Contemporary cities face major problems and certain technologies are employed to address these issues. However, while the technological advancement in these cities resolves the problems to a certain extent, further problems are also created. This essay will argue that this requires a continuous need for constant technological solutions to be created to solve the continual influx of problems. Ultimately, this continuous issue can be solved if our cities move towards achieving a smarter and sustainable world.
An examination of the cause of problems in contemporary cities, and the experiences they underwent once new technologies were introduced, helps people understand what technologies need to be used to address as well as solve the problems cities face. The new industrial city demands swift action and thought, which ultimately divides urban dwellers from themselves. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 302) Similarly, a connection can be made between rapid industrialisation, the acceleration of everyday life, and a decline in the quality of collective life. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 302) The everyday experience of the industrial city has been transformed through the insertion of a variety of new technologies and organisational forms. These transformations have generated both new ways of getting on with living in a city. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 303) During the nineteenth century, the most obvious producers of the accelerating transformation of urban life were the technological advances sustaining the industrial revolution. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 304) Through their efficiency, inventions like the railway offered not only a more efficient way of travelling across land and sea but they also transformed the ways in which production, consumption, and travel were experienced. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 304) Another problem that generated from the invention of the railway was that it led to cities becoming fragmented, which then led to a loss of social connectivity. While cities became faster, authentic social life disappeared. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 310) A way of looking at how this happened can be done by questioning the body and embodied experience. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 311) One of the most stated elements of the new technologies was the way in which they seemed to reconfigure embodied experience. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 311) The railway journey accelerated the individual while also making them immobile, a kind of inactive sense of speed. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 311) This experience can also be felt with other forms of travel, including aeroplanes and cars. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 311) The physical body is being left behind, rendered redundant in the face of the speed. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 311) This has created a growing imperative for people to do an array of things ‘on the go’, such as make phone calls or eat, emanating a sense that they needed to be left uninterrupted, whereby nobody would engage with them in leisure conversation while awaiting their destination. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 311)
While technological advancement in cities resolved problems to do a certain extant these solutions created further problems. A solution to the lack of social connection was to invent social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, which was an attempt to reconnect people once again. However, it can be argued that this did more bad than good, because people were connecting to other people, but were trapped to a screen instead of the world and reality around them. People can become anti-social and over time begin to lose ordinary conversational skills that they should have. Leisure, sport and fitness (including walking) were attempts made to reconnect with the natural exercise people lost with transport inventions. In addition it helped with an ever-accelerating urban life aiming to bring people back together. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 314) These were generative of different kinds of sociality, of various intensities and scales. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 314) For example, running was by no means exclusive but it also acted as the focus for all sorts of communities of interest – the athletics store, the informal Sunday running group, the running club,. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 314) It also organised around itself all sorts of events of collective sociality in the city, including marathons and fun runs. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 314) These events can bring cities to a halt, significantly changing their rhythm. (Latham, McCormack 2008, p. 314) The new technologies also brought major changes to the environment, from the spread of cars to the creation of new toxic chemicals. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 5) Environmental problems of big cities have accelerated under the drive for economic growth and many argue that the best approach to solve these problems is to continue accelerated economic growth which will then finance the technologies to solve the problems. (Haughton et al). However just like the social solutions, environmental solutions often lead to more problems. Take for example Nuclear energy plants which were developed to solve the problem of the depletion of fossil fuels and our reliance on Carbon. However nuclear energy poses significant risks to human life and the environment as was witnessed by the Nuclear Plant in Japan which was affected by a Tsunami. Safety measures were not prepared for such an event.
The most effective and idealistic solution to the problems contemporary cities face and the vision for the future to overcome these problems is the idea of sustainable cities linked to sustainable global cultures and economies. If this vision is fulfilled, the aim for sustainable cities will have been achieved, which is ultimately better for our world, providing us with a viable future. This vision is far from the existing reality, and it constitutes an objective to be reached. In fact, contemporary cities are confronted with considerable challenges, threatening sustainability aims towards their future development. (Stratigea, A et al. 2015, p. 44) Both the scale and scope of environmental degradation pose a possible threat to the survival of the human species. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 4) Many cities are now non-sustainable, inefficient, and highly resource hungry. The idea of sustainable cities was first proposed as a global aim in the Earth Summit of 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 6) Agenda 21 stresses the idea of community participation in the move to sustainable cities. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 6) Cities have a great capacity to be more resourceful and a lot depends on urban design and planning. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 11) The design of the city, size, shape, density can reduce energy consumption substantially. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 12) “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future” (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 15) Changing technologies have increased the capacity to make fundamental changes to present and future state of the global environment. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 15) While the goal of a sustainable future and sustainable cities is ideal, it can only be achieved if there is the political will to do so. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 15) “The process of sustainable development implies tremendous political challenges.” (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 15) Recognition that the costs of environmental degradation are not being shared equally throughout the world is also implied. It means understanding that it is tied to the global economy and the global economic inequalities. The drive for economic growth is in conflict with a sustainable future. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 17) There are those who “denounce a naïve faith in the power of science to solve existing and future environmental problems”. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 18) Some people believe that only economic growth can finance the technological solutions to new city problems. Others feel that technological solutions must complement conservation concerns and policies. “Certainly experience tells us that technological advances will bring some solution, the trick seems to be avoiding some the problems of those technologies.” (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 19) There is a need to exercise the ‘precautionary principle’ if in doubt about environmental impact and consequences do not take the technology further. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 19) Sustainability necessitates a new political economy, fundamental changes in international relations, prioritising the needs of the poor and challenging the right to favour rich nations and rich individuals. Rich countries do not favour sustainability because of their economic growth and because it is largely based on inequality. Poorer countries do not favour sustainability because they are trying to industrialise quickly and improve their economies and standard of living quickly. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 19-20) Sustainable cities can be achieved when tied in to global sustainable initiatives, which focus on global political and economic changes as well as working on initiatives to decrease the demand on natural resources and try to achieve productive interaction between the city and it surrounding natural environment. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 23) A future of sustainable cities will help ensure that urban residents are not divorced from nature as a resource provider and as a source of well-being. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 23) Sustainable cities can generate reciprocity between country and city. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 23) They can engage in co-operative forms of activity, community participation and being involved in setting up viable internal economic and social structures. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 23) They can promote conservation of green areas, anti-pollution measures, and re-forestation of surrounding regions, public services, better transport systems, and waste re-cycling. However, sustainable cities need to link environmental policies to social and economic development policies and to link in with broader global development initiatives. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 25) A sustainable city will continuously improve the natural, built and cultural environment of the city whilst working in ways, which support the goal of global sustainable development. Cities cannot develop in a sustainable way in isolation of the global economy. (Haughton, Hunter 2003, p. 26).
This essay argues that contemporary cities face major problems such as inefficiency and certain technologies are employed to address these issues. While the technological advancement in these cities resolves the problems to a certain extent, further problems such as pollution and loss of social connectivity are also created. This requires a continuous need for constant technological solutions to be created to solve the continual influx of problems. This is not an ideal solution. Ultimately, cities that move towards sustainability linked to sustainable global economic, social and environmental policies will achieve much more.