Oddly enough, programs and development strategies with a long planning horizon also do not contain the image of the goal of the cities of the future.
In the professional literature, there are controversial opinions of some visionaries, of which the most popular says that megacities will swallow everyone.
The problem is that the city, as an integral system, is not considered in any of the scientific subject areas. Economics, sociology, psychology, systems theory, town planning and urban studies - consider only certain areas of human activity or its environment. There are dozens of definitions of the concept of "city", and most of them do not even have semantic intersections.
I invite you to familiarize yourself with a number of intuitively convincing statements that will help you form your own ideas about what the cities of the future will be like. Who, when and why will build them.
The city of the future is not an abstract fantasy image. By now, all the prerequisites for the physical realization of territorial entities, which are fundamentally different from industrial cities in essence of the ongoing internal processes, have been formed. We will talk about this, putting aside the beautiful pictures.
To see the future, one must look into the past
The formation of an industrial society was expressed in the development of the corresponding types of settlement - industrial cities, monotowns and megalopolises appeared and grew. It can be argued that it was through these new types of settlement that an industrial society took place, materializing in physical and social space.
The shift from manufacturing to assembly line led to the reproduction of monofunctional residential areas next to new factories. A vicious circle “living cell - work - and vice versa” was formed, which determined the way of life of many generations of citizens.
The current shift from technological structures to post-industrial ones creates a new global public demand. The cost of knowledge is now up to 95% of the cost of production. Post-industrial enterprises, including manufacturing and mining, have overwhelming competitive advantages. Workers and employees are no longer needed, at least in the same numbers. Now we need people with a predominantly divergent (creative) type of thinking, “knowledge generators”. The more strata of the population will be involved in the process of reproduction of knowledge, the more advantages the state will receive in conditions of global competition.
Historically, the now post-industrial types of settlement will inevitably be reproduced, through which the further development, materialization of the knowledge economy and post-industrial society will take place.
Extrapolating the history of the formation of an industrial society for the near future, it can be argued that some of the existing cities, having increased their area by new types of settlement, will qualitatively change both in physical and social space. The bulk of the rest of the cities will be drawn into the orbits of the leaders' influence. Outsiders in the race for the future risk physical extinction.
Qualitative changes in cities will occur under the influence of factors of urban development, determined by the spread of new technological structures and the corresponding types of social and industrial relations.
Break existing or build new
The post-industrial socio-economic system is not the evolution of the industrial one. This is another new system of production and social relations, defined by knowledge as a means and subject of production. The logical operations of division and subtraction are inapplicable to the new means of production (knowledge). Knowledge cannot be given, spent or taken away.
To double their main means of production (knowledge), it is enough for two subjects of economic activity to make an equivalent exchange. The ownership of capital and tangible assets is of secondary importance.
How does this compare with the norms of an industrial society? What will happen if within the territorial limits of the existing industrial system someone develops a new one?
It is obvious that in the end he will destroy the existing system. It is also obvious that initiatives will meet with resistance proportional to the efforts, this is the manifestation of the Le Chatelier-Brown principle. Too many resources will be spent to overcome the resistance of the existing system.
Observations show that no one is trying to influence the existing system of social and industrial relations, which is perceived as an immutable given. Within ordinary industrial cities, IT enterprises are developed only by a small number of desperate enthusiasts. The rest migrate to locations where you can find their own kind. The scale of priorities can be defined as follows: a large city → a million-plus city → a capital city, a metropolis → a specialized territorial enclave (Silicon Valley or similar).
Existing territorial entities of the post-industrial structure
We found out that the city of the future is a territorial entity in which the post-industrial socio-economic system will be localized. This will be a new development, and not a transformation of existing ones - industrial cities or megacities.
We also found out that the emergence of such cities is historically inevitable; the knowledge economy and post-industrial society will materialize in them.
The most famous prototype of such a city of the future is Silicon Valley (California, USA), which we can define as a territorial entity of a post-industrial order.
Notable characteristics of Silicon Valley:
- Pronounced limits that separate the local system from the containing one;
- High density of strata of the population, developing in themselves post-industrial types of social and industrial relations;
- Knowledge reproduction centers;
- Spontaneous self-education of Silicon Valley on the basis of the Industrial Park of the private Stanford University;
- Intense spontaneous self-replication of IT enterprises.
Silicon Valley has been in the focus of attention of many researchers for over 50 years. The amount of scientific research is measured in cubic meters. We will not dive into this discourse. Let's note the main thing: this phenomenon appeared through the efforts of one initiator, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Stanford, Professor Frederick Terman.
Only the lazy did not try to repeat this unique experience. Despite the enormous resources spent (India, China, our Skolkovo, etc.), for some reason it turned out worse than Terman's.
Post-industrial city. Target image
Taking the existing territorial phenomena of the post-industrial order (Silicon Valley and its analogues) as a prototype of the target system, relying on the developed theoretical justification and a number of significant system-wide regularities, we can define the target system as follows:
- A complex of subprojects of low-rise multifunctional area development of an integral project, physically uniting small towns into agglomeration (conurbation);
- The total area of territorial new formations of one integral project is from 1,000 hectares;
- The total population of the new territorial entities is at least 150 thousand people. At the same time, the existing major cities and megalopolises (domestic, near and far abroad) will become donors of human resources;
- 100% . ;
- , .
According to the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge of the Higher School of Economics, in 2018, 8 million Russians were employed in workplaces where they need to intensively apply skills in the field of information and communication technologies (11% of all employed citizens in the country). These are potential immigrants to the domestic analogues of Silicon Valley.
Omitting specific calculations and assuming that only 20% of people will be ready to migrate to new post-industrial cities, for 2018 the target audience can be estimated at 2.6 million people.
This is 122.66 million square meters of multifunctional building on an area of 24,532 hectares.
In monetary terms, the market for the development of post-industrial cities is more than 6 trillion. rubles.
Marketing
Sociological surveys of employees of Moscow software companies showed that 65% of respondents are looking for an opportunity to implement the idea of changing their place of residence to a specialized territorial enclave with varying degrees of activity. Therefore, the potential for changing the place of residence to a post-industrial city can be defined as deferred demand.
Post-industrial development
The formation of new socio-territorial entities of the post-industrial structure is associated with large-scale areal development, but cannot be implemented as a development project. It is obvious that the construction of objects of a certain functional purpose in itself will not automatically lead to their expected filling.
Moreover, the well-known system-wide regularities, repeatedly confirmed by unsuccessful attempts to create an analogue of Silicon Valley, show that this cannot be done within the framework of a managed project.
A new element of the system of relations between the actors of territorial development is needed, channeling the multidirectional initiatives of these actors in line with the integral project of the formation of the socio-territorial system of the post-industrial structure. This element can be defined as post-industrial development.
Conclusion
This publication is a very dry extract from a number of scientific papers in the field of systems urbanism, from which some key considerations have been snatched at the top.
I hope this publication will help you form your own vision of the future of domestic cities.