Ada Dobrzelecka
My look for last night’s “People Like Us” premiere in NYC. It was a really sweet, heartwarming movie. (Taken with Pose)
Pastoral capitalism. How companies left city centres behind (and why this is probably over)
We now know that the model of spatial organization of labour in post-industrial economy has had a pattern and an explanation. Companies looked for monofunctional and isolated areas as a way to create a productive workspace, leaving back stressful cities to build a perfect paradise of controlled working environment in which hierarchy and specialization could be properly managed. We can also understand why this type of large suburban industrial developments may no longer make sense in a not too distant future, as the way we work and the way companies try to interact and create innovative contexts is already changing. The urban melting pot is becoming a spatial condition for creative business environments.
Image: Bell Telephone Company.
Every day, in every street, thousands of voluntary and involuntary acts facilitate (or hinder) life. The attitude of care and the awareness of sharing a common space are, in all cases, the most relevant aspects of these stories. I do not know if they are intelligent behaviors, but they are relevant. Including these key ideas in the design of technological solutions for urban functions is essential so that these solutions are user-oriented, are proportionate to the actual scope and reach that technological solutions can offer, are understandable and have a useful urban function. Including these types of features in technological projects implemented in cities would help to better understand how cities function, how citizens behave and how to integrate unpredictability as an essence of urban life.
The real intelligence of cities lies is in the almost miraculous, unstable, spontaneous order of city life. The social relationships between people generate the functional intelligence of cities. Imperfect, conflicting, disastrous at times, always open to improvement. Technology only facilitates certain processes, and the logic of collective life will defeat any attempt to implement systems that exceed the required level of sophistication.
