Nov 2, 2023

From the traditional art of city-making to the science of future-ready cities.

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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The cycle of the “city in making” through centuries somewhat seems to follow this evolutionary pattern.

TRADITIONAL ART OF CITY MAKING

a. Greenfield cities

[Utopian vision > identified potential > anchor economic activity as a growth magnet (or) infrastructure and real estate stock as a pull factor > achieving saturation and autonomous target functionality sooner or later > gets into brownfield city cycle]

b. Brownfield Cities

[Organic growth > agglomeration as a centre of the economy > critical mass > the influx of population > additive infrastructure and real estate stock as coping mechanism > deterioration of the environment and degradation of the quality of life > urban overhaul as remedial measures > agglomeration continues to grow and get caught in a remedial cycle > confrontation with new age climate emergency > sense-making and search for coping mechanism continues]

What is noteworthy here in terms of the evolution of the traditional art of city-making, is that despite the wealth of learning, the city-making process still seems to be caught at the remedial stage.

FUTURE-READY CITY

Two preconditions of a future-ready city seem to be on the horizon.

A. Finding new meanings and ways to make use of technology that is at doorsteps.

It appears that the summation of the plethora of technological aid that we have access to, for city-making until now, still only primarily served the purpose of sense-making and has only been used as a coping mechanism.

On the other side, the technology that is maturing and emerging right now, be it machine vision, automation, parametric, sensor fusion, LLM, advanced robotics, 5G/6G, quantum computing, or carbon capture etc., with AI as a binding factor, holds potential unlike anything witnessed before and offers an opportunity for potential application in the city-making unlike before and thus holds the key to achieve future-ready cities. The unprecedented pace of technological evolution that we witness today and onwards, seem to indicate that this is the ripe time to move away from the vicious cycle of remedial measure and coping mechanism associated with traditional city-making and city-retrofitting and leverage this opportunity to reflect and build something new, i.e., the future-ready city, be it greenfield or brownfield or a new type.

B. The governance must outpace technological breakthroughs.

While a comprehensive policy and robust governance framework are essential for managing the dynamic entity called “city”, it is essential that governance in any part of the world, itself has to be future-ready by thinking deep into the future, generating future-ready policies based on simulations, and hence must outpace the technological breakthrough.

Author: Anoop Jha

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[Recent update

Starting 2024, launching urban management, interior design, home decor and commissioned artwork services in the Netherlands, serving local as well as international remote clients.

Please Note, that I am also conducting a FREE 45-minute online individual consultation on your interior design and home decor needs and aspirations if you are in the Netherlands or even internationally. Drop me an email at anoop.jha@gmail.com

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

Instagram interior design page @urbantenets

Instagram fine art and illustration page @urbanoregional

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#urbanplanning #futurecities #smartcities #AI #machinevision #IOT #5G #Rotterdam #Amsterdam #Utrecht #Eindhoven #Hague #Denhaag #Netherlands

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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The secret of the human edge over AI lies in undocumented knowledge.

The quality of online search results has improved manifold over say past 15-20 years and the quality and speed with which results are generated shall continue to improve with the advent of LLM, but the quality of such search results essentially still remains a function of underlying bulk content. The more data that will get added for processing the more refined results we’ll get, and more the data that will be used, segmented, labeled, and annotated to train machines, the more efficient AI use cases will be.

Thinking of machines and humans and what differentiates them, and taking a case of the decision-making process. The potential application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in boosting the degree of confidence in judgment is well understood. The application of AI in critical and scientific decision-making processes is also understood. It is also acknowledged that AI holds immense potential to supplement or eliminate part or bulk of human manual efforts and provide a fast baseline content for judgment and decision-making. That being said, still, the chances are that the key decisions across industry, businesses, and governance will continue to be made based on human judgment. The human judgment that stems from the life experiences of individuals and fraternity, not surprisingly most of which never gets documented. What differentiates the decision-making process of AI and human beings outside of the scientific application, is that the key decision made by humans goes beyond empirical evidence, rationality, and explanation and are also based on their instinct and their belief system. We are not even discussing the occult, spiritual, and depth of human subconsciousness. It is also noteworthy that AI is only as smart as the data it has access to, even if it may claim to extrapolate the data gap.

AI including Large Language Model (LLM) is fueled by data, but no amount of data seem to be enough to supersede the collective consciousness of human. The data that is undocumented is the missing piece of the puzzle and the documented data that AI has access to and on which it is being trained is possibly only the tip of the knowledge iceberg, and that's what will continue to differentiate humans from machines. This undocumented knowledge or data is almost like a treasure that is seated within the individual’s psyche, cultural experiences, contextual understanding, belief system, and their evolutionary instinct; such knowledge or data is hidden in plain sight and never gets documented, as there is no need.

How humans behave or act is many a time counterintuitive, intriguing and captivating. Each of these acts translates into experiences, the kind of experience that enriches individuals and fraternity but never gets documented, hence never becomes a data point. For instance, those seasoned drivers and commuters who take the shortcut route other than what is shown by the navigation app, by instinct as they have known the rhythm and streets of the city by heart over decades. Those investors who will buy stocks, or strike a deal based on numerology and their lucky number or based on perceived auspicious time or period, a deal that is different from predicted trends or obvious choice, as it goes with their belief system and has worked in their favor in the past. Those project leaders who navigate smoothly through challenging situations based on their life learning, that is nowhere to be found in textbooks and hardly get documented. Those businessmen who take day-to-day and big decisions based on the wisdom earned since childhood while helping their parents in their business, a kind of emotional intelligence not to be gained from business school. Also, those local guides who take you to hidden jewels of the city not to be found in best of the travel guide books, somehow remain a trade secret. Likewise the ordinary and extraordinary trade secrets or individuals, collective, fraternity, and sectors. The million interpretations of a single art piece and craftwork in the gallery and museum by varied spectators, many of which are no less vivid than the interpretation of an art critic. Even the quantum and richness of knowledge that gets instantly and momentarily generated in classroom discussions, ideation and Q&A sessions, but never find their way to the published literature of any kind or public domain. Examples of undocumented knowledge are innumerable, prolific and unfathomable.

The quest of mankind is to structure the knowledge, and the underlying assumption is that every case that is to be analyzed for empirical research has been categorized already, but no amount of sample size is large enough to tap into the experiences of individuals and the consciousness of the collective. Each individual’s experience is the rich embodiment of exceptions, like their life journey, meanwhile, the exceptions always get discarded in quest of a pattern, hence missing out on vital knowledge or data that stems from the individuals, subsets, and fraternity. This is an example of unstructured, undocumented data. AI and LLM while processing seemingly vast, heterogeneous data will most likely still continue to face the challenges of not having access to knowledge that is there but not documented, especially that is seated within individual, community, and culture, and remains obscure and unintentionally out of reach. Yes, one can pay to get the experiences documented and labeled for machine learning but that will still be like scratching the surface.

Acknowledging that humans bring a different value to the table, might be a solace in the turbulent changes in the technological landscape that is happening right now with no sign of slowing down.

Author: Anoop Jha

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[Recent update

Starting 2024, launching urban management, interior design, home decor and commissioned artwork services in the Netherlands, serving local as well as international remote clients.

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

Instagram interior design page @urbantenets

Instagram fine art and illustration page @urbanoregional

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#AI #LLM #Chatgpt #Technology #ML #Machinelearning #urbanplanning #smartcities #Rotterdam #Hague #Amsterdam #Utrecht #Spain #Barcelona #Germany #Stuttgart #Demnark #UK #EU #Europe

Cities must thrive!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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Offering economic choices and linking them to urban public spaces.

There is an inherent insufficiency in the way we plan urban spaces world over, that is a flaw of inertia, a self-limiting prophecy, that is this notion of designing mono-functional public, semi-public and outdoor spaces, irrespective of their size. The idea that a particular space and asset should only function in a way as per its perceived functionality. Because it has been done this way all along, the inertia of centuries. The perception itself is limiting, hindering choices and discarding opportunities. The idea that a parking space is to be designed and used only for parking cars or bikes with almost no functional heterogeneity. The idea that parks must only serve recreational and health purposes, denying multifunctionality. The idea that school should only be used for teaching, that too for an assigned grade, an asset that remains idle for the rest of the day and night, for instance. And more.

This inertia of what a city can offer to its citizens is inherited limitations of capabilities that we had centuries ago. The century-old idea of what city spaces should comprise of, the idea of its functional constituents like land use or degree of land use heterogeneity is based on human capabilities of calculation, modeling, and scenario building. Fitting the infinite choices within half-odd dozen land use, or a dozen or two land use compatibility matrix. While the computation power enabled by tools that we have today, has increased astronomically in past century, city planning frameworks and methodologies have not used them effectively world over.

On the other economic side, there are way too much of lost opportunity cost and several barriers to economic choices. If we just observe the skill profile of individuals, households and society around wherever we are or try recollect from our memories, if we do that even without any matrix, it is easily noticeable that we are surrounded by a lot of talent and scores of people with borderline entrepreneurial drive, irrespective of age, gender and ability. For instance, the guy just retired from financial services, with immense wealth of industry knowledge who can offer banking, investment, and financial advice to others. The homemaker who is excellent at cooking and baking. The part time worker who also has a knack of art. The business student who can teach the basics of marketing to others. And many more alike, possibly million others, who want to do something about their spare time and talent, but find processes too taxing, convoluted, and tortuous, and confronted by not having accessible, affordable and legit neighbourhood spaces to get in touch with their prospective customers. Those who may not be willing to go through the preparation of full-fledged business plan, or too shy or feel incapacitated to launch a startup, or may find business registration processes, tax compliance and legality of businesses too complex, or may not be willing to invest in commercial property, but who might still like to try some economic activity, given a choice, given a humble non-imposing space in their neighborhood, on a nominal per day or hourly basis, those who might like to start small, with simple handholding, who might opt to rent a few square feet in public space, if available, where they can try sell their product or services. Not to be generalized as street vending activities, nor to be tagged as informal economic activity. The current threshold to enter into economic activity is too high for them to give it a try, so most of them simply drop the plan, and hence the loss of opportunity cost.

It is possible that through urban planning and urban design interventions, and through some procedural elasticity, city administration, labor department, and tax authorities together may solve this dilemma. This is to be done on a pilot scale for a year or two, before scaling up. What is required from them is that city administration allows experimental economic activities in a range of urban public spaces, they carve out hundreds or thousands of such small spaces from the existing public spaces and urban residual spaces to facilitate these economic activities, allow multifunctionality of semi-public spaces on a timeshare basis, and offer them to these people on a temporary basis, also allow real-time changes in land use at granular scale of square feet or so. Labor department that may allow such activities to happen while assuring the support infrastructure is in place, tax authority issues easy online and offline formality to be done for the legitimacy of such economic activities, further without the tax liability in say first 6 months. This period with access to space for functioning, will be sufficient for people to try many economic activities that they think they are capable to execute, without the associated burden, they will get real taste of trying new things hands-on and may decide if it makes business, societal and personal sense for them, and many of them may later decide to continue these activities on a regular basis while switching to formal business protocols and tax regime.

How difficult it could be to liberate economic choices even for experiment’s sake, how difficult it may be to repurpose public outdoor spaces and reassign multi-functionality in semi-public spaces to make them more heterogeneous and allowing integration of economic activities in them. If we remove the bureaucratic processes associated with it, rest is a fairly easy task and target to achieve. Any city and its citizens can thrive, it’s a matter of making choices that we haven’t made till now out of inertia, or possibly not thought about them.

Author: Anoop Jha

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[Recent update

Starting 2024, launching urban management, interior design, home decor and commissioned artwork services in the Netherlands, serving local as well as international remote clients.

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

Instagram interior design page @urbantenets

Instagram fine art and illustration page @urbanoregional

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#opportunitycot #economy #city #urbaneconomy #economic #urbanplanning #urbandesign #publicspaces #livelyhood #vocation #community #Rotterdam #Amsterdam #Utrecht #Hague #DenHaag #Netherlands

Where do we think a large share of finite resources get consumed?

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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The blog post continues here...

There is wastage in terms of summation all the material, energy, labor, and time, that gets consumed in producing all the products that is never used, in creating infrastructure and built environment that never gets utilized or remains underutilized, through leakage in network like NRW, in creating services and systems that runs under capacity, in commuting to all the places that doesn't serve its intended purpose, in developing multiple design or planning alternatives 50% to 80% of which gets discarded, in all the repetitive works like digitization in absence of open-source ve
ctor data and more. Some of these have their due place, but there is also ample opportunities for saving on resources, manpower or time here.

Most of these seems to be a systemic problem rater than originating from individual action. Yes, also individual responsibility but specifically of those who are in decision making position, who can do something about over production, systems and infrastructure inefficiencies, underutilization, resource and time wasted in repetitive tasks, data hidden behind paywall that prompts repetitive works and more.

While it is understood that world problems that emerge and accumulate over decades, need similar cooling down period of decades to reverse or sequester or see a different fate, through tools like education and mass sensitization for instance. The urgency of resource, time, and energy conservation is such that, time is of essence here. Considering part of the problem is systemic in nature, that is also an advantage in a sense that, there is at least theoretical possibility that sub-parts of these problems can be solved in one master stroke. And this can be solved through design rather than education. A design flaw, be it systemic or otherwise, should ideally be solved though design intervention and process re engineering rather than education and appeal. This is only possible if we pause, see the point, and explore the possibility of fixing systemic flaws through design.

To tackle these, new ways of thinking must be encouraged, with technology as enabler, for instance production units which should explore producing alternative products in lean time using its existing infrastructure instead of overproducing a specific product. Technology for mindful traveling that allows getting more done in single return trip. Technology that allows matching spatio-temporal supply-demand in real time. Interoperability and open source data that curbs repetitive tasks allowing resources to focus on most critical aspects. AI that generates and tests alternatives in background so that manpower, time and energy can be targeted to enhance final output. And likewise.

Author: Anoop Jha

Image: Author

[Recent update

Starting 2024, launching urban management, interior design, home decor and commissioned artwork services in the Netherlands, serving local as well as international remote clients.

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

Instagram interior design page @urbantenets

Instagram fine art and illustration page @urbanoregional

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#AI #urbanplanning #economy #production #resource #circulareconomy #urbanmanagement #city #smartcity #Amsterdam #Rotterdam #Hague #Utrecht #Netherlands #EU #Europe

Being mindful of what socio-technological norms we celebrate, and need of constant reflection!

Please visit my consulting web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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[NOTE: Thank you for visiting my Blog, hoping you will like it. Please Note, that I am conducting a FREE 45-minute online individual consultation on your interior design and home decor needs and aspirations, if you are in the Netherlands or even internationally. No strings attached. Drop me an email at anoop.jha@gmail.com to connect and schedule the session]

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The blog post continues here...

History has taught us that every new technological breakthrough that finds a social and business relevance today, becomes mainstream norm tomorrow, gets celebrated for a little while, until embedded issues starts to get recognised. Being mindful of what we celebrate today, means constantly reflecting on what is perceived as a good practice today, and challenging the norm only to find even better alternatives, and achieve next breakthrough as soon as possible.

This is true for any country or region, industry and sector, and examples are prolific.

An example for instance, what a waste of precious energy, manpower and time as we sort, crush, break, shred, smelt, glass, metal and plastic bottles and containers to recreate glass, metal and plastic bottles and containers once again with a fresh label. Somewhat with an illusionary sense of satisfaction that we have intercepted, retrieved and recycled the material, but at what cost? Even if we sort using AI only to crush and shread it, its still an inefficient process. Even though it may not qualify for low value reuse of material, its also not high value usage of material.

The large fraction of these bottles and containers of all sort, size and material which can be retrieved intact and reused in its current shape with very little efforts and science.

Crushing, grinding and smelting an otherwise intact (millions and more) glass bottles and metal cans, to its constituents, to rebuild the same bottle again defies all logic and sensibility, considering all the megawatts of energy that might have gone into the process over years. When a glass bottle or glass vase can technically be retrieved, refilled and reused an infinite times for instance.

All this as an example, done in a rush to celebrate something, like a technology that we seem to have mastered today and also in absence of finding an alternative like practical and scale use-case of reverse logistics and high value reuse, where bottle and metal cans go to original producers or local authorized partner/ affiliate/ distributors for refilling. This is possible only if we see the point, do the math, do policy and regulatory restructuring, brainstorm with industry and research entities, retrace the supply chain distribution path, take environmental cost into consideration and reimagin accountability matrix.

Author: Anoop Jha

Image: Author

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[Recent update

Starting 2024, I am launching urban management (urban segment), interior design and home decor services and commissioned fine artworks (design segment) in the Netherlands, serving local as well as international remote clients.

The design segment is also capable of serving the unique needs of expats including the Indian community in the Netherlands.

Please visit the web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

Please also check and follow my Instagram interior design page where I am starting with sharing thoughts on what makes a great interior design. Follow @urbantenets

Also, do not forget to check my Instagram fine art and illustration page @urbanoregional

Thank you for your attention!!]

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#circulareconomy #wastemanagement #energytransition #climatechange

#urbanplanning #smartcities #Rotterdam #Amsterdam #Utrecht #Hague #Denhaag #Netherlands #EU #Europe

Sign of a healthy city!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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A composite matrix of another kind.

Over time we have developed scores of indices and KPIs to measure the livability of cities. Somthing which has become a tool, a phenomenon, a race to climb the ladder of best city ranking. Why this race? because of the prestige, attractiveness to investments, economic growth, and in essence tagged as quality of life. Caution though, economic growth may not always correspond to better quality of life, as growth comes at a cost and with externalities.

You also only measure what you can, hence the indices tend to focus of measurable, tangible and palpable, also only something that correlate to other cities, as its a matter of who is doing better and who is the best.

There are possible indices which we tend to miss out, sometimes intangible, somtimes not considered worthy, sometimes tagged too vague, still signs of a healthy city. But most of the time we leave some purposefully, as corresponding data for same may not be available for other cities being compared.

What if we just measure health of a city, for its own sake, not for comparison, not for race to the best. Not under binding imperical rigidity, not though lenses of what should be, and not under fear for being judged. This freedom from external and established reference points may allow to look at city objectively, without prejudice and with a fresh perspective. In a sense where cities try to understand its own construct, and each city may assess its health based on unique indices, as unique any city is.

For instance, density, diversity and richness of flora and fauna in each micro neighbourhood, proximity and ease of access to natural and manmade water bodies and water features for its inhabitants, diversity of language in sample population in high footfall areas, share of elderly in outdoor spaces and outdoor activities, intensity of health and recreational outdoor activities on workdays indicating work life balance, share of workforce engaged in part time vocation and rotational shifts with freedom of livelihood choices, survey and analysis of unreported friction incidents in community and in public spaces as a barometer of civic obedience and community harmony, and footage analysis of near-miss outdoor hazardous incidents, to name some.

Author: Anoop Jha

Image: Author

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[Recent update

Starting 2024, launching urban management, interior design, home decor and commissioned artwork services in the Netherlands, serving local as well as international remote clients.

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

Instagram interior design page @urbantenets

Instagram fine art and illustration page @urbanoregional

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#healthycity #cityranking #cityindex #citymatrix #urbanplanning #urbandesign #transportplanning #society #Rotterdam #Amsterdam #Utrecht #Hague #DenHaag #Netherlands #EU #Europe

How do we embed circular economy in practice?

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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It's obvious how circularity is missing or rather excluded from current processes and systems, in its existing shape.

How is it that your phone and accessories, fashion products and other lifestyle products-

[01]. Become outdated next year or next season, (made to believe that way, orchestrated reality, messed up collective consciousness, fast fashion and more)

[02]. Become faulty or near junk in 3 to 5 year with minuscule or no value or rather a liability (fragile by intention, designed to last only few years or months or weeks, designed for "repair impossible", outdated by design)

What do we do about -

[01].IDEA OF PRODUCTS BECOMING OUTDATED SOON

EDUCATE -

1a. Adding circular economy in educational curriculum including school and across higher education irrespective of stream, for awareness of those who become consumers, producers and decision makers tomorrow. Knowledge makes responsible behaviour possible.

SENSE MAKING-

1.b. Ease of access to trusted measurement matrix and legit interactive visualization tools (app, sensors ect.) for confrontation with material that we consume, and waste that we produce by individual action and or collectively as society. See it to believe it, to make responsible day to day and big choices.

[02]. PRODUCTS FAILING FAST AND GETTING OBSOLETE OR REDUNDANT SOONER

CURB AND INCENTIVIZE WHAT YOU CAN-

2.a. Curb the fragile design practice by stringent regulatory measures and responsible industry practice

2.b Incentivize the robust design practice, i.e. designing products that lasts, that are easy to repair, to keep products and material in use and in loop as long as possible.

MAKING REPAIR EASY

2.c. Incentivize repair at doorstep to see the impact

2.d. Statutory recognition of repair centers, as integral part of public and semi public facility (PSP) land use

2.e. "Return or repair everything under one roof", along with logistic support, and in accessible places within cities, ideally in CBD, for every product which you find broken or acting up in household.

WHAT IT TAKES

Not much, mere intention, willingness, strategy and some math!

Author: Anoop Jha

Image:Author

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[Recent update

Starting 2024, launching urban management, interior design, home decor and commissioned artwork services in the Netherlands, serving local as well as international remote clients.

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

Instagram interior design page @urbantenets

Instagram fine art and illustration page @urbanoregional

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#circulareconomy #urbanplanning #urbanmanagement #smartcities #fastfashion #resourcemanagement #supplychain #sustainability #keepinloop #repaircentre #Rotterdam #Amsterdam #Utrecht #Hague #Netherlands