Safe cities
>> Saturday, October 27, 2018
BANTAY GOBYERNO
Ike Señeres
The
development arena is full of new paradigms as one bright visionary thinks of
something new as an alternative to some other ideas that may not be catching on
or may not be doing well. For example, “smart cities” were the talk of the town
only a few years back, at the same time that people were also talking about
“green cities”. I wrote so many articles about this, arguing that cities could
not be “smart” not unless they are “green” and vice versa, cities could not be
“green” not unless they are smart.
Of course, it is implied
that if a city is “smart”, it should be able to manage its solid wastes and
vice versa, if a city is “green”, it should be able to produce renewable power
and recyclable fuels to be able to sustain its “smart” systems. For lack of a
better term, I even argued that being “smart” could actually mean being “blue”,
because “blue” is the color of connectivity that in turn powers everything that
makes being “smart” possible.
Just when I am about ready to
advocate a “green and blue” economy, I now come across new paradigms such as
“safe cities” and “sustainable cities”, so which is which now? I could imagine
that “safe cities” should actually be “green” and “smart” too, otherwise
polluted cities could not be “safe”, and disorganized cities could not be
“safe” either.
Presumably, supposedly
“smart cities” and “green cities” would not be any good if these are not
“sustainable”, a term that obviously denotes forever and ever, not just until
the end of a political reign. Of course, it also goes without saying that “safe
cities” have to be safe and have to remain “safe” forever and ever, even if the
threats and dangers around it would also change forever and ever.
I do know that
technologies could easily adapt to the needs of mankind, but the question seems
to perpetually hang, whether or not mankind could adapt as a species to adapt
to the new threats and dangers.
Having
sent my brother a picture of what a “future city” could look like, he asked me
what the future of his city could be like. Without thinking twice, I told him
that the future of his city should start with the “vision” of its present
leaders. Going direct to the point, I told him that without a “vision”, there
is no good “future city” to imagine, meaning that everything would probably
remain in the status quo. In theory, there could be progress in terms of having
more traffic, but there will be no development in terms of having more roads.
I also wrote so many
articles about this, that runaway progress could happen, but planned
development will never happen, precisely because of the absence of long-term
planning. Going back what I told my brother, there could never be a defined
“mission” not unless there is also a defined “vision”.
The science that
initially started out as Management Information Services (MIS) has evolved into
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as we know it now in its present
evolution. Just as we are starting to adjust to ICT, the newer evolutionary
forms of the science have apparently branched out to other subsidiary sciences,
such as the Internet of Things (IOT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). At a
time when most cities are still struggling with deploying MIS in their city
hall offices, the need has emerged to also deploy IOT and AI at the street
level, or everywhere in other words. Don’t get me wrong, but as I see it, city
governments are supposed to graduate first from MIS to Customer Relations
Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), but it seems that they
are now forced by circumstances to jump from grade school to graduate school.
As its name implies, the
Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is supposed to be a “development”
agency and not a “management” agency as it seems to be behaving now. When I
interviewed an MMDA official years ago, I asked him what the function of MMDA
was. He said that it was to manage traffic, garbage and floods. I was so
disgusted with his answer, because he seemed to be fully unaware that the
function of the MMDA is to plan for the future, and not to manage the problems
of the present. For practical reasons however, it would be perfectly alright
for MMDA to install MIS, IOT and AI solutions to the problems of traffic,
garbage and floods, bearing in mind what the future solutions should be in
terms of supply and demand, and also the economies of scale.
For all intents and
purposes, we could simply agree on using the common term “safe cities”, as long
as we could all agree that it also implicitly means being “smart”, being
“green”, and being “sustainable” too. Safety seems to be the higher value in
this equation, because it could be argued that there is no use of cities being
“smart”, being “green”, and being “sustainable” too if these cities are not
“safe”.
That said, it should
also implicitly mean that these cities are “secure” and in that broader sense,
it should include “human security”, “food security”, “water security” and
“energy security”, among others. I wonder if those who are running for local
government positions now could have the vision to look forward into the future
to make these happen. If so, it would then be very easy for them to define what
their mission is.
For
feedback email iseneres@yahoo.com or
text +639083159262
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