Позитивные изменения. Города будущего. Тематический выпуск, 2022 / Positive changes. The cities of the future. Special issue, 2022

Residents look at each other favorably and openly, together formulating the future of their territories and boldly going for it.

As the residents’ civic consciousness awakens, they take the development of their city into their own hands. If it doesn’t awaken on its own, we awaken it through community organizing tools, community foundation activities and by using the urban husbandry ideology. The creative energy of rethinking and re-appropriating (Cellamare, Cognetti, 2014) the urban environment grows out of the very idea of a democratic conversation between people. City dwellers rally around an area that belongs to them by right of residence. They look at each other favorably and openly, together formulating the future of their territories and boldly going for it. In this scenario, the city planner is a repentant city planner. He no longer hovers over the territory, drawing a master plan of the city, but joins the participatory design activities on equal grounds. He is aware that nobody knows better than the locals what their city should be like.

FAILURES IN THE DIGITAL SYSTEM

The two trends are already struggling, and the feeling is that the movement towards a digital utopia is winning so far. However, many see it as a digital Gulag, rather than a digital utopia. Indeed, it is easy to see how ubiquitous surveillance systems use camera feeds and cell phone signals to ferret out the politically undesirable, fine quarantine violators, and identify potential criminals better than Cesare Lombroso[13]. Together with handy kick-sharing and a delivery system that brings any kind of goods from the dark store to your doorstep, we also get an omnipresent robot policeman. And God only knows the intentions of its creator.

Beyond the concerns that the digital city could spell the end of freedom and democracy, there are other aspects of criticism of this school of thought. It comes from a realization of the fact that, first, any digital system can fail, and second, these failures can be intentionally organized by hackers. A step into the digital future of the city is also a step into the future of digital terrorism. In places with the greatest progress in the implementation of smart city systems, the cities are already experiencing significant pressure from cyber-attacks. The more we trust our city to be digital, the more serious hacker attacks can become. Be it for political reasons or just out of curiosity, hackers will be able to penetrate deep into life support systems, depriving citizens of water, electricity, and e-government services.

Together with handy kicksharing and a delivery system that brings any kind of goods from the dark store to your doorstep, we also get an omnipresent robot policeman.

THE RISKS OF URBAN DEMOCRACY

The democratic process is only good where and when it is well constructed and unfolds as intended. But the number of errors in the actions of an organized group of citizens can be much greater than errors in a poorly written software code. Residents can make wrong decisions, and the voice of a repentant planner, being equal to that of an ordinary citizen, will be lost in the general hum of approval. Any democracy is vulnerable to populism, and it is especially vulnerable when it comes to long-running processes whose results are delayed for years. Urban development is just one such process. The step from urban planning to urban husbandry (Glazychev, 1995) can easily be interrupted by an overly loud but unconstructive local politician.

In addition to vulnerability, the duration of democratic urban development poses another risk. In the face of climate change and as part of the Sustainable Development Goals, all of humanity must act quickly. The time is running short. And we risk losing time in the long, albeit exciting, process of municipalizing our cities, towns, and townships. Self-governance at the local level does not necessarily turn into intermunicipal contractual capacity. The hyperlocal view of development is far from being sensitive to the global agenda. And this is a very serious issue.

Any democracy is vulnerable to populism, and it is especially vulnerable when it comes to long-running processes whose results are delayed for years.

POWERS AND RESOURCES