensibly uncertain about the current and prospective impacts of the new tech- nologies and of the conception of networks in which they are embedded. We are, however, sure that there are no simple, direct links between ICT and the spatial patterns of cities and regions. Do the new technologies encourage decon- centration of activities or intense clustering? Do they enhance social mobility or segregation? Absent a compelling narrative of those links it is difficult to persuade practitioners to alter their ordinary commitments to urban design “as they know it.”
Mainstream urbanism has been dominated by zonal thinking. As expressed in the Athens Charter of 1933 (and countless zoning ordinances) cities were encouraged to concentrate functions into giant homogeneous packages. Alas, that simplistic geometry neither adequately represented nor appreciated the conditions that would sustain urbanity. There are many ways of defining urbanity. How about time-honored ones in terms of city diversity (Jacobs 1992) or, in a more complex way, by a set of patterns (Alexander et al. 1977). Across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, innovators in many fields concerned with spatial planning – e.g. transportation, civil and electrical engineering, regional science, and telecommunication – developed an alternative image of cities as nodes in complex networks (and of nodes as networks). They cultivated the mathematical and graphic tools that made it possible to understand and to design such networks, and to speak of the network city. The extensive integration of communication and information processing in the last years of the twentieth 1111
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century has played an important role in the understanding of networks and is often used as a figure of speech to represent the entire science of networks.
The architects and urban designers, in dealing with cities have, by and large, neglected the vast flows of the networked world and the paradigmatic challenge of the concept of networks. They certainly have not seen the (some- times hidden) infrastructure of cities as within their domain.
The body of this chapter is addressed to my architectural colleagues, encouraging them to pay attention to the representation and design of networks.
The address has five components. A design studio has been the focus of our research on the “network city.” The first three of the components have been important sources of inspiration for our work whereas the final component is about some of the results:
1 a diagrammatic exposition of network levels;
2 a brief look at the Internet in terms of networks;
3 rereading the classics;
4 a design studio;
5 directions for the future.
A Diagrammatic Exposition of Network Levels
Dupuy distinguishes three, interacting levels of network operators that (re)organize the urban space as shown in Figure 8.1 (Dupuy 1991: 119).
Level one involves the suppliers of technical networks. They are specialized and organized in sectors: water, energy, transport, conventional telecommuni- cation, and the newcomer of ICT. Level one covers the technical infrastructure networks, the services offered, and the operators or actors. In the past, each infrastructure has been “bundled.” It has been a public, “monopolistic infra- structure network geared to covering an entire geographical territory with broadly equal services offered at broadly equal cost” (Graham and Marvin 2001). With privatization and/or liberalization, however, this is no longer the case. The infrastructure has become unbundled. Graham and Marvin (2001) provide a more detailed analysis of level one. The authors use the umbrella of
“splintering urbanism” which covers not only the unbundling of infrastructure networks but also the fragmentation of urban space ensuing from it.
On level two we find the well known functional networks of common- interest users: production, distribution, consumption, and social contacts.
Specific location factors apply to each of the functional networks.
It is on level three that the users of functional networks make actual, selec- tive use of technical networks and services for their special purposes. Each household or each company creates its own virtual city starting from the home or the company’s location. Household networks can best be measured in terms The “Network City”
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of time-space budgets or action spaces. The emphasis shifts from the accessi- bility of activity places to reach. The latter stands for a set of activity places from which households can choose as destinations at acceptable (time) costs.
Company networks, on the other hand, can be conceptualized as logistic chains by adding a spatial dimension to business logistics. The resulting networks of both households and companies represent “virtual cities.” Virtual means func- tionally but not formally of its kind. The virtual cities on level three tend to clash with municipal boundaries and with how planning actors usually view a desirable spatial (zonal) structure. Moreover, a time dimension is usually alto- gether missing in current spatial concepts.
The question is whether this exposition of network levels also holds for the new networks of ICT. Does it enable us to understand the virtual space of the Internet?
A Brief Look at the Internet in Terms of Networks
The framework outlined in Figure 8.1 has been used to analyze the Internet.
To do so, the framework has to be translated into Internet terms:
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1st level operator
• Roads network
• Common transport network
• Telephone network, etc
2nd level operator
• Production network
• Consumption network
• Domestic network 3rd level operator Network/territory of the urban household The networks for a new urbanism: elements of theory
Figure 8.1 Three Levels of Network Operators that (Re)Structure the Urban Space
• level one reads the Internet infrastructure (the ISP backbone is chosen as the infrastructure level closest to the users);
• level two becomes the “Internet industry” (the commercial domain which is basically the functional network of production);
• level three relates to the actual traffic on the Internet (as revealed by traceroutes).
Our analysis is based on the MCI’s European transit backbone. For technical details see Drewe (2002).
The position of a node (capital city) on the Internet infrastructure network depends on three aspects: the number of direct connections between cities; the capacity or bandwidth of links (measured in megabytes or even gigabytes per second); the presence of an Internet exchange point or the number of multiple paths (measured by the number of cooperating ISPs connected). In mathemat- ical terms this infrastructure represents a power law distribution which “predicts that most nodes have only a few links, held together by a few highly connected hubs” (Barabási 2002: 71).
As far as the “Internet industry” is concerned, three layers can be distin- guished (according to the European Commission 1998):
• the “Information Society” including both households and established business firms using ICT products and services;
• “Information Society Industries” producing content on the net such as publishing, audiovisual, or advertising;
• “ICT industries” selling a number of clearly defined products and services.
It would be erroneous to refer to the Internet industry in terms of “new economy” as opposed to “old economy” because the old economy of estab- lished companies and the new economy of dot-coms are merging (Porter 2001).
“The real legacy of the Internet is not the birth of thousands of new online companies but the transformation of existing businesses (Barabási 2002: 216).
As to the actual traffic on the Internet, traceroutes have been carried out between selected broader Internet industry companies located in the nodes of MCI’s European networks in order to detect how the data flow between points of origin and destination. Traceroutes allow for measuring the performance of the Internet, which is a matter of response time, packet loss, and reachability.
The framework adopted for the analysis (Figure 8.1) assumes three, interacting levels of network operators. The interactions are basically interre- lations between respectively supply (level one), demand (level two), and performance (level three) (see Figure 8.2). From this one may conclude that The “Network City”
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the Internet network “behaves” like a conventional network – say, a transport network.
Rereading the Classics
If the new networks tend to behave like the old ones, it can be useful to delve among the early, classic network thinkers. Rereading them can provide sources of inspiration with regard to the “network city.” Does not the framework shown in Figure 8.1 result from rereading the classics?
There are quite a few classics among urbanists and architects that offer sources of inspiration. This does not mean that ancient concepts can simply be cut and pasted to provide a panacea for current and future urban problems.
After all there is ICT, a new phenomenon to be reckoned with. Ideally, each of the classics represents a topic for Ph.D. research if urban design is to be developed into a science (Klaassen 2004).
Classical network thinking has been unearthed by Dupuy (1991, 2000). The network in its modern meaning is characterized by three principal criteria:
Topological Criterion. The research of direct relations without intermediary and the desire for ubiquity, produces a very specific interest in the topology of a network.
Kinetic Criterion. Instantaneousness, homogeneity of speeds, the interest for rapid transfers and transits without losses of time or interruptions makes the network apt to movement and defines the kinetic criterion.
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Performance
Demand Supply
Network Access Points National Backbone Operators Regional Network Operators Internet Service Providers Information Society
Information Society ICT Industries
Industries
Reachability Packet loss Response time
Figure 8.2 The Internet Interrelations between Supply, Demand, and Performance
Adaptive Criterion. As presently conceived, networks are based on a choice of connections in space and time. The connections can necessitate a permanent support, a fixed infrastructure. On the other hand, the network has to, ideally, be able to constantly adapt to the needs of new connections, when they are requested and chosen by its users (Dupuy 2000: 5).
Classical network thinkers in urbanism have put different emphasis on the three criteria (Dupuy 1991). Frank Lloyd Wright, in his Broadacre City, is one of those who has fully dealt with topology, kinetics, and adaptation (Wright 1940).
The plan of Broadacre City was a schematic representation of a rela- tively low-density, continuous urban area in which previously centralized city functions would be decentralized along a linear transportation and communications system. Although there was some mixing of these func- tions, similar uses of land were grouped together in five large sections (actually continuous ribbons of urban development) parallel to a super- highway and regional rail system.
(Grabow 1977: 116) In fact, the “Broadacre City” has inspired Fishman (1988) to lay the foun- dation for the very framework of today’s network urbanism, shown in Figure 8.1. The same framework has helped us to understand the networks of the Internet. “Broadacre City” has never been built. It has remained a utopian vision of city development unlike the work of the European network thinker Cerdà which had an important impact on the development of Barcelona.
Rereading Cerdà to plan today’s cities leads to three basic lessons: the failure of zoning, the role of networks, and network-based urban planning (Dupuy 2001; see also Magrinyà 2001). Rereading the classics can inspire both conceptual innovations and practice. An example of the former is given by Salingaros (2000) rereading Alexander’s pattern language. Let us recall that Alexander et al. (1977) distinguish major structures that define the city and are formed by city policies. Moreover, there are two levels of self-governing communities. The related patterns provide building stones for the larger city patterns. The list of patterns also includes some regional patterns and a lot of lower-level patterns down to buildings. Salingaros, a mathematician, has conse- quently redefined the task of urban planners as one of connecting the fractal city. This raises a number of fundamental questions:
(i) what these fractal properties are; (ii) the intricate connectivity of the living urban fabric; (iii) methods of repairing urban space; (iv) an effec- tive way to overlay pedestrian, automotive, and public transports; and (v) how to integrate physical connections with electronic connections.
(Salingaros 2003: 1) The “Network City”
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As far as practice is concerned, the work of Salingaros is close to that of the Prince’s Foundation in Britain (http://www.princes-foundation.org).
Our last example of rereading the classics is Lynch, perhaps best known for his “image of the city” (Lynch 1960), which has inspired Page and Phillips (2003a) in their urban design for Jersey City. According to Lynch, the image of a city depends on paths, edges, nodes, districts, landmarks, and “the sense of the whole.” Lynch at the time had also been working on Jersey City. The question is whether navigating in this city will improve thanks to the design proposed by Page and Phillips, in particular thanks to their way of treating the relationship between public and electronic space.
To argue today, as Lynch did 40 years ago, that Jersey City is a disori- enting, obscure urban form that is no more than its sum of fragmentary enclaves and divisive infrastructure barriers would be criticism leveled from a traditional urbanism perspective. More accurately, the city should be recognized as being rife with opportunity to explore new forms of urban expression that acknowledges the diverse and flexible interest of the information age (Page and Phillips 2003a: 93).
A Design Studio
As mentioned at the outset, a design studio has been the focus of our research on the “network city.”
Design-oriented research in the first place aims at possible futures. The strength of design lies in the fact that it can demonstrate or visualize what could be designed with ICT. Possible futures tend to relate to the long term. In order to bridge the gap between a distant future and today’s practice, one can focus on location-specific test-beds. This is the basic philosophy of our design studio.
It started as a six-year cooperation between the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment and the Faculty of Architecture at Delft University of Technology. In order to generate synergy, the studio involves staff, Ph.D. students, contract researchers, and – last but not least – undergraduate students in their final year. There are also international links to experts working in the same field (for further information go to http://www.networkcity.bk.
tudelft.nl). This includes staff and student activities related to what has been referred to as test-beds (Drewe 1996):
• the future urban agglomeration;
• the “rest” of the Netherlands, beyond the “periphery”;
• the “mainport” as node of a logistic network;
• the “euroregion plus,” beyond the Dutch border.
To these four themes, architecture-related test-beds have been added, focusing on the future home suited for telework and the future office. The scope Paul Drewe
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of the design-studio, too, has been extended to the role of ICT with regard to the spatial planning process.
The student contributions address different themes with an emphasis on content or process and relate to different scales (ranging from buildings to the international level). ICT figures as a support or as an innovation. The latter is defined either as a new product (especially in architecture) or as a new approach to spatial planning.
Here are a few examples of questions for which design proposals have been developed in the design studio:
• How can tele-activities in neighborhood telecenters help to improve the living conditions of the elderly?
• How do multinodal urban structures evolve and what are the appropriate urban design strategies?
• How can personal travel services be designed as part of a larger project of seamless multimodal mobility including, among others, the design of intermodal transfer points in multimodal passenger transport networks?
And, focusing on the elderly, what lessons are there to be learned from their space-time behavior?
• If social exclusion from ICT (the so-called digital divide) is seen as part of the larger problem of urban vulnerability and deprivation, what revi- talization strategies apply in Europe and in the Netherlands (and how about Latin American metropolises)?
• Do New Urban principles offer an alternative to present urban expan- sion in network cities in Europe (including a code for ICT, i.e., networks and telework)?
The answer to these and other questions can be found on the website mentioned above.
It is the rise of ICT in the 1990s that has triggered our network thinking in urbanism. The work in the design studio has been inspired by the frame- work shown in Figure 8.1. It incorporates lessons from urban technology systems such as water, energy, and transport (their infrastructure, services, and users). Dupuy’s criteria serve to classify classical contributions to network thinking in these areas. They have not guided the studio work, but helped to understand the new technology and its implications for urban form.
Where Do We Go from Here?
At the end of the day, a conclusion emerges: we need integrated planning of land use and urban technology networks, in particular transport and ICT
The “Network City”
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(see also Graham and Marvin 1998). This is not a plea for comprehensive plan- ning as we know it from the past.
Throughout the twentieth century, cities have been planned, and in doing so, networks for the transport not only of passengers and goods but also of water, energy, and information have played an ever increasing role. However, cities have seldom been (re)thought in terms of networks: their topology, nodes, connectivity, capillarity, or similarities. Because “networks have properties, hidden in their construction, that limit or enhance our ability to do things with them” (Barabási 2002: 12).
What better way of demonstrating the new integrated planning than taking a closer look at the winning entry for the Millennium City competition for Orange County.
Page et al. (2003) have tried to achieve smart sprawl through a network- oriented development. This is a seven-step process:
• development of a county-scale organization to stimulate the growth of e-commerce, e-business, e-government, distance education, and tele- medicine;
• creation of a county-wide high capacity Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) with commercial, non-profit, and government components;
• establishment of a system of Network Stations of different sizes at dozens of strategic locations throughout the county to provide access to the MAN (including high-speed access to the Internet);
• transformation of single-function buildings into mixed-function build- ings with Network Stations adding functions;
• creation of plans for adding a mix of functions to single-function districts such that housing, jobs, and services will be integrated at distances not greater than two miles (also using in-fill bricks and mortar projects as well as Network Stations for this purpose);
• creation of Neighborhood Transportation Zones around the Network Stations (mixed-vehicle streets catering to low-impact vehicles);
• beginning of reclamation of some of the land devoted to high-perform- ance automobiles (such as housing construction on surface-parking lots in retail centers or office parks or reclamation of streets).
A similar approach has been applied to the Hudson County Cyberdistrict where Wallace Roberts & Todd (2003) have proposed design concepts such as:
• network stations plus mixed-function buildings plus neighborhood trans- portation zones;
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Paul Drewe