By Amy
Erixon, Toronto
We are presently two-thirds of the way through “the urban
century”; a period where the number of people living in cities worldwide will
increase nearly 10-fold. North America is the most urbanized region
with 82% of its population currently living in cities, followed by Europe. Most of the remaining urbanization will occur
in Asia and Africa, the world’s most drought afflicted regions, and in the
Middle East, the most geopolitically at-risk region. These migrating populations pose significant
challenges to be met by technology, social and economic policy. If the problems are not solved regionally,
then the existing cities of the world will need to be reshaped to accommodate
this population surge.
More than anything, it is the push and pull of technology
that has triggered this demographic shift.
Electrification followed by Industrialization started the move off farms
to cities. The machine age triggered the
growth of the services economy, and we have just entered the so-called 4th
Industrial Revolution, moving beyond automation and global supply chains to
additive manufacturing and artificial intelligence (AI), which, like previous
disruptors will further realign the location, production, labor and service
value chains and facilitate (or demand) that cities transform in response.
It is from this point of view that technology will help us
to address the most vexing of urban issues, including poverty, congestion,
drought, and pollution; lack of access to recreation, education and affordable
housing; and also address large scale climate risks, which while affecting us
globally need to be implemented locally.
Some countries, and communities are in a rush to get out in front of
others on these issues. China, for
example, has for the last four years been the leader in developing and
installing renewable energy. India
recently completed a global competition for teams to help meet their Smart
Cities Challenge.
Rapidly urbanizing,
the Government of India has approved US$15 billion of funding of “smart
infrastructure” to improve quality of life – things including assured water and
power supply, sanitation and solid waste management, efficient urban mobility
and public transport, and robust IT connectivity. E-governance and citizen participation along
with safety of its citizens are some of the required attributes to secure
funding for these smart cities.
Both white collar and blue collar workforces benefit greatly
from the governmental implementation of IT tools to enhance quality of life; just
as private sector employers have done to improve accuracy, speed and market
reach of its workforce. While some technology is being greeted with
concerns - it frequently unfolds with disproportionate obsolescence and
disruptive effects on certain job classifications (recently bank clerks and
taxicab drivers) it also increases workforce in other areas (data analysis and
programming). But these shifts are inevitable when a
technology offers more choice at lower cost.
Locations well positioned to make investments in new economy
infrastructure (education and training, high speed universal broadband,
cybersecurity and cyberphysical sensor networks) will be leaders in obtaining
the coveted high value jobs of the future.
Examples of current technologies causing disruption would
include the sharing economy app based systems (like Uber and AirBNB);
robo-finance and crowd sourcing/funding; driverless vehicles and AI smart
systems. When applied to cities - smart systems refer
to cyber physical systems (CPS) - a network of sensors monitoring flows such as
water, traffic, electric grid, and emergency rooms connected by wifi to a command
center and communications hub where resources can be dispensed, controlled,
ordered and optimized.
May 4th, 2016 was the 100th birthday of
Jayne Jacobs, the famed US and Canadian Urbanologist, and author of Death and
Life of Great American Cities. Her
vision for creating livable cities that solve problems is getting a big shot in
the arm toward becoming a reality, thanks in large part to advances in
technology. We
should take heed and be challenging our leaders to provide constructive leadership
during this transition period. We need strategies
to facilitate creation of purposeful places which facilitate positive social
change and enhance economic competitiveness together with strategies to retool
our workforce for the jobs of tomorrow.
