Category: Economy

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The 15-minute city: from metaphor to planning concept (2/7)

Carlos Moreno, a professor at the Sorbonne University, helped Mayor Anne Hidalgo develop the idea of the 15-minute city. He said that six things made people happy: living, working, amenities, education, wellbeing, and recreation. The quality of the urban environment is enhanced when these functions are realized near each other. The monofunctional expansion of cities in the US, but also in the bidonvilles of Paris, is a thorn in his side, partly because this justifies owning a car.

A more precise definition of the concept of the 15-minute city is needed before it can be implemented on a large scale. It is important to clarify which means of transport must be available to reach certain facilities in a given number of minutes. The list of facilities is usually very comprehensive, while the list of means of transport is usually only vaguely defined. But the distance you can travel in 15 minutes depends on the availability of certain modes of transport (see figure above).

Advocates of “new urbanism” have developed the tools to design 15-minute cities. They are based on three zones: the 5-minute walking zone, the 15-minute walking zone, which coincides with the 5-minute cycling zone, and finally the 15-minute cycling zone. These are not static concepts: In practice, the zones overlap and complement each other.

The 5-minute walking zone

This zone corresponds to the way in which most residential neighbourhoods functioned up until the 1960s, wherever you are in the world. Imagine a space with an average distance from the center to the edge of about 400 meters. In the center you will find a limited number of shops, a (small) supermarket, one or more cafes and a restaurant. The number of residents will vary between two and three thousand. Density will decrease from the centre and the main streets outwards. Green spaces, including a small neighbourhood park, will be distributed throughout the neighbourhood, as will workshops and offices.

In the case of new construction, it is essential that pedestrian areas have a dense network of paths without crossings at ground level with streets where car traffic is allowed. Some paths are wider and allow cycling within the 5- and 15-minute cycle zones. The streets provide access to concentrated parking facilities.

The 5-minute cycle zone and the 15-minute walking zone.

Here the distance from the center to the edge is about one kilometer. In this area, most of the facilities that residents need is available and can be distributed around the centers of the 5-minute walking zones. For example, a slightly larger supermarket may be located between two 5-minute walking zones. This zone will also contain one or more larger parks and some larger concentrations of employment.

This zone can be a large district of a city, but it can also be a small municipality or district of around 15 to 25,000 inhabitants. With such a population there will be little room for dogmatic design, especially when it comes to existing buildings. But even then, it is possible to separate traffic types by keeping cars off many streets and clustering car parks. The bottom line is that all destinations in this zone can be reached quickly by walking and cycling, and that car routes can be crossed safely.

The car will be used (occasionally) for several destinations. For example, for large shopping trips to the supermarket.

The 15-minute cycle zone.

This zone will be home to 100.00 or more residents. The large variation is due to the (accidental) presence of facilities for a larger catchment area, such as an industrial estate, a furniture boulevard or an IKEA, a university or a (regional) hospital. It is certainly not a sum of comparable 5-minute cycle zones. Nevertheless, the aim is to distribute functions over the whole area on as small a scale as possible. In practice, this zone is also crossed by several roads for car traffic. The network of cycle paths provides the most direct links between the 5-minute cycle zones and the wider area.

The main urban development objectives for this zone are good accessibility to urban facilities by public transport from all neighbourhoods, the prohibition of hypermarkets and a certain distribution of central functions throughout the area: Residents should be able to go out and have fun in a few places and not just in a central part of the city.

Below you can link to my free downloadable e-book: 25 Building blocks to create better streets, neighborhoods and cities

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/e8ezk57ftn75hk4e9829g/Better-streets-neighbourhoods-and-cities.pdf?rlkey=ygapjch6dq75j5479shsg87z8&dl=0
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Urban design for complexity 

Throughout history, cities have faced many problems: War and violence, disease, disasters, housing, utilities, traffic, crime, inequality, poverty, and greed. Moreover, the pace of population growth in cities is frightening. Every day, urban population increases by almost 150,000 – mostly poor – people, due to migration or births. Between to date and 2050, the world’s urban population is projected to rise from 3.6 billion to 6.3 billion residents.

The litany of problems affects all cities in the world, but not in the same degree. To cope with these problems, each city must make a diagnose of its own challenges and define solutions. 

City-life is complex and most afore-mentioned problems are related and often at odds, think about struggling poverty and reversing global heating. Therefore, these problems cannot be solved in separated silos. This is the reason reason that I reject reductionist approaches like ‘smart city’, ‘sharing city’, ‘circular city’ and the like. 

Instead, framing the challenges that cities face must start from the complexity of the city as such and the interrelations of people causing these problems. In this respect, I found the concept of a doughnut economy particularly helpful. It is elaborated by the British economist Kate Raworth in a report entitled A Safe and Just Space for Humanity. The report takes the simultaneous application of social and environmental sustainability as the point of department for humane behavior.

In essence, Raworth says that people have a great deal of freedom in the choice of activities in their city, if they stay within two types of boundaries:

The first limit is set by ecosystems; which make life on earth possible. However, we can also frustrate their operation, which has a direct impact on our living conditions. 

Something similar applies to society. Here you can also distinguish several aspects and each of them has a level that people should not fall below, the second limit. If this does happen, it will jeopardize the survival of society.

If you look at a donut, you will see a small circle in the center and a large circle on the outside. The small circle represents the social foundation, the lower limit of the quality of society. The large circle refers to the ecological ceiling. Between the two circles lies the space within which people can act as they please. Kate Raworth calls this space a safe and just space for humanity.

On the way to a city for humanity , what we need to do is, first of all, to define human actions that comply with or are threatening the ecological ceiling and social foundation of our own city. What follows is the formulation of targets to correct and subsequently enforce all actual violations of ecological and social boundaries. This applies to the city itself and the global effects of its activities.

As an exercise, I created a table of principles for 10 clusters of activities to address the challenges that many cities in developed countries share, combined with one target for each principle. You may want to download this table here.

I recommend this procedure to any city that intends to develop an integral vision starting from the complexity of city life and the interdependency of its activities. Amsterdam went through this process, together with Kate Raworth. The Amsterdam city donut is worth exploring closely.

This post based on by the new e-book Better cities, the contribution of digital technology.  Interested? Download the book here for free (90 pages)

Content:

Hardcore: Technology-centered approaches

1. Ten years of smart city technology marketing

2. Scare off the monster behind the curtain: Big Tech’s monopoly

Towards a humancentric approach

3. A smart city, this is how you do it

4. Digital social innovation: For the social good

Misunderstanding the use of data

5. Digital twins

6. Artificial intelligence

Embedding digitization in urban policy

7. The steps to urban governance

8. Guidelines for a responsible digitization policy

9. A closer look at the digitization agenda of Amsterdam

10. Forging beneficial cooperation with technology companies

Applications

11. Government: How digital tools help residents regaining power?

12. Mobility: Will MaaS reduce the use of cars?

13. Energy: Smart grids – where social and digital innovation meet

14. Healthcare: Opportunities and risks of digitization

Wrapping up: Better cities and technology

15. Two 100 city missions: India and Europe

Epilogue: Beyond the Smart City

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3. Ten years of smart city technology marketing

This post is the third episode in the series Better cities: The contribution of digital technologies. It deals with the rise of the smart city movement, the different forms it has taken and what its future can be.

The term smart cities shows up in the last decade of the 20th century. Most definitions  refer to the use of (digital) technology as a tool for empowering cities and citizens, and a key to fuel economic growth and to attract investments. Some observants will add as an instrument to generate large profits.

Barcelona, Ottawa, Brisbane, Amsterdam, Kyoto, and Bangalore belong to the forerunners of cities that flagged themselves as ‘smart’. In 2013 approximately 143 ‘self-appointed’ smart cities existed worldwide. To date, this number has exploded over more than 1000.

Five smart city tales

In their article Smart Cities as Company Story telling Ola Söderström et al. document how technology companies crafted the smart city as a fictional story that framed the problems of world cities in a way these companies can offer to solve. Over time, the story has multiplied, resulting in what I have called the Smart city tales, a series of narratives used by companies and city representatives. I will address with five dominant ones below: The connected city, the entrepreneurial city, the data-driven city, the digital services city and the consumers’ city. 

The connected city

On November 4th 2011, the trademark smarter cities was officially registered as belonging to IBM. It marked a period in which the company became the leader of the smart city technology market. Other companies followed fast, attracted by an expected growth of this market by 20% per year from over $300bn in 2015 to over $750bn to date.  In the IBM vision cities are systems of systems: Planning and management services, infrastructural services and human services, each to be differentiated further, to be oversighted and controlled from one cenral point, such as the iconic control center that IBM has build in Rio de Janeiro.  All systems can be characterized by three ‘I’s, which are the hard core of any smart city: Being instrumented, interconnected and intelligent.

The corporate smart city

In many cities in the world, emerging and developing countries in the first place, administrators were dreaming about building smart towns from scratch.  They envisioned being ‘connected’ as a major marketing tool for new business development. 

Cisco and Gale, an international property development company, became the developers of New Songdo in South Korea. New Songdo was in the first place meant to become a giant business park and it is set out to enable a decent corporate lifestyle and business experience for people from abroad, offering houses full of technical gadgets, attractive parks, full-featured office space, outstanding connectivity and accessibility. 

Quite some other countries took comparable initiatives in order to attract foreign capital and experts to boost economic growth. For example, India, that has planned to build 100 smart cities.

The data driven city

The third narrative is fueled by the collection and refined analyses of data that technology companies ‘tap’ for commercial reasons from citizens’ Internet and mobile phones communication. Google was the first to discover the unlimited opportunities of integrating its huge knowledge of consumer behavior with city data. 

Sidewalk Labs – legally operating under the umbrella of Alphabet – responded to an open call for a proposal for redevelopment of Quayside, brownfield land around Toronto’s old port, and  won the competition. Its plans were on par with contemporary urbanist thinking. However, that was not Sidewalk Labs’ first motive. Instead, its interest was ‘ubiquitous sensing’ of city life’, to expand Google’s already massive collection of personalized profiles with real-time geotagged knowledge of where people are, what they are whishing or doing in order to provide them with commercial information. 

As could be expected, privacy issues dominated the discussion over the urbanist merits of the plan and most observers believe that therefore the company put the plug out of the project in May 2020. The official reason was investors’ restraint, due to Covid-19.

The consumers’ smart city

The fourth narrative is focusing on rise of urban tech targeted on consumers. Amazon, Uber and Airbnb are forerunners disrupting traditional sectors like retail, taxi and hotel business. They introduced a platform approach that decimated the middleclass in in the US. Others followed, such as bike- and scooter-sharing companies Bird and Lyme, co-working companies like We Work and meal delivery services like Delivero.

City tech embodies the influence of entrepreneurship backed by venture capitalists and at the same time the necessity for city governments to establish a democratic legitimized framework to manage these initiatives.

The smart services city

Thanks to numerous ‘apps’, cities started to offer a wealth of information and services to citizens concerning employment, housing, administration, mobility, health, security and utilities. These apps enable city administrators, transit authorities, utility services and many others to inform citizens better than before. With these apps, citizens also can raise questions or make a request to repair broken street furniture.

Some cities, for instance Barcelona and Madrid, started to use digital technologies to increase public engagement, or to give people a voice in decision making or budgeting. 

All aforementioned narratives suggest a tight link between technology and the wellbeing of citizens, symbolizing a new kind of technology-led urban utopia. In essence, each narrative puts available technology in the center and looks for a good-looking rationale to put it into the market. Probably, the fifth one witnesses an upcoming change into a more human-centric direction.

An upcoming techlash or a second wave of smart cities

It is unmistakably that business leaders, having in mind a multi-billion smart city technologies market overstate the proven benefits of technology. Garbage containers with built-in sensors and adaptive street lighting are not that great after all, and the sensors appearing everywhere raise many questions. According to The Economist, it is not surprising that a techlash is underway. As I accentuated in last week’s post, politicians are becoming more critical regarding behemoths like Google, Amazon and Facebook, because of their treatment of sensitive data, their lack of transparency of algorithm-based decision making, their profits and tax evasion and the gig economy in general. Skepticism within the general public is increasing too. 

Nevertheless, a second wave of smart cities is upcoming. The first wave lacked openess for the ethics of urban technology and the governance of urban development. The second wave excels in ethical considerations and intentions to preserve privacy. Intentions alone are insufficient, politics will also have to break the monopolies of Big Tech

Besides, in order to gain trust in the general public, city governors must discuss the city’s real challenges with residents, (knowledge) institutions, and other stakeholder before praising the role of technologies of all kind.  Governance comes prior to technology. As Francesca Bria, former chief technology officer of Barcelona said: We are reversing the smart city paradigm. Instead of starting from technology and extracting all the data we can before thinking about how to use it, we started aligning the tech agenda with the agenda of the city. 

Apart from Barcelona, this also happens in cities such as Amsterdam, Boston, Portland and the Polish city of Lublin. The question is no longer which problems technology is going to solve, but which exactly are these problems, who is trusted to define them, which are their causes, whose intersts are involved, who is most affected, and which ones must be solved most urgently. Only after answering these questions, the discussion can be extended to the contribution of (digital) technology. In a next contribution, I explore digital social innovation, as a contribution to a revised smart city concept.

This post is a brief summary of my article Humane by choice. Smart by default: 39 building blocks for cities in the future. Published in the Journal of the American Institution of Engineers and Technology, June 2020. You will fine a copy of this article below:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3rmrwnzdoph114w/SMC-2020-0030-FINAL.pdf?dl=1

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Startups: Between the Curse of Becoming a Taker and the Prospect of Being a Maker

Next months, these posts focus on the challenges of Earthlings of to bring humane cities closer. These posts represent the main findings of my e-book Humane cities. Always humane. Smart if helpful, updates and supplements included. The English version of this book can be downloaded for free here and the Dutch version here.

For centuries, entrepreneurship was linked to art and craft and rewarded by personal fulfilment, satisfied customers, and a good life. The term entrepreneur is still associated with giving direction, shape and content to new activities based on personal motivation and skills and thereby creating socially approved value. A description that applies to the self-employed, business entrepreneurs, franchisees or intrapreneurs and includes both commercial, institutional, and artistic activities. However, there are two problems. Overcoming them opens the way to become a better business.

The plunder of the earth

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz has warned that the creative power of entrepreneurship can easily become destructive. A ‘maker’ becomes a ‘taker’ once creating value becomes making money in the first place. Indeed, for centuries, companies have robbed resources around the world, destroyed nature, traded millions of slaves and exploited domestic workers, creating the divide between rich and poor countries.

The creative power of entrepreneurship can also be aimed at sustainable prosperity, for their employees, the country, and the world. In that case, the “purpose” of a company precedes the pursuit of profit. Unfortunately, still a minority of all companies are moving in this direction while others pretending.

The decline of engagement and passion within the workforce

There is more. In developed countries, the blatant exploitation of labour has disappeared. Instead, the majority of employment relegates into low strain jobs. Research by Gallup and Deloite has shown over consecutive years that over 64% of all employees worldwide are not engaged or passionate. Find John Hagel explain this in a short video. The reason is clear. 20th century companies have organized their production according to principles of scalable efficiency and have top-down planning and control.  Room for initiative is therefore neither expected nor desired. Moreover, detailed protocols and regulations limit employment for people at a distance from the labour market.

In a rapidly changing world, companies must be adaptive and innovative. They therefore need flexible, interdisciplinary teams with a high degree of self-government and less pay differentials. According to recent research in 17 countries, this type of organizations (8%) outperforms in all respects.

Summarizing, to become a better business requires a double challenge: 

  • Replace the dominance of the pursuit of money with a social and environmental purpose. 
  • Mobilizing the entrepreneurial and other capacities of their whole work force by forms of self-organization and shared leadership. 

Why focussing on startups?

As only a limited number of companies meet these conditions, employees consider starting their own business. In the US alone, approximately two million workers give up well-paying jobs every year and become self-employed. 127,000 starters were registered in the Netherlands in 2018.  Of them, only a minority will become a startup, which means that they will successfully commercialize a promising technological innovation and grow rapidly on an international level.

Start-ups are potential engines of growth and innovation. In the US, their steady growth is compensating for job losses in the rest of the economy. Dutch startups created 20.000 of jobs in 2018 and 2019. A recent reportoffers excellent documentation of the identity, growth and potential of the 4,311 Dutch startups in 2019, most of which have fewer than 10 employees. 34% of Dutch startups can found in the Amsterdam metropolitan area.

The hope is that start-ups will rise to both challenges by nurturing their social and environmental purpose end fueling the commitment and passion of each employee, and thereby become a better business.

Yet, like any other businesses, startups risk becoming takers rather than makers, trading their social and environmental purpose for the pursuit of money and losing the engagement and passion of their employees. Fortunately, they can prevent this.

Eleven ways to stay a better business

  1. Embrace self-organization and shared leadership.
  2. Involve all employees in the continuous strengthening of the social and environmental purpose of the company.
  3. Enable all employees to become shareholders or even better co-owners.
  4. Cherish diversity within the employees.
  5. Secure shares in a foundation while enabling shareholders to support the purpose of the company. 
  6. Cap the profit to a level that guarantees the continuity of the company.
  7. Ban greed, cancel bonuses, or at most pay a limited and equal allowance to all employees.
  8. Place surplus profits in a foundation that spends money in accordance with the purpose of the company.
  9. Being a fair taxpayer who refrains from tax avoidance practices.
  10. Create a supervisory board to monitor the purpose of the company.
  11. Focus the founder/director/CEO role on monitoring the purpose of the company and the commitment of all employees and on fueling the discussion on how to deal with changing external conditions.

Rapid societal changes require a reinventing the concept of entrepreneurship. Because of their flexibility and commitment, startups are apt to embrace the dual ambition of pursuing a social and environmental purpose and of mobilizing all employee’s engagement and passion. 

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Beyond smart cities: Digital innovation for the Good of citizens[1]

Next months, these posts focus on the challenges of Earthlings of to bring humane cities closer. These posts represent the main findings of my e-book Humane cities. Always humane. Smart if helpful, updates and supplements included. The English version of this book can be downloaded for free here and the Dutch version here.

Citizens involved in a participative policy formulation process

About ten years ago, technology companies started to provide cities with technological tools, luring them with the predicate ‘smart(er)’, now a registered trademark of IBM.  At that time Cisco’s vice-president of strategy Inder Sidhu described the company’s ‘smart city play’ as its biggest opportunity, a 39,5 billion dollar-market. During the years, that followed, the prospects rocketed: The consultancy firm Frost and Sullivan estimated the global smart city technology market to be worth $1.56 trillion by 2020. 

The persistent policy of technology companies to suggest a tight link between technology and the wellbeing of the citizens, angers me. Every euro these companies are chasing at, is citizens’ tax money. What has been accomplished until now is disappointing, as I documented in the IET Journal.  According to The Economist it is not surprising that a ‘techlash’ is underway: Many have had it with the monopolistic dominance of behemoths like Google, Amazon, Facebook and the like, because of their treatment of sensitive data, the lack of transparency and accountability of algorithm-based decision making and the huge profits they make from it. 

Regaining public control

However, let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater and see how digital innovation can be harnessed for the Good of all citizens. Regaining public control demands four institutional actions at city level.

1. Practicing governance

Before even thinking about digitalization, a city must convert into best practices of governance. Governance goes beyond elections and enforcing the law. An essential characteristic is that all citizens can trust that government represents their will and protects their interests. Therefore, it is necessary to go beyond formal democratic procedures and contact stakeholders directly, enable forms of participatory budgeting and deploy deliberative polling. 

Aligning views of political parties and needs and wants of citizens takes time and a lot of effort. The outcome might be a common vision on the solution of a city’s problems and the realisation of its ambitions, and a consecutive political agenda including the use of tools, digital ones included. 

2. Strengthening executive governmental power

Lack of cooperation within the departmental urban organizations prevents not only an adequate diagnosis of urban problems but also the establishment of a comprehensive package of policy instruments, including legislation, infrastructure, communication, finance and technology. Instead, decisions are made from within individual silos, resulting in fragmented and ineffective policies. Required is a problem-oriented organization instead of a departmental one and a mayor that oversees the internal coherence of the policy.

3. Level playing field with technology companies

Cities must increase their knowledge in the field of digitization, artificial intelligence in particular. Besides,  but they should only work with companies that comply with ethical codes as formulated in the comprehensivemanual, Ethically Aligned Design: A Vision for Prioritizing Human Well-being with Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, drafted by the influential Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)

Expertise at city level must come from a Chief Technology Officer who aligns technological knowledge with insight in urban problems and will discuss with company representatives on equal foot. Digitalisation must be part of all policy areas, therefore delegating responsibility to one alderman is a bad idea. Moreover, an alderman is not an adequate discussion partner for tech companies.

4. Approving and supporting local initiatives

Decentralization of decision-making and delegating responsibility for the execution of parts of the policy to citizen’s groups or other stakeholders helps to become a thriving city. Groups of citizens, start-ups or other local companies can invoke the right of challenge and might compete with established companies or organizations.

Steps towards seamless integration of digitalization in citizen-orientated policy

  1. Define together with citizens a vision on the development of the city, based on a few central goals such as sustainable prosperity, inclusive growth, humanity or – simply – happiness.
  2. Make an inventory of what citizens and other stakeholders feel as the most urgent issues (problems and ambitions).
  3. Find out how these issues are related and rephrase them if desirable.
  4. Deepen insight in these issues, based on available data and data to be collected by experts or citizens themselves.
  5. Assess ways to address these issues, their pros and cons and how they align with the already formulated vision.
  6. Make sure that digital technology has been explored as part of the collected solutions.
  7. Investigate which legal, organizational, personnel and financial barriers may arise in the application of potential solutions and how to address them.
  8. Investigate undesired effects of digital techniques, in particular long-term dependence (‘lock-in’) on commercial parties.
  9. Formulate clear actions within the defined directions for dealing with the issues to be addressed. Involve as many expert fellow citizens as possible in this.
  10. Make a timetable, calculate costs, and indicate when realization of the stated goals should be observable.
  11. Involve citizens, non-governmental and other organizations in the implementation of the actions and make agreements about this.
  12. At all stages of the process, seek support from those who are directly involved and the elected democratic bodies.
  13. Act with full openness to all citizens.

I can’t agree more than with the words of Léan Doody (smart city expert Arup Group): I don’t necessarily think ‘smart’ is something to strive for in itself. Unlike sustainability or resilience, ‘smart’ is not a normative concept…. The technology must be a tool to deliver a sustainable city. As a result, you can only talk about technological solutions if you understand which problems must be solved, whether these problems are rooted in the perceptions of stakeholders and how they relate to other policy instruments.

[1] This article was posted before at the Amsterdam Smart City website

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Tools for circular construction

Next months, these posts deal with the challenges of Earthlings of bringing humane cities closer. These posts represent the most important findings of my e-book Humane cities. Always humane. Smart if helpful, updates and supplements included. The English version of this book can be downloaded for free here and the Dutch version here. 

Structural waste in the build environment. Source: The circular economy: Moving from theory to practice, McKinsey & Company 2015

The impact of circular principles in the construction sector is huge, because buildings are responsible for more than 50% of the total use of materials on earth, including valuable types such as steel, copper, aluminium and zinc.  Moreover, they produce about 40% of all greenhouse gases.

By circular construction we mean designing, building and demolishing a building in such a way that, in addition to the high-quality reuse of materials, justice is done to sustainability ambitions in the field of energy, water, and biodiversity and ecosystems.

In case of demolishment, nowadays many components are reused, but at a very low level, for instance concrete and stones as the foundation of new roads. Apart from the question how many new roads are still needed, this type of recycling destroys the intrinsic quality of materials and does not diminish the recovery of new materials. At least, separation of glass, steel, wood and other materials can be made mandatory. In addition, valuable materials can by ‘saved’ by operating in a targeted manner, even though these buildings are anything but circular. This is called ‘urban mining’. The biggest problem is that recycled materials are often more expensive than new ones.

Anyway, a first step is more efficient use of existing buildings. Evidently, progress can be made by planning, designing, developing and building circular buildings. A number of options are mentioned below[1].  

Urban planning

Challenges for planning are the use of inner-city vacant land and issuing mandatory requirements regarding the construction of new buildings, for instance the use of less cement, glass and steel, the mandatory application of a certain percentage of reused materials, and becoming energy positive or at least energy-neutral. Switching to sustainable timber is an option for 90% of homes and 70% of offices being built.

Mandatory reuse of existing components

Reuse of existing materials means than glass is reused as glass and concrete pillars as pillars. The same applies to doors, frames, carpets, wall-cladding materials and so on. 

The materials passport, which contains an overview of all materials and components that are used to construct of a house or building, is a useful tool as well. The obligation to reuse a large percentage of existing components has far-reaching consequences for the design and construction of new houses. To start with, after demolishment all materials must be selected, cleaned, registered and stored in new-to-develop warehouses.

The Circl pavilion of the ABN-AMRO bank

The Circl pavilion of the Dutch ABN-AMRO bank is an example of a new building that uses as many existing components as possible. For instance, 1200 m2 of wooded floors, partition walls of a demolished building and 16.000 garments of employees for isolation purposes. All components of the building are designed to be reused[2].

Industrial production and 3D printing

Construction of components in factories, deploying industrial processes, will reduce costs by 30 percent and the delivery time by at least 50 percent.

Decreasing size of apartments

The size of apartments will decrease, partly due to costs, but also because of the presence of shared guest rooms, lounge areas and terraces for working and socializing, spaces for washing and drying laundry.

The need for office space will decrease rapidly due to sharing space and working in an external environment. So IBM has only one desk available for 12 employees. Given the presence of 300,000 employees, this has led to savings on real estate of around € 1 billion in the past 10 years. 

Modularity and durability

A key barrier for better use of floor space is the lack of flexibility in the design of buildings and room configurations. A modular design, which provides for easy replacement of partitions and placement of complete functional units (kitchens and bathrooms) facilitates adjustments as the use of a building changes.

Forget new construction at all

As families become smaller and offices need less space, existing space becomes more underused. Well-thought adjustments to the lay-out of existing houses and buildings can improve their efficiency without reducing their amenity. That is what adaptive reuse stands for: instilling a new purpose on an existing “leftover building.”. A number of inspiring examples can be seen here[5].

[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/the-circular-economy-moving-from-theory-to-practice

[2] https://www.duurzaambedrijfsleven.nl/infra/24589/abn-amro-opent-deuren-van-innovatief-en-circulair-paviljoen-circl

[3] http://www.winsun3d.com/En/About/

[4] https://www.dirtt.com/

[5] https://www.archdaily.com/931659/10-plus-proposals-to-promote-adaptive-reuse-and-introduce-transformative-ideas?utm_medium=email&utm_source=ArchDaily%20List&kth=

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Resilience and prediction of hazards

Next months, these posts focus on the challenges of Earthlings of to bring humane cities closer. These posts represent the main findings of my e-book Humane cities. Always humane. Smart if helpful, updates and supplements included. The English version of this book can be downloaded for free here and the Dutch version here. 

In my last post, I elaborated on resilience. Resilience has two sides. At the one hand it has to do with policy aimed at anticipation and mitigation hazards. At the other hand, it refers to the capacity of both government and citizens to deal with their impact.

Anticipating hazards

The most difficult problem in anticipating hazards is knowing what hazard to anticipate. This is difficult, given the long list of chronic stressors and acute shocks that can affect a city. Emergency plans should focus not only on the most likely disasters, but on all conceivable ones. Listing possible threats is not that difficult: plane crashes, terrorists blowing up a dam or shooting visitors during a football match, previously unknown massive and violent protests, outbreak of a hitherto unknown deadly disease, an attack by a foreign power or, if you want, aliens, et cetera.

It is impossible to make separate plans for all these threats. The preparation should take place on a more abstract level. For example, what to do if roads are impassable, many people have died, there is no electricity, water and gas, an evacuation must take place within a few hours, et cetera. Agreements must be made in advance about outside assistance, and which means of communication can be used permanently.  

Citizens should be involved in these activities. Otherwise, they will become dependent on government initiatives, which will not come as the command center is destroyed.  Citizens should be trained in self-management complementary – or in case of emergency – to replace official actions.

Anticipating hazards is easier if some types of hazards are a recurring phenomenon, such as flooding. Activities include installing early warning systems, preparing emergency services, providing scenarios for the evacuation of the elderly and the sick, allocating places for temporary housing, gathering tents, organizing access to food, drinking water and to medical care. The faster and more accurate the prediction is, the better the preparations can be.

Flood Concern creates map-based visualizations of places where floods can hit hardest, up to five days before an approaching storm using artificial intelligence. These are simulations in the form of time-lapses of how the water will rise, at what speed and in which direction.  These maps also indicate which parts of the infrastructure will flooded or wash away, and how mitigation efforts – from sand backs to opening locks – will turn out. With this data, emergency services can determine which roads are still accessible, and plan evacuation routes accordingly. 

Dealing with impact

If accurate forecasts are available, the government, together with citizens, can implement previously designed and trained plans to mitigate the effects of the flooding. However, anybody must stay vigilant to respond to unexpected changes in the anticipated course of events. 

One of the most dramatic cases to discuss is the massive earthquake that devasted all of Haiti on January 12, 2010, claiming 316,000 lives, injuring another 300.000 and displacing more than 1.5 million people. The earthquake was just the beginning:  In the following years other devasting natural disasters caused thousands of new deaths, engraved famine, and a deadly cholera epidemic, wiping out ongoing efforts to rebuild the country. Until now, millions of Haitians are still in need of humanitarian aid and many still live in camps without proper sanitation and drinking water. To date, the international community has raised € 8 billion in aid. What it was used for is unclear, in spite of a large number of helping hands. It seems that the rebuilding of the country is mainly due to the inhabitants themselves, who started rebuilding their primitive huts again and again by using the remains of their previous emergency shelters. The government infrastructure was destroyed by the dictatorial regimes of father and son Duvalier and led, among other things, to the depart of most residents with some education. So the country had done nothing to prepare for a possible disaster, and there was no policy to cope with its consequences.

It is evident that dealing with the impact of hazards depends from te degree of anticipation. Otherwise, full reliance on social capital is the only hope.

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How can cities make the difference, regarding the realization of circular goals

Next months, these posts deal with the challenges of Earthlings of bringing humane cities closer. These posts represent the most important findings of my e-book Humane cities. Always humane. Smart if helpful, updates and supplements included. The English version of this book can be downloaded for free here and the Dutch version here. 

Cities can make the difference

Firstly, by bringing parties together, developing inspiring goals, removing barriers arising from existing regulations, facilitating sharing, stimulating innovative research, supporting start-ups that contribute to circular solutions and providing financial incentives, for example, by differentiating tax rates.

Secondly, by making circular plans in areas where the city government is primarily responsible. Local authorities have a large and direct influence through legislation and investments related to urban planning, issuing building permits, mobility systems, urban infrastructure, district heating, energy production and distribution, waste collection, municipal taxes and the local labour market[1].

For instance: Amsterdam

The city of Amsterdam is a shining example. It has committed itself to the circular economy as an important pillar of its sustainability policy. The city wants to be a forerunner and has a good starting position because many citizens, businesses, start-ups, and (knowledge) institutions are convinced by the necessity of a circular economy[2].


The municipality applies the following principles:

  • All materials are part of an infinite physical or biological cycle.
  • All energy comes from renewable sources.
  • Modular and flexible design of production chains to increase the adaptability of systems.
  • New activities that enable the shift from possession of goods to use of services.
  • Logistical systems that switch to more region-oriented services.
  • Human activities that contribute to the regeneration of “natural capital”.

Together with external parties, such as TNO and Circle, the city has evaluated existing value chains with respect to ecological impact, economic importance, value retention and transition potential. This resulted in a selection of two fields (‘chains’) in which the greatest circular impact can be achieved, namely the construction chain and the organic residual chain. 

Construction chain

By organizing the construction chain in a circular fashion and at the same time realizing 70.000 new homes by 2040, a 3% productivity gain is feasible representing a worth of € 85 million per year. This is the result of reusing material and efficiency improvements. The table below is mentioning the main activities to be developed in the next years.

Organic residual streams chain

High-value processing of organic residual flows over a period of five to seven years, will result in an added value of 150 million euro per year. This is the result of source separation of organic waste in all households and in the food processing industry. The organic residual flow is used to produce proteins for animal feed, biogas and building blocks for the production of bioplastics. 

Is a circular city also a humane city?

There is no doubt that in the long run everyone benefits from a circular economy. However, in the short term it can weaken the purchasing power of the poor. Poor people around the world have already created an informal circular economy by buying or exchanging worn-out goods such as cars, refrigerators, furniture, and clothing. Goods that are available at flea markets, thrift stores or through family and friends. As soon as these goods become part of a regular circular process, their availability will decrease and their prices rise. Not to mention a ban on selling these goods for environmental or safety reasons. 

This problem is not inherent in the circular economy, but arises from the growing gap between the rich and poor part of humanity. Consequently, policies aimed at the development of a circular society must also create the conditions for a more just and egalitarian society.

[1] https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/publications/Cities-in-the-CE_An-Initial-

[2] https://www.circle-economy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Circular-Amsterdam-EN-small-210316.pdf

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Regional differences in the paths towards a circular economy

Next months, these posts deal with the challenges of Earthlings of bringing humane cities closer. These posts represent the most important findings of my e-book Humane cities. Always humane. Smart if helpful, updates and supplements included. The English version of this book can be downloaded for free here and the Dutch version here. 

Countries with a lower income are more “circular” than richer counterparts. Many residents simply cannot afford to throw away valuable material. In the informal sector, a great deal of economic activity revolves around sorting and reusing waste, including imported waste from rich countries. About 0.5% of the urban population in developing countries – 1.5 million in India alone – tries to make a living by collecting items from landfills, with all the health risks this entails. An estimated 270,000 people die each year from the incineration of waste. It is estimated that in 2025 landfills will cause 8 – 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Every year Circle-Economy is publishing its Circularity Report. In the 2020 version, circular growth paths for three groups of countries are differentiated[1].

Build countries (for instance: India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines)

These countries lack sufficient means to satisfy their basic needs, and it is not surprising that their economic activities mostly fall within the regenerative capacity of the earth. Most of these countries show progress in reducing poverty and their emerging middle class want to enjoy greater consumption. The building industry already is the second sector after agriculture.  70% of the buildings India needs in 2030 are yet to be built. 

Paths towards circularity:

  • Application of circular principles in construction (design for the future and energy-neutrality)
  • Education and developing entrepreneurial skills in the informal economy
  • Using residues from agriculture to develop a sizable bio economy

Growth countries (for instance: China, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam and Egypt)

The second pathway relates to emerging economies characterized by fast economic growth and associated material consumption and services, rapid build-up of capital goods and an expanding industrial sector. They will continue to grow, but have to channel this growth by the application of circular principles.  

Paths towards circularity:

  • Channeling fast growing consumption through new service-based business and shared-use models and healthier principles. For instance, the reemergence in China of the use of bicycles.  
  • Transforming the informal economy, creating better living conditions and improving food security.
  • Decoupling economic growth from extraction of resources and use of carbon-based energy. 

Shift countries (for instance: The United States of America, Japan, Argentina and member countries of the European Union)

Because of their ecological footprint, these countries must shift away from over-consuming the planet’s resources, and reinvent their affluent and comfortable lifestyles, also taking account of large internal differences. 

Paths towards circularity:

  • Consuming smarter through (1) product lifetime extension; (2) increase material efficiency through new technology and design and (3) promotion and adoption of sharing business models.
  • Taking control of the impact of their imports and exports, for instance by radically reducing the international trade of secondary materials and products (waste).
  • Ramp up the infrastructural transformation required to secure abundant capacity for renewable energy generation.

[1] https://assets.website-files.com/5e185aa4d27bcf348400ed82/5e26ead616b6d1d157ff4293_20200120%20-%20CGR%20Global%20-%20Report%20web%20single%20page%20-%20210x297mm%20-%20compressed.pdf