Network Governance for Urban Regions

NETWORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS Reconfiguring Governance Networks through the Implementation of Digital Telecommunications Technologies to Meet the Needs of Changing Metropolises

MATTHEW ARANCIO SANAZ MIRZAEI

NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

NETWORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS Reconfiguring Governance Networks through the Implementation of Digital Telecommunications Technologies to Meet the Needs of Changing Metropolises

Politecnico di Milano Faculty of Architecture and Society Department of Urban Planning and Policy Design Professor Alessandro Balducci Matthew Arancio / 736641 Sanaz Mirzaei / 737568 December 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS THESIS SUMMARY

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THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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CHAPTER 1: THESIS PRESENTATION AND FORWARD

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Premise

1.3 Methodology

1.4 Organization

1.5 Case Explorations

1.5.1 Policy Case Exploration

1.5.2 Project Case Exploration

1.6 Policy and Project Recommendations

1.7 Preliminary Conclusions

1.8 Forward

2 2 3 3 4 5 5 5 6 6

CHAPTER 2: THE EVOLUTION OF URBAN SOCIO-SPATIAL SYSTEMS IN THE MODERN ERA

2.1 Introduction

2.2 The Socio-Spatial Dialectic

2.3 Capital and Urban Socio-Spatial Organization

2.4 The Fordist Era

2.5 The Monocentric City

2.6 Socio-Economic Transition and the Emergence of the Global Era

2.7 The Post-Fordist Era

2.8 Polycentric Cities and Urban Regions

2.8.1 the City Region

2.8.2 the Megacity Region

2.8.3 Network City

2.9 Network Society

2.10 Capital and Cities in the Information Age: The Issue of Boundaries

2.11 The Scalar Dilemma For Governance

2.12 Forward

10 10 11 12 13 13 14 15 17 17 17 17 20 23 24

CHAPTER 3: WHITHER METROPOLITAN GOVERNANCE?

3.1 Introduction 3.2 Metropolitan Governance and Urban Systems 3.3 Metropolitan Government and Governance: An Overview

28 28 30

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

3.4 Localist Interests and the Rebuttal to Metropolitan Government 3.5 New Regionalism: Localized Regionalism?

3.6 Institutional Fragmentation: The Problem at Hand 3.7 Research Conclusions

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CHAPTER 4: NETWORK GOVERNANCE

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Thesis Hypothesis

4.3 Metropolitan Planning Strategy for Fragmented Contexts

4.3.1 Regional Coordination, Local Projects

4.3.2 Population Oriented Services

4.4 Digital Telecommunications Technologies as Boundary Objects

4.5 Digital Telecommunications Technologies and Shifts in Urban

Regional Governance Network Development

4.6 Digital Telecommunications Technologies and Urban Regional Governance Networks

4.7 Digital Telecommunications Technologies and Shifting Dialogues in Urban Regional

Governance Networks

4.8 Digital Telecommunications Technologies and Urban Regional Governance Networks Project

4.8.1 Network Installation

4.8.2 Network Servicing

4.8.3Network Regulation

4.8.4 Network Projects Summary

4.9 Conclusion

40 40 41 41 42 43 44 45 46 48 48 49 49 50 50

CHAPTER 5: NETWORK GOVERNANCE POLICY AND PROJECT EXPLORATION

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Case Explorations

5.3 PITER Introduction

5.4 Emilia Romagna: Contextual Overview

5.5 Piano Telematico di Emilia Romagna

5.5.1 Regional Collaboration and Coordination

5.5.2 Local Initiative

5.5.2.1 E-Governance

5.5.2.2 WIFI Provision

5.5.2.3 Regulation

5.5.2.4 Connectivity Space

5.5.3 Actor Exchange

54 54 55 55 59 60 61 61 63 65 67 68

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THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

5.6 PITER Case Conclusion

5.7 UC@MITO Case Introduction

5.8 UC@MITO Contextual Overview

5.8.1 Urban Computing

5.8.2 Milan and Turin

5.9 Where A Mi?/ Where TO?

5.9.1 Concept and System

5.9.1.1 Hardware

5.9.1.2 Software

5.9.1.3 Space

5.9.2 UC@MITO Project Development and Strategies Lessons

5.9.2.1 E-Governance

5.9.2.2 Wifi Provision

5.9.2.3 Regulation Strategies

5.9.2.4 Connectivity Space

5.10 UC@MITO Conclusion

5.11 Case Conclusions

5.12 Policy Recommendations

5.13 Conclusion

69 70 71 71 72 73 73 74 74 76 76 76 85 85 85 87 87 89 90

CHAPTER 6: NETWORK GOVERNANCE POLICY AND PROJECT STRATEGIES: UNITED STATES CONTEXT OVERVIEW

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Policy Suggestions

6.3 The United States and Metropolitan Planning Experiences

6.3.1 Past and Present

6.3.2 Failures and Opportunities

6.4 The United States and Urban Digital Telecommunications Policy

6.4.1 Current Situation

6.4.2 Failure of Digital Telecommunications Connectivity Policy

6.5 Conclusion and Forward

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CHAPTER 7: NETWORK GOVERNANCE POLICY AND PROJECT STRATEGIES IN UNITED STATES CASES

7.1 Introduction

7.2 United States Studies for Policy Recommendation

7.3 New York City Region

7.3.1 New York Metropolitan Governance

7.3.2 New York City Region and Digital Telecommunications Policy

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

7.3.2.1 New York State Broadband Strategy Roadmap

7.3.2.2 Connected City

7.3.2.3 City Departments

7.3.3 Conclusion: New York City Region Policy Issues

7.4 Portland Region

7.4.1 Portland Governance

7.4.1.1 Metro Regional Framework Plan

7.4.1.2 Urban Growth Boundary

7.4.1.3 The Comp Plan

7.4.2 Portland Region and Digital Telecommunications Policy

7.4.2.1 The Bureau of Technology

7.4.2.2 Portland Online (The Portland Plan)

7.4.2.3 Portland Maps

7.4.2.4 VisionPDX

7.4.3 Conclusion: Portland Policy Issues

7.5 Policy Recommendations

7.5.1 Network Governance Structure

7.5.2 Recommendations

7.5.2.1 Metropolitan Planning Organizations

7.5.2.2 Public Spatial Projects and Connectivity

7.5.2.3 Policy Based on Populations

7.6 Conclusion

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108 108 109 110 113 113 114 116 116 116 116 117 118 118 119 120 120 121 121 122 123 124

CHAPTER 8: THESIS CONCLUSION

8.1 Concluding Remarks 8.2 Research Conclusions 8.3 Project Conclusions 8.4 Policy Recommendation Conclusions 8.5 Final Remarks

128 128 129 130 131

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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APPENDICES

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A) Interview Summaries B) UC@MITO User and Stakeholder Analysis Tables C) ConnecToMi Pilot Project Proposal

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LIST O F F I G U R ES CHAPTER 2

Figure

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2-1 ; pg 13; a schematic image depicting a monocentric city region 2-2 ; pg 15; a schematic image depicting a polycentric city region 2-3 ; pg 16; a diagram schematically representing different permutations of monocentric and polycentric city regions 2-4 ; pg 18; schemes indicating the socio-spatial impacts of digital telecommunications technologies 2-5 ; pg 19; a chart representing new forms of collaboration and coordination in network societies 2-6 ; pg 22; a historic map depicting the positions of telegraph cables 2-7; pg 22; a map of world digital teleconnectivity traffic 2-8; pg 22; a map of North American digital teleconnectivity traffic 2-9; pg 22; a map of European digital teleconnectivity traffic

CHAPTER 3

Figure

Figure

3-1 ; pg 29; a schematic depiction of the role of infrastructure in the growth and development of urban regions, adapted from the works of Pinzon Cortes entitled Mapping Urban For Morphology: Studies in the Contemporary Urban Landscape, TU Delft, 2009.

3-2 ; pg 30; a schematic representation of the urban regions showing superimposed ayers of urbanized space, government boundaries and infrastructure

CHAPTER 4

Figure

Figure

Figure

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4-1 ; pg 41 ; a schematic representation of the integration of regional coordination with locally articulated projects 4-2 ; pg 43 ; a schematic representation of the role of the movement of populations in redefining governance network boundaries 4-3 ; pg 44 ; a schematic representation of knowledge transfer in a boundary object scenario 4-4 ; pg 47 ; a schematic representation of the transition of urban governance networks from systems of hierarchy to networks

CHAPTER 5

Figure 5-1 ; pg 57 ; a map of the Emilia Romagna region Figure 5-2 ; pg 58 ; a photograph of Bologna’s portici

LIST OF FIGURES

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Figure 5-3 ; pg 61 ; a map showing the expanse of Lepida SpA’s DSL cable network in Emilia Romagna

Figure 5-4 ; pg 64 ; a schematic representation of the macchia di leopardo approach to wireless service

provision implemented in Bologna and a schematic representation of the complete coverage

approach to wireless service provision implemented in Reggio Emilia

Figure 5-5 ; pg 66 ; a schematic representation of the authentication approach to wireless service provision

implemented in Reggio Emilia and Bologna

Figure 5-6 ; pg 67 ; Bologna’s Sala Borsa Urban Center

Figure 5-7 ; pg 68 ; a photograph of a wireless hotspot bench in Reggio Emilia

Figure 5-8 ; pg 72 ; a schematic representation of the dynamics of urban computing adapted from the original

KickOff Presntation of the UC@MITO project

Figure 5-9 ; pg 74 ; a schematic representation of wireless hotspot hardware configuration

Figure 5-10 ; pg 75 ; a schematic representation of Where A Mi?/ Where TO? software system

Figure 5-11 ; pg 77 ; map showing the hypothetical distribution of hotspots in the city of Milan

Figure 5-12 ; pg 79 ; a visual representation of a “quickstop”

Figure 5-13 ; pg 80 ; a moodboard representation of a quickstop

Figure 5-14 ; pg 81 ; a visual representation of a “bustop”

Figure 5-15 ; pg 82 ; a moodboard representation of a “bustop”

Figure 5-16 ; pg 83 ; a visual representation of a “cube”

Figure 5-17 ; pg 84 ; a moodboard representation of a “cube”

Figure 5-18 ; pg 86 ; a schematic reprsentation of Where A Mi? / Where TO’s authentication federation approach

Figure 5-19 / Figure 5-20 ; pg 88 ; maps showing the spatial situation of the elements of the Where A MI/

Where TO system and their close relation to the existing infrastructure network and uses of the

spacein Milan and Turin

CHAPTER 7

Figure 7-1 ; pg 105 ; a photograph of New York City posted on Flickr.

Figure 7-2 ; pg 106 ; an image depicting the location of the New York Metropolitan Area in four different states Figure 7-3 ; pg 106 ; an image depicting the location of the New York Metropolitan Area in the context of the counties of the state of New York Figure 7-4 ; pg 107 ; an image depicting the New York Metropolitan Area and urbanized areas Figure 7-5 ; pg 112 ; a photograph of downtown Portland, OR posted on Flickr by David GN Photography.

Figure 7-6 ; pg 114 ; an image depicting the location of the Portland Metropolitan Area in two different states Figure 7-7 ; pg 114 ; an image depicting the location of the Portland Metropolitan Area in the context of the counties of the state of Oregon Figure 7-8 ; pg 115 ; an image depicting the Portland Metropolitan Area and urbanized areas Figure 7-9 ; pg 120 ; a figure redepicting a policy strategy architecture for the regional coordination but local articulation of network

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

THES I S S U M M A RY

Urban form is the amalgamation of a web of social activity, a spatial manifestation of human ingenuity and ambition, a place of gathering and collective meaning and a place of flux and almost constant evolution. Our society is quickly changing into a network society.

Cities and urban systems at once are growing upward, becoming forums of intensified information exchange, growing outward, drawing more and more upon regional resources and markets to satiate the competitive erg of an intensified and hyper connected global economy, and are increasingly juxtaposing international and local movement of people, goods and information. As growth and development has led to the emergence of dense networks of globally connected urban regions, urban governments remain frozen in time, relics of past understanding of how to govern and how to organize urban systems. As cities have expanded well beyond conventional geographic boundaries and delineations of such government institutions, actors are left to respond with antiquated tools in an otherwise more challenging and complex socio-cultural context.

This thesis is a study of functional mismatches between urban spatial and social systems. This thesis is also an exploration of providing strategies to mitigate functional mismatches with new policy tools. The thesis begins with the premise that fragmentation of urban governance networks is in large part attributed to the inability of these networks to tackle regional coordination problems because of local boundary constraints. The resulting mismatch between urban governance capacity to engage larger scale urban systems requires new forms of creative collaboration, to fill service provision gaps. Digital and telecommunications technologies, their installation and their use to produce public services at the city and regional level is proposed as means not only to activate dialogues and collaboration between actors in a given network, but also to change cultures of collaboration. Learning to work together initially, then communicating and collaborating

THESIS SUMMARY

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more rapidly through an increase in the quality of connections will serve to mitigate the “mismatch� of urban governance service provision at the regional level as actors will shift and adopt new roles to adjust and fully take advantage of technological change.

Discussions of strategies to mitigate mismatch in metropolitan areas will be applied to two United States cities, New York and Portland, for further theoretical development application.

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THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

RIASS U N TO D I T ES I

La forma urbana è la fusione di una complessa rete di attività individuali e istituzionali, una manifestazione spaziale di ingegno umano e ambizione, un luogo di incontro e di senso collettivo e un luogo di cambiamento continuo e in quasi costante evoluzione. Tale complessa attività è informata, strutturata da condizioni socio-culturali e di innovazione tecnologica, ed è una sovrapposizione apparente di risultati conseguiti in passato e proiettati verso desideri futuri.

La nostra società sta cambiando; alla luce delle conquiste tecnologiche con una conseguente maggiore rapidità di connessione e dallo scambio di informazioni in gran parte attribuibile allo sviluppo di Internet, lo sono anche gli spazi in cui viviamo. Le città ed i sistemi urbani allo stesso tempo, si stanno sviluppando, diventando forum di scambio di informazioni intensificato e crescente verso l’esterno, attingendo sempre più risorse dal loro hinterland per saziare l’intensificarsi della competitività del mercato globale.

Le nostre istituzioni, tuttavia, rimangono congelate nel tempo, reliquie di costrutti sociali di una comprensione del passato come governare e di come organizzare il tumulto costante di attività urbane. Mentre la città si è evoluta in una forma più complessa, espandendosi ben oltre i confini geografici e tradizionali delimitazioni delle istituzioni ormai antiquate, l’attività di governo è lasciata al cavarsela con strumenti troppo vecchio in un contesto di governante altrimenti più impegnatovi e complessi.

Questa tesi è una presentazione dell’evoluzione degli spazi urbani e dei sistemi di governante istituiti per organizzarle. Si aprirà quindi una discussione sulla forma antiquata e inadeguata delle istituzioni di governo per affrontare i più complessi problem urbani regionali. Infine, la tesi proporrà una nuova strategia per inquadrare il trattamento degli

THESIS SUMMARY

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spazi urbani, attraverso l’implementazione di tecnologie delle telecomunicazioni digitali, per promuovere nuove forme di collaborazione intergiurisdizionale nelle regioni urbane e rompere la frammentazione della governance istituzionale, concentrandosi sulla creazione di nuovi dialoghi tra le istituzioni e la città funzionale.

FO RC E- L ES D E BÂTIR ENSEMBLE UNE TOUR ET TU LES CHANGERAS EN F R È R ES . M A I S , S I TU VEUX QU’ILS SE HÂTENT, JETTE LEUR DU GRAIN. Force them to build a tower together and you will make them brothers. However, if you want them to hurry, make sure to throw them some bread.

CITADELLE ANTOINE DE SAINT EXUPÉRY

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THESIS PRESENTATION AND FORWARD

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1.1 INTRODUCTION Urban form is the amalgamation of a complex web of individual and institutional activity, a spatial manifestation of human ingenuity and ambition, a place of gathering and collective meaning and a place of flux and almost constant evolution. Such complex activity is informed and structured by socio-cultural conditions and technological innovation, and is a seeming superimposition of past achievements and a projection of future desires.

Our society is changing; in light of the technological achievements spurned by an increased rapidity of connection and information exchange attributed in large part to the development of the Internet, so too are the spaces in which we live. Cities and urban systems are at once growing upward, becoming forums of intensified information exchange and growing outward, drawing more and more upon resources from their hinterlands to satiate the competitive erg of an intensified global market.

Our institutions, however, remain frozen in time, relics of societal constructs of a past understanding of how to govern and how to organize the constant tumult of urban activity. As the city has evolved into a more complex form, expanding well beyond conventional geographic boundaries and delineations of antiquated institutions, governance activity is left to muddle through with antiquated tools in an otherwise more challenging and complex governance context.

This thesis is a presentation of the evolution of urban spaces and the governance systems instituted to organize

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

them. It will then open a discussion of the antiquated and inadequate form of governance institutions to deal with more complex urban regional problems. Finally, it will propose a new strategy for framing the treatment of urban spaces through the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies to promote new forms of cross-jurisdictional collaboration in urban regions and break institutional governance fragmentation, focusing on creating new dialogues between the institutional and the functional city.

1.2 PREMISE This thesis is a study of functional mismatches. It begins with the premise that fragmentation of urban governance networks is in large part attributed to the inability of these networks to tackle regional coordination problems because of local boundary constraints. The resulting mismatch between urban governance capacity to engage larger scale urban systems requires new forms of creative collaboration, not just new layers of government, to fill service provision gaps. Digital and telecommunications technologies, their installation and their use to produce public services at the city and regional level is proposed as means not only to activate dialogues and collaboration between actors in a given network, but also to change cultures of collaboration during the initial phases of installation. Learning to work together initially, then communicating and collaborating more rapidly through an increase in the quality of connections will serve to mitigate the “mismatch� of urban governance service provision at the regional level as actors will shift and adopt new roles to

CHAPTER 1: THESIS PRESENTATION AND FORWARD

adjust and fully take advantage of technological change.

1.3 METHODOLOGY This thesis is an amalgamation of research and practice and draws information regarding the proposed hypothesis on breaking trends in urban regional institutional and functional system mismatch from a number of sources.

The thesis began with a research survey of ongoing issues in the realm of metropolitan planning, cross-jurisdictional collaboration and digital telecommunications technology adoption and application. This research survey took the form of a review of relevant literature in the studies of the evolution of urban spaces, the evolution of metropolitan governance, metropolitan governance fragmentation and finally the social dynamics of technological innovation was compiled.

Scholarly research was complimented by interviews with public administration actors in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy currently engaged in the implementation of regional digital telecommunications plan. Six interviews were conducted with actors at the regional level, city administrative levels in Bologna and Reggio Emilia, and finally with regional Internet service providers and multiutilities. Interviews were used to grasp the panorama of digital telecommunications policy debate and understand evolutionary trends induced by policy application in regional governance networks.

Information from interviews as processed and generated a case study in regional implementation of digital telecommunications plans. A second case study was drawn from ongoing project work. This project, which was developed during the course of a two-year honors project known as the Alta Scuola Politecnica, challenged the writers of this thesis to collaborate in a group work setting whilst applying ongoing theoretical research. While the Emilia Romagna case focuses on macro trends in regional

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governance collaboration and networking, the project, entitled UC@MITO instead focused on the e-governance interface between urban populations and emerging regional governance networks.

Finally, policy recommendations deriving from observations during initial research and ongoing project experience were generated. These policy recommendations were generated with the conviction of applying lessons learned in a foreign context. Through the application of theory in a real world scenario project scenario, strengths and weaknesses of the project and lessons learned during the course of the thesis and project work could then be reapplied in the United States.

1.4 ORGANIZATION This first chapter of this thesis is a summary and organizational presentation of work accomplished.

Part I of this thesis, encompassing Chapters Two and Three, will depict the influence of societal evolution on spatial organization.

The second chapter of this thesis will be dedicated to a charting and understanding the evolutionary trend and nexus between space and society, providing evidence that societal changes shape urban spatial forms and governance patterns and vice versa. The geographic theory of the “socio-spatial dialectic� will provide a theoretical framework in which the evolutionary trends of urban spaces and systems can be charted and organized. It will focus on depicting and discussing the changes urban spaces and urban governance networks are currently undergoing in light of the introduction and development of digital telecommunications technologies. This part of the thesis will present a general depiction of the cultural and spatial evolution of modern cities from the Fordist Era to today.

The section will focus on the present and the changes induced by the adoption of digital telecommunications

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technologies to better identify the current cultural framework and constraints within which actors in urban governance networks engage in planning activities.

The third chapter of this thesis will focus on the problems faced by urban governance networks in light of changes and shifts in the socio-spatial configuration of modern urban systems. The concept of “mismatch� will be introduced and discussed to highlight the differences between functional capacity of urban governance networks and the organization of the spatial system in which they operate.

While the city exists as a rich territorial system, it will be argued that the scale of intervention of urban governance networks is limited to more localized boundaries. Such local boundaries render urban governance networks ineffective in the dealing with more complex, systemic urban problems, creating a mismatch between the institutional and functional city.

Part II of this thesis, encompassing Chapters Four and Five, will depict the evolutionary influence of urban regional spatial organizations on social systems of spatial organization and governance.

The fourth chapter of this thesis will move from a discussion of problems to a discussion of policy solutions. It will propose a theoretical framework for understanding the activities of mitigation in a system of functional mismatch discussed in the previous chapter. It will show that, through the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies, governance networks can affectively adapt to and mitigate the problem of institutional mismatch by changing the dimension, scale and scope of their operations.

The fifth chapter of this thesis will be dedicated to highlighting and dissecting two specific cases in the implementations of digital telecommunications systems to urban regional governance. The first case study with highlight specific examples of how digital telecommunications technologies induce changes in governance systems and

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

change the roles of actors in governance networks will be discussed. The second case study will instead present a project focusing on the interface between urban regional governance networks and urban populations. Both case studies will highlight strategies for policy implementation and indicate how mismatch of institutional and functional systems is mitigated by these strategies.

Part III of this thesis, encompassing Chapters Six and Seven, will provide a series of policy and project recommendations based on research and observations accomplished in the first two parts of this thesis.

The sixth chapter will provide a number of suggestions for the practical application of ongoing projects in the realm of digital communications technologies in United States contexts. Chapter Six will focus specifically on highlighting the specificities of the United States context and demonstrate current trends in institutional and functional mismatch in the United States. Experiences in metropolitan planning and the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies will help to highlight this mismatch.

The seventh chapter of the thesis will apply policy strategies presented in chapters four and five to two United States cases, considering the socio-political constraints presented in the previous chapter. The specific cases of the New York Metropolitan Area and Portland Metropolitan Areas will be used to showcase policy recommendations.

The eighth and final chapter of this thesis will be dedicated to concluding the work with a series of summaries of each chapter.

1.5 CASE EXPLORATIONS In depth case explorations were accomplished through interviews with public administration officials in the region of Emilia Romagna. Project case exploration instead

CHAPTER 1: THESIS PRESENTATION AND FORWARD

showcases and demonstrates the acquisition of knowledge from the authors’ of this thesis experience in the Urban Computing in Milan and Turin (UC@MITO) Alta Scuola Politecnica capstone project.

Exploration has been used to qualify these studies because they provide an in depth survey of the trends, relevant actors, policy initiatives and project constraints.

This thesis will make use of direction observation and practical application of research in a project scenario to draw conclusions that will ultimately become a series of policy recommendations to be applied in different context.

1.5.1 POLICY CASE EXPLORATION The Piano Telematico di Emilia Romagna will serve not just as a case exploration in the successful adoption of digital telecommunications technologies by regional and local governance networks, but also as the example upon which a wider theoretical model to describe the adoption of digital telecommunications technologies in urban governance networks will be based.

The Piano Telematico is a critical for a number of reasons.

What has emerged from its initial implementation is a shift in the governance culture of Emilia Romagna. This shift envisions and takes into account the collaborative and infrastructural problems of Internet connectivity as a regional project but coordinates the implementation of specific policy initiatives by encouraging local interventions. It similarly incentivizes local and regional actors to participate in wider regional services by providing Internet connectivity. Such a project increases the quantity of connections amongst actors in urban governance networks and also serves to increase the quality of information exchange and collaboration between actors.

The Piano Telematico has thus not served only to provide infrastructure but also to provide impetus for actors at regional and local scales to collaborate and communicate,

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and ultimately redefine the scale and scope of governance policy and projects in the region. Strategies and theories understanding this redefinition of governance networks will serve provide a series of recommendations for how future application can be used not only to install digital technical communications infrastructure in regional contexts, but similar use such infrastructure and projects to reassemble fragmented urban regional contexts.

1.5.2 PROJECT CASE EXPLORATION The Urban Computing at Milan and Turin (UC@MITO) project of the Alta Scuola Politecnica served as a two year long project opportunity for the authors’ of this thesis to apply strategies observed and discussed with regional officials instituting the Piano Telematico di Emilia Romagna with ongoing research in a project context. The project envisioned an integrated online and spatial intervention aimed at targeting and enhancing the interface and dialogues between urban regional populations and urban regional governance networks.

The UC@MITO project provided the authors of this thesis with an opportunity to learn from experience and practical application. Lessons learned, successful strategies and failures of the project, will also be discussed and compiled into a series of recommendations that will later serve to structure policy strategies for future policy and project implementation.

1.6 POLICY AND PROJECT RECOMMENDATIONS The ultimate goal of this thesis is to unpack and study what is proposed to be an innovative policy and project solution.

These recommendations, based on the observations and encounters with actors involved in the Piano Telematico di Emilia Romagna (PITER) and project experiences and observations during the course of UC@MITO, point to the creation of a policy that generates regional collaboration

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articulated through local project initiatives. Using the umbrella of digital telecommunications technologies and Internet service provision and a strategy of regional collaboration articulated in local project initiatives, the institutional boundaries of network city configuration are broken down by ongoing social exchange and collaborative dialogue at the local level.

The mitigation of mismatch between functional and institutional urban regional systems is argued as deriving from shared value creation and actor role redefinition through the implementation of a regional project targeting the implementation and use of digital telecommunications technologies.

Taking the quote of Saint ExupĂŠry as a metaphor, digital telecommunications infrastructure, its installation and use, is the tower that redefines regional governance dynamics, making new brothers and founding new forms of collaboration in existing systems. The bread to encourage and harry new forms of collaboration is the opportunity to attract foreign capital and generate endogenous economic development in an era of global interurban regional competition and place marketing.

1.7 PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS Islands of urban governance with largely localized planning agendas and project initiatives are now evolving into to urban networks connected through infrastructure that extends beyond local boundaries, that diminishes hierarchy in actor collaboration and that promotes enhanced information exchange. Individual city governments, recognizing both limitations to effective project interventions at the local level and opportunities deriving from collaboration and participation in a larger urban network effectively solve problems of Internet connectivity. Through instigating and engaging in such collaborative dialogues however, new governance cultures, governance network connections and new scales of project intervention are opened up. The

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

project thus becomes a means by which actors solve a problem that of wireless connectivity and in doing so learn to collaborate more effectively.

1.8 FORWARD After having briefly presented a theoretical framework that will serve as a structuring thought, this thesis will present research highlighting both the socio-spatial implications of digital telecommunications infrastructure installation and studies in metropolitan planning and governance fragmentation. These two threads of research will then be woven together to present possible project and policy suggestions in the subsequent phases of this thesis.

CHAPTER 1: THESIS PRESENTATION AND FORWARD

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THE EVOLUTION OF URBAN SOCIO-SPATIAL SYSTEMS IN THE MODERN ERA

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THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

2.1 INTRODUCTION

context in which planners are currently operating.

The first part of the thesis, encompassing chapters two and three, will be dedicated to showing how society influences the evolution of space. The second chapter of this thesis is dedicated to surveying and charting the evolution of urban socio-spatial systems in the Post-War era.

The underlying tenet of Chapter Two is the conviction that urban spaces are amalgamations and complex bundles or representations of socio-technological change, with form being indelibly tied and structured by socio-technological function. It will serve as a contextualization for arguments and assertions presented later in this thesis.

The chapter will begin with introducing the geographic concept of the socio-spatial dialectic to assert the notion that there is an important nexus between the growth and development of urban spaces and places and social change. This concept will define the structure of the thesis.

The second chapter will be dedicated to demonstrating how space induces an evolution in society. This evolutionary process ultimately gives rise to the form and function of modern urban systems, challenging urban governance institutions to meet evolving needs with evolving technical capacities. Using the lens of the socio-spatial dialectic, it will continue with the exploration of a theoretical framework for understanding the evolution of urban spaces. This exploration will begin with a description of the Fordist city and productive system. Following discussions of Fordist urban social organizations, economic transitions and developments in the Post-Fordist era will be discussed.

Specifically, trends towards a more globalized economy and the impacts of this economy on urban socio-spatial organizations will be presented. Concepts such as the “mega city region” and the “network city” will finally be presented to illustrate the form and function of modern urban systems and how form and function differ from those of the Fordist Era. Finally, the emergence of the Information Society will be presented to discuss the socio-spatial

2.2 THE SOCIO-SPATIAL DIALECTIC The theoretical concept that sits at the core of this thesis is the “socio-spatial dialectic”. This concept, presented by Paul Knox and Steven Pinch in their work, Urban Social Geography, identifies that “people create and modify urban spaces while at the same time being conditioned in varies ways by the spaces in which they live in work” (2000). This is to say that, cities grow and develop based on specific societal needs and constructs; while this may be the case, the inherit constructs that gave form the space constructed also form to shape social patterns and social norms. The city must be read more than just an amalgamation of spaces, but as an amalgamation of “places”, each with its own intrinsic meaning and function.

Knox and Pinch go on to assert that,

space, then, cannot be regarded simply as a neutral medium in which social, economic and political are expressed. It is of importance in its own right in contributing both to the pattern of urban development and to the nature of the relationships between different groups within a city” (2000).

CHAPTER 2: THE EVOLUTION OF URBAN SOCIO-SPATIAL SYSTEMS IN THE MODERN ERA

Space is a societal construct that similarly structures patterns of communications and social relations.

Intervening in space through urban projects, it becomes important to understand the social repercussions and reconfigurations that will result.

The socio-spatial dialectic is a lens by which the problems of mismatch between urban spatial configurations and urban social organizations can be assessed, unpacked and ultimately treated. It will be an ongoing exercise of this thesis to consider both social and spatial organizations in this regard to provide for a more complete assessment at its conclusion. This first half of the thesis will be dedicated to the reconfiguration of space in light of socio-technological transformation. The second half of this thesis will instead detail how evolving spaces in turn induce an evolution of societal systems and governance networks.

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riddled with “contradictions of the capital relation” and spatial organization. Brenner goes on to assert that,

capital’s continuous urge to annihilate space and time generated a dynamic of creative destruction in which configurations of territorial organization are recurrently constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed as geographical infrastructures for each round of capitalist organization (1998).

SOCIO-SPATIAL

Capital and specifically the organization and reorganization of capital in response to technological change, is in the opinion of Brenner the driving force behind that sociospatial evolution of cities. The conflicts that arise within urban spatial systems derive directly from the “spatial fix” and long-term impact that initial capital investment and organization has on urban environments. Urban socio-spatial evolution is precluded on the ability to mitigate tensions surrounding different modes of capital organization.

Keeping the notions of an ongoing evolutionary dialogue between space and society in mind, Neil Brenner, in his 1998 work, “Global Cities, glocal states: global city formation and state territorial restructuring in contemporary Europe” asserts that the city is a construct and manifestation of various epochs of capital agglomeration and accumulation.

These socio-technological realities give rise to different socio-spatial organizations and forms as described by Knox and Pinch’s socio-spatial dialectic. “Each phase of capitalist development has been grounded upon distinctive forms of territorial organization” he asserts, “a socially produced ‘second nature’ composed of elaborate transportation, communications and regulatoryinstitutional infrastructures—through which capital can circulate at socially average times” (Brenner, 1998). The city is an agglomeration of capital “territorialized” that is “in turn revalorized and reterritorialized during each system crisis of capital accumulation” (Brenner, 1998).

This process of revalorization and reterritorialization is

While Brenner points to capital as the driver of urban socio-spatial territorial organization, Esser and Hirsch, in their article entitled, “The Crisis of Fordism and the Dimensions of a ‘Post-Fordist’ Regional and Urban Structure”, discuss the organizational dynamics that develop around capital formations. Capitalist regimes and their subsequent urban socio-spatial formations are regenerated by specific “modes of accumulation” and “modes of regulation”. “Modes of accumulation” are specific socio-spatial constructs that generate a surplus value to the system. Modes of accumulation are embodied in the specific forms of labor and productive organization that allow for a profit to be generated and reinvested in a specific productive system. “Modes of regulation,” instead, represent the vast and complex series of relationships “between production and reproduction”. These “socially, multifaceted configurations” take the form of “sociopolitical institutions that give stability and allow for the persistence of a given regime of capital organization (Esser and Hirsch, 1989).

2.3 CAPITAL ORGANIZATION

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URBAN

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Cities and urban systems being the spatial manifestations of varying and evolving capitalist productive regimes exhibit specific constructs in modes of accumulation and modes of regulation. Being long term spatially fixed constructs, however, such regimes persist and overlap during the course of the evolution of productive economic systems. To consider the current challenges facing specific urban socio-spatial organizations, it is thus important to consider the modern heritage and socio-spatial legacies serving as opportunities and constraints to their ongoing development and evolution. To understand cities, it is important to understand the capitalist productive regimes, the modes of accumulation and the modes of regulation, that have given structure to their organization.

2.4 THE FORDIST ERA The evolution of regimes of modes of capital accumulation and regulation has historically been marked by a number of distinct epochs. These epochs represent functional societal organizations and configurations that have evolved during the course of time and continue to evolve today.

The first modern regime of capital accumulation and regulation to make note of is Fordism. Fordism refers to the apex of heavy industrial organization and production and is the capitalist productive regime typical of the postwar era leading up to the economic recession and crisis of the 1970’s. Fordism is characterized by profit and surplus value generation derived from the economies of scale derived from large units of industrial production.

Fordism as a regime of capital accumulation is built on the virtuous cycle of mass production and mass consumption.

Mass production was met with mass consumption of large quantities of standardized and homogenized goods previously inaccessible to most households. These mass consumption patterns were encouraged by higher wages and standardized labor deriving from the functional organization and large scale of the Fordist productive

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

system. Employees worked standardized hours in large factories earning a regular wage, producing standardized products to be sold on the market for mass consumption.

Regular wage labor encouraged mass consumption patterns and lead to an increase in the general standard of living for the working class as mass produced items greatly decreased in price. Surplus value derived from the sale of mass produced goods was invested back in large-scale physical capital to perpetuate the cycle.

This regime of capital accumulation was complimented by a complex and hierarchical regime of capital regulation.

Under the Fordist regime, economic production was a function of national policy organization. This is largely due to the fact that large capital and infrastructural investment required a scale of investment and organization achievable only at the national level. The city, within this context, was an extension of state economic policy, intervened in through indirect policy measures emanating from the central space, a function of a nationally planned, wider economic system (Lever, 2001). Being an “engine of Fordist production”, the city was thus was an amalgamation of institutional and productive infrastructures of a “globalized system compartmentalized into distinct state-level matrices”, a “sub-unit of national economic space” (Brenner, 1998).

The Fordist city was thus an object of investment and socio-spatial manifestation of national economic policy.

In terms of socio-spatial organization, the Fordist city “was characterized by strong agglomeration processes, the standardization and industrialization of construction” (Esser and Hirsch, 1989). With the advent of the mass consumption and use of the automobile, “extreme spatial functional differentiations developed, characterized by suburbanism, the formation of satellite towns, the depopulation of the inner cities the dying out of smaller production and business operations” (Esser and Hirsch, 1989). The standardization in societal productive processes was thus mirrored in the standardization and mass production of separated and specialized urban spaces.

The scale of urban development expanded in response

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to this socio-spatial standardization and specialization and in response to the advent of the automobile which greatly changed individual perceptions of distance and connectivity. Cities and towns thus became “uncongenial” and “standardized” as a function of the productive and consumptive needs generated by the wider economic system.

2.5 THE MONOCENTRIC CITY The socio-spatial constructs of the Fordist era are typified in the monocentric model of urban spatial configuration.

The following image exemplifies the main elements of this specific socio-spatial configuration.

As evinced the scheme above, the monocentric city is

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dominated by a core Central Business District. This district serves as the economic and social hub of the city. Outlying suburbs are connected to the urban core by way of radial infrastructural axes. The city is functional linked, but spatially separated from other cities in a national urban system of production.

2.6 SOCIO-ECONOMIC TRANSITION EMERGENCE OF A GLOBAL ERA

AND

THE

During the 1970’s, the Fordist regime of socio-economic organization underwent a crisis. In light of the ongoing oil crisis and resulting global economic stagnation, the seemingly virtuous cycle mass consumption and mass production of Fordist capital organization faced both internal and external pressures. With innovations in telecommunications and transport technologies, the 1970’s represented the advent of the multinational corporation. Such “footloose” entities, in an effort to circumvent systemic costs associated with labor and heavy capital in already developed countries, began to integrate globally dispersed systems of production to garner a profit margin. Such global competition and investment in capital was complimented by the further mechanization and rationalization of production processes, thus requiring less and less unskilled labor than previous waves of industrial organization in developed countries. Goods, mass produced and assembled in dispersed locations operating abroad and across national boundaries quickly outcompeted domestically mass produced goods and shifted the attention of industrial investment abroad in the developing world. Mass production, standardization and heavy capital investments generating profit margins from economies of scale in light of the economic crisis soon become rigid, uncompetitive structure suffering from diseconomies of scale.

Figure 2-1 ; a schematic image depicting a monocentric city region

Cities of the industrialized world at the time, within the context of national and international economic transition in the 1970s, suffered immensely. While on the national

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level, economic crisis decreased funding to urban infrastructures of economic importance, Fordist socioeconomic organization and the advent of the automobile as a primary means of transit allowed for the dispersion of middle class households away from urban cores. Less national funding and local tax bases severely depleted city governments trying to stem the tide of increasing urban poverty and infrastructural neglect. Heavy industries, which were once main centers of employment in urbanized areas, laid off employees by the thousands. The 1970s and 1980s thus was the era of hollowing out of the city in most developed countries, with capital investments instead being transferred to a global scale of coordination and organization. The city in the industrialized world, it seemed, had lost its vocation as an engine of economic growth, becoming instead a burdensome infrastructural agglomeration of a bygone productive era.

2.7 THE POST-FORDIST ERA The growing pains of the economic crisis of the 1970s and 1980s were the symptoms of a Schumpeterian Leap, or transition, in the configuration of the modes of capital accumulation and regulation. The heavy capital, mass production and national coordination of economies in the Fordist era slowly gave way to flexible and specialized production at a global level of coordination in the PostFordist era.

The Post-Fordist mode of accumulation is “characterized by global interdependence on production, finance, distribution, migration and trade” with the “growth of multinational enterprises and financial institutions run by a new class of global executives and professionals with shape consumption and production patterns” (Lever, 2001). These multinational enterprises generate profit not through economies of scale of mass production but “flexible specialization, characterized by new principles of production, specialist units of production a decentralized management and versatile technologies and workforces

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

will become the new system of production” (Lever, 2001).

Specialized and flexible capital is completed not by “geographical situation, but increasingly result from the availability of a qualified workforce” to service this capital and regional geographic amenities (Esser and Hirsch, 1989). The specificity of local amenities, taking the form of transportation services, governance networks and organization and commercial activity, become competitive advantages to attracting capital and generating jobs.

The implications for the socio-spatial organization of city life, or modes of regulation, in light of the transition to a Post-Fordist productive system are many. The city, “delinked” from it’s function in the organization of capital in the national economy, “has become embedded ever more directly in trans-state urban hierarchies and interurban networks” (Brenner, 1998). With specialized and flexible capital readily transferable, the emphasis of urban economic amenity and productive capacity has switched to the “creating of ‘milieux innovatrices’ which encourage new firm formation” (Lever, 2001). Cities compete to attract capital investment based on regional agglomerative amenities, often “publicizing the virtues of the local business climate” and stressing “the quality of life, the availability of good services and good image” (Lever, 2001).

The production of knowledge and services attract capital and focus attention to regional specificity and quality of life to ultimately generate endogenous economic growth.

The nexus of economic activity in such urban systems and regional agglomerations are no longer urban economic districts separated by functional productivity, but rather “mobility environments”, spaces of great accessibility that layer socioeconomic meaning and function (Bertolini and Dijst, 2003). In a highly competitive, international network of cities competing for economic vitality in the form of capital investment, “milieux innovatrices”, competitive cities, thus are challenged to attract investment through enhancement of connectivity to and ease of passage between different but complimentary urban environments. Given a choice of place, it is those cities that combine internal connectivity to regional amenities with external connectivity to the

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global market and global network of urban environments that will win in terms of competitiveness.

Given a shift in the socio-spatial manifestation of modes of capital regulation and accumulation, it has become evident that the monocentric city no longer suffices as a model of urban spatial configuration. A number of urban spatial forms and descriptions of their dynamics have been hypothesized and discussed at great length.

It is important to note that, the reorganization and reterrotrialization of capital in the Post-Fordist era has had the impact of changing the scalar perception of urban spaces; essentially moving the focus of urban spatial interventions from beyond the central area the city and considering equally the region in which the city is located.

2.8 POLYCENTRIC CITIES AND URBAN REGIONS The socio-spatial organization of the Post-Fordist city is marked by a multiplication of scale and a dispersion of services across a larger geographic region. Peter Hall and Kathy Pain, in their work The Polycentric Metropolis, provide a number of insights into this scale of transformation, specifically citing the emergence of city-regions. In Hall and Pains opinion what has emerged in the Post-Fordist Era is a form known as the “Polycentric Urban Region” (Hall and Pain, 1996). Their work is a landmark study in emerging metropolitan forms across the European Union and provides an in depth look at social and policy issues that emerge from the multiplication of scale of what is normally defined as the “city”. Their main conviction is that emerging functional agglomerations at a regional level are based on thick and extensive business and interpersonal networks and enhanced by innovations and transportation and communications technologies. This regional functional agglomeration that emerges, in the opinion of Hall and Pain, is the necessary unit of social-economic competition to be considered in the modern era.

The words of Hall are echoed by Martina Koll-Schretzenmayr

Figure 2-2 ; a schematic image depicting a polycentric city region

there has been the “unstoppable transformation of the city a region” (2003). The “city center” in this context, is only “one of many competing economic spaces” because of innovation in and reconfiguration of capital organization is the Post-Fordist era. What has emerged specifically from this city-region organization is a form of “inbetween city”. This in-between city is a an agglomeration of “diffused and disorganized structures of urban spaces without an identifiable center but with a few islands of geometrically shapeable patterns” structured by “strongly functionally specialized areas, networks and hubs” (KollSchretzenmayr, 2003). Urban spaces, in this opinion are emerging as spatially diffused and expansive, but functionally structured networks of spatial organizations.

The following are three descriptions of the shift to cityregion organizations of urban space, noting the abovementioned expansions in geographic scale and dispersion of service provision. Dynamics of these shifts are summarized in the chart on page 16.

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THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

Figure 2-3 ; a diagram schematically representing different permutations of monocentric and polycentric city regions

CHAPTER 2: THE EVOLUTION OF URBAN SOCIO-SPATIAL SYSTEMS IN THE MODERN ERA

2.8.1 CITY REGION Hall and Pain proposed the concept of city region to describe emerging urban forms. Functional linkages and innovations in transport and communications technologies have allowed for the creation of urban regional scales of development (Hall and Pain, 2003). A city region would be in the polycentric and dispersedquandrant of the chart to the left.

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at a global level. This being said, a common link between the following three models is an expansion beyond administrative geographic boundaries of the institutional cities. Urban systems in this sense overflow beyond the boundaries imposed by socio-political constructs because of a multiplication of scale and expansion of urban development.

2.9 NETWORK SOCIETY 2.8.2 MEGACITY REGION The megacity region represents a loss of control of urban regional growth. This form, primarily prevalent in developing world cities, is at a scale that is often riddled with diseconomies of scale (Hall and Pain, 2003). This form is still dominated by the expansion of a central city and is instead captured in the dynamics of monocentric and dispersed.

2.8.3 NETWORK CITY The network city, finally, is a specific form of city region organization. This form is specific to contexts where there are: • a number of historically distinct cities located in close geographic proximity • a lack of clear leading city which dominates political, cultural and economic policy • a system of independent political entities Network cities are articulated by a multiplicity of urban nodes that often perform subsidiary functions, suggesting a more centralized and polycentric structure as indicated in the chart to the left (Cowell, 2010).

These forms vary in scale and socio-spatial organization

Society since the transition to a Post-Fordist paradigm has continued to evolve. Such evolution implies a similar evolution in the configuration of urban spaces. Internet connectivity and the advent of digital telecommunications technologies have redefined the fundamentals of dayto-day human communication. There is, in this regard, an important social dimension to Internet connectivity, as communication is the fundamental basis of the coordination, development and continuation of modern society. A number of authors offer salient insights into how such technologies are redefining social interaction and sharing.

Manuel Castells has been the most influential thinker on the transformations brought about by digital telecommunications technologies. In his work, The Informational City, Castells introduced the idea of the ‘space of flows’. Castells argues that the digital revolution has allowed the emergence of a networking logic of global development, concluding that dominant functions and processes are increasingly organized the space of flows that digital telecommunications networks make possible.

The space of flows in this regard is an economic space embedded in the global network, with its communications infrastructure, its nodes and hubs, and the organization of the operators who run them. He argues that power resides in the network, not at the nodes, and it cannot be controlled from any individual node. In the opinion of Castells, individual “presence or absence in the network and the dynamics of each network vis-á-vis others are

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critical sources of domination and change in our society�

(Castells, 1996). Inclusion and exclusion in the space of flows determine the position of individuals, households, cities and nations. Regions without proper access to the space of flows will be consigned to a role of economic marginality. In this context, the informational city is not a form but a process characterized by the structural domination of the space of flows (Castells, 1996).

In the opinion of Fernandez Maldonado, the Internet allows users to control and shape technology. Its openness causes the diffusion to the masses resulting in great implications for empowering them and transforming society from the bottom-up (2004). Another result is that digital telecommunications technologies applications make the separation of social interaction from physical copresence possible (Fernandez Moldanado, 2004). These phenomena lead social theorists agree that social relations are transgressing the local boundaries is an essential part in order to understand contemporary societies. When in the past most human activities were confined locally, today a long process of technological progress made it possible for the society to become increasingly more independent of geography which extends our exchanges initiatives and activities to the whole world (Fernandez Maldonado, 2004).

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

....compression of space time and aperceived decrease in distance

urban spaces as intense nodes of exchange in network structure of flows of goods and people

As echoed in the voices of the authors above, the emergence of a network society has allowed for: a compression of perceptions of space and time, a rapid increase in glocal connections, and the emergence of urban spaces that articulated nodes in an otherwise network of flows of information, goods and people. These dynamics are summarized in order in the schemes to the right. glocal connections leading to an increased of multiscale exchange

What emerges from these observations is the model of a hyper connected, Synchronsociety. This paradigm, first asserted by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) reframes and redefines the forms of social interaction in the Internet era.

Figure 2-4 ; schemes indicating the socio-spatial impacts of digital telecommunications technologies

CHAPTER 2: THE EVOLUTION OF URBAN SOCIO-SPATIAL SYSTEMS IN THE MODERN ERA

To briefly explain the below-mentioned concepts, “avatars” refers to a hyper individualization but also multiplication of identities. Users of the Internet can operate and “live” in varying geographic and virtual milieu, participating in multiple and expansive geographic networks.

Figure 2-5 ; a chart representing new forms of collaboration and coordination in network societies

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“Collaboration” instead refers to the ability to reach across wider geographic scales, having a multiplicity of presentences in collective efforts across such wide scales.

“Real Time Data” refers to the fact that online connectivity and the rapidity of online information exchange allows

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for users to not only quantify but continuously update measurements of urban spaces or societal trends. Finally, “flash mobs” instead refers to globally coordinated and locally implemented social movements. These theoretical concepts are linked because they represent efforts to reach across and seek to breakdown imposed geographic boundaries and scales and focus on global social network connectivity and coordination and instead experiment with virtual co-presenence and collaboration. It should be noted that within this scheme, Internet connectivity has allowed for a hyper individualization and globalization of identity and interaction. Information and people are increasingly quantified in flows and exchanges between hyper-connected hubs of spatial and virtual activity.

A common unifying element of the synchronsociety paradigm, however, is the ongoing pertinence of place, with virtual social movements and exchanges building in and acting upon specific spatial dimensions.

The Internet has channeled social means of expression to the individual and global level, challenging and redefining traditional means of information sharing and collaboration. The diagram above evinces an ongoing redefinition of individual and group identity in with the ongoing adoption of and experimentation with Internet connectivity. After having analyzed these ongoing societal transitions, what becomes crucial to understand thus is the spatial articulation and geographies of emerging societal organizations.

2.10 CAPITAL AND CITIES IN THE INFORMATION AGE: THE ISSUE OF BOUNDARIES Much like online connectivity, the emerging spatial organizations of the contemporary city are articulated by spaces of subjective definition of reality. In the same way that web browsers allow users to scroll quickly through extensive sources of online information, the city is now slowly being redefined as an evolving series of experiences in specific, but multiple geographic contexts.

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

The contexts, which at times can be contradictory are referential not to spatial organization, but projections of the individual city users’ perceptions of identity and embeddedness in specific social networks extending well beyond traditional geographic notions of scale. As the user increasingly becomes the point of reference, administrative organizations and geographic boundaries give way to a scale defined by individual social activity and engagement. As identified by Fernandez Maldonando, “the city is not a defined topological entity with a center, periphery and hinterland anymore, but a more complex type of urban phenomenon that comprises processes and activities developed in the real space and in digital space or cyberspace” (2004). This new development of performing urban activities initiated a different system of spatial principles in a city based primarily on the structuring organizational logics of the Information society. The traditional motives, conditions and patterns of mobility are not the same any more. The radius of distribution of work, commercial, residential and recreational activities expands and diffuses in space and time (Fernandez Maldonado, 2004).

While the concept of co-presence morphs traditional geographic conceptions of scale, Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin in their book Telecommunications and The City note that the spatial fix of digital telecommunications cannot be negated. They note that, “telecommunications can help to stimulate more travel as cheaper and more accessible forms of communication generate new demands for the physical movement of goods and people” (Graham and Marvin, 1996). The paradox of such stimulated demand is that, “although telecommuting and teleworking initiatives may be able to help reduce levels of peak time congestion, they have a multitude of second order effects” (Graham and Marvin, 1996). The teleworker has to heat his or her home and workplace, generates and demands the creation of new transit infrastructure, meaning that digital telecommunications “do not necessarily lead to reductions in material flows through cities” (Graham and Marvin, 1996).

Although digital telecommunications do not have a primary

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impact on spatial configurations, their use and adaptation have indirect impacts on flows of information, goods and individuals. The spatial fix of digital telecommunications technologies is primarily a function of their impact on socio-spatial movement and exchange that now operate at glocal scales. With “little respect for the barriers of space and time” digital telecommunications infrastructure is the “spaceless” “silent” infrastructure that is giving new shapes to cities (Graham and Marvin, 1996). “Most weave unseen through the fabric of cities” but structure new physical and virtual flows that seemingly divide urban systems in “fragments” through the process of scale definition (Graham and Marvin, 1996). City economies and urban systems are thus becoming fragmented collections of nodes distributed in regional, national and international networks, posing specific problems to urban governance in the realms of global competitiveness and place-making.

Virtual networks, through their power to restructure flows of information and people thus inform and give shape to physical urban networks.

Bertolini and Dijst, in their 2003 work, Mobility Environments and Network Cities, point this emerging relevance of digital telecommunications technologies and need for planners to act within “mobility environments”. These milieu are characterized as of layered nodes socio-spatial in multiple networks and flows of people, goods and information. Such mobility environments, like train stations, airports, motor service areas, urban public squares and parks, articulate the “increasingly borderless nature of the contemporary city” (Bertolini and Dijst, 2003). Such layered socio-spatial meaning allows for “each individual, group or organization to increasingly create his own virtual city which has no set physical or administrative boundaries, but is rather a specific and changeable combination of activity places connect by transport networks within definite socioeconomic and behavioural constraints” (Bertolini and Dijst, 2003). Such multiplicity of place and identity, in their opinion requires planners in their opinion to look beyond traditional geographic scales, focusing instead on “physical and social connectivity” to stimulate and enliven

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urban spaces. What is required is the planning for flexible nodes that ultimately allow for a “temporal specialization” and reappropriation of space by the individual user. For Bertolini and Dijst, the role of the planner is not to operate in specific urban spatial organizations or tissues, but rather places of overlapping systems of information exchange and movement that are articulated at varying geographic scales.

Finally, in his book, E-Topia, William Mitchell also elaborates the socio-spatial dialectic of emerging network societies and more specifically cities. Mitchell paints a picture of how society will evolve given the diffusion of digital telecommunications technologies, describing everything from the reconfiguration of everyday appliances to the adaptation and reuse of urban public in this digital age.

In the twenty-first century, Mitchell asserts, “high-speed, digital communications infrastructure will refashion the urban patterns that emerged from nineteenth and twentieth century transportation, water supply and waste removal, electric power supply and telephone networks” (Mitchell, 2000). Such digital telecommunications technologies not only will reconfigure spatial arrangements, but similarly have an impact on social communication.

Urban spatial “rearrangements” are in part a result of social rearrangements given innovations in digital communications technologies. Mitchell asserts that,

digital telecommunications thus extends and intensifies the earlier effect of transportation networks, mail systems, the telegraph and the telephone. It serves as a mechanism for economic and social integration on a large geographic scale, cutting across traditional political borders... it proliferates tertiary social relationships (2000).

This increase in intensity of collaboration and communication directly has an impact on the perception of scale. Mitchell goes on to assert that,

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THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

boundaries of large-scale civic units – cities, metropolitan regions, and even nation-states – are being contested at many levels…global information flows are reducing the importance of old political borders and diminishing the effectiveness of physical public space in producing and representing internal social integration… (2000).

“Traditional” boundaries do not have the same social relevance in the Internet era, with social relations between individuals across wider geographic scales increasing.

This increase is accompanied by a densification of local information exchange and collaboration. Intensified online information and communication networks also require a place of meeting and face-to-face communication. “We still need agoras”, Mitchell asserts, making the case that planning in the internet age is charged with accommodating new and complex combinations of the physical and the virtual. While individuals creatively adapt spaces to suite this burgeoning needs, it becomes the role of planning institutions to understand and respond to such creative adaptation with supporting policy and project initiatives.

Mitchell, during the course of his discussion of E-Topia, closes with a cautionary note. He asserts that, “longestablished settlement patterns and social arrangements are remarkably resistant to even the powerful pressures for change; mostly they transform slowly, messily, unevenly, and incompletely, and human nature hardly alters at all” (Mitchell, 2000). People and spaces can thus be reconfigured and adapted to ongoing shifts in digital communications technologies; this being said, this process of ongoing change is by no way linear or even.

Moving forward, the specific aim of this thesis is to chart urban socio-spatial evolution in the twentieth century, to ultimately identify where there is a “messy” and “uneven” transition, where social constructs do not service the needs of spatial systems, and finally how innovations in digital telecommunications can be used in project scenarios to mitigate this mismatch. In light of Mitchell’s arguments, the thesis will aim to document how infrastructural

Figure 2-6 ; a historic map depicting the positions of telegraph cables

Figure 2-7 ; a map of world digital teleconnectivity traffic

Figure 2-8 ; a map of North American digital teleconnectivity Figure 2-9 ; a map of European digital teleconnectivity traffic traffic

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changes induce shifts and modifications in existing governance network and similarly how infrastructural projects can be used to induce shifts but also provide for new multifunctional/ multidimensional “agora”.

2.11 THE SCALAR DILEMMA FOR GOVERNANCE Contemporary urban forms preclude an expansion of functional geographic scale. What has emerged in the Post-Fordist and Network Society era is growth and development beyond the socio-spatial boundaries and conceptions of what is traditionally defined as a “the city”.

As polycentric and regional urban systems begin to emerge and become the dominant organizational of paradigm of capital, a question unfolds: how to govern and regulate such a new scale of activity? Are contemporary modes of regulation adequate for dealing with the emerging spatial organizations of the network society?

While in a Schumpeterian Leap technological change induces a crisis in modes of capital accumulation and regulation, both elements of capital organization often to not shift cohesively. This is to say that, although urban systems are indeed responding to and shifting in light of technological change, regulatory institutions may not have made a shift to meet the needs and encourage the perpetuation of the new paradigm. In light of this observation, another question unfolds: has the institutional city not yet caught up to the functional city in the PostFordist Era? Brenner, in his 1998 work, “Global Cities, glocal states: global city formation and state territorial restructuring in contemporary Europe”, offers insight into the implications of technological shift on the institutional organization and shift in institutional organization of urban systems.

He notes that, “the scales of capital accumulation have never corresponded exactly with those of state territorial organization, but the most recent round of globalization has intensified this scalar disjuncture to a historically

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unprecedented degree” (Brenner, 1998). It is in the opinion of Brenner, that the social aspects of capital formations are driven by and constantly challenge and reshape “configurations of territorial organization on differential spatial scales (1998). While the scales of capital and state territorial organization have never “exactly” corresponded, Brenner notes that a,

reduction in the scale of regulatory-institutional organization increases the power of capital over space and constrains the command of territorially-organized interests to control territorial organization. Scale reduction, therefore, reconfigures the boundaries of territorial organizational principles and intensifies interterritorial struggle (1998).

The footloose nature of capital in the Post-Fordist and Network Society era is driving a system of inter urban competition based on relative regional agglomerative amenities of urbanized areas. While the power exerted by capital is apparent, what is not apparent is the reason for the impotency of urban institutional constructs in solving what are becoming increasingly regional organizational problems. It thus becomes important to exam Brenner’s notion of the “reduction of scale” of urban institutions.

While arguments have been made that the increasingly fragmentation of urban institutions contributes to regional stagnancy and stunted regional economic growth, the reason for such a perception of fragmentation could be explained by a number of factors. This reduction of scale in this sense could either mean the fragmentation of existing urban governance networks or the relative increase in scale and growth of urban spatial organizations as evinced in the Post-Fordist Era. It becomes critical to also chart the evolution of urban governance and institutional evolution in the Post-Fordist era to understand from where and why this seeming mismatch between institutional and functional space has occurred.

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2.12 CONCLUSION Chapter Two has been dedicated to charting and understanding the mechanisms of evolution of urban social and spatial systems. As urban systems have moved and evolved through epochs of capital organization, new forms of spatial organization respond to societal functional needs.

Capital informing ongoing evolution in urban socio-spatial systems, digital telecommunications technologies, is not primary structuring infrastructure as in past epochs, but rather an infrastructure that forms and reshapes movement, having a secondary impact on urban spaces. It has been shown that the scale of urbanization has moved beyond traditional spatial boundaries, multiplied to regional and glocal scales, and entered into a virtual dimension of social network and information exchange. This scale has been shown to disregard existing local institutional boundaries and poses organizational challenges to local governance organizations.

In emerging urban regional systems, strategic problems are posed to governance organizations primarily based on controlling and collaborating in define geographic jurisdictions. Chapter Three will exam the historic experimentation with scale expansion of urban governance systems. It will detail and expand upon the historical experiences and failures of metropolitan governance. An ultimate claim will be made that there is still a mismatch to between urban functional and urban institutional space that needs to be reckoned with at the end of the chapter.

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

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3

WHITHER METROPOLITAN GOVERNANCE?

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3.1 INTRODUCTION The first chapter of this thesis was dedicated to a general overview of the theoretical and organizational framework.

The second chapter of this thesis was instead dedicated to charting the evolution of urban socio-spatial systems across time. The Fordist and Post-Fordist city, and the emergence of the mega-city region and network city were discussed to better paint a picture of the opportunities and constraints facing planners working in modern urban systems.

The third chapter of this thesis will focus on the problems faced by urban governance networks in light of changes and shifts in the socio-spatial configuration of modern urban systems. The concept of “mismatch” will be introduced and discussed to highlight the differences between functional capacity of urban systems and the institutional organizational capacity of urban governance networks.

While the city exists as rich territorial system, it will be argued that the scale of intervention of urban governance networks is limited to more localized boundaries, thus rendering urban governance networks ineffective in the dealing with more complex, systemic urban problems in issues of transportation planning, economic development and social equity issues now operating at regional scales.

Chapter Three will be an overview of the scholarly debate concerning metropolitan government and governance in the modern era. This debate will serve to develop a number of main issues in governance and strategic planning related to the premises of this thesis.

The common structural threads of Chapter Three are

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

a survey of the experimentation with different scales of governments and government giving the evolution of urban form. While a specific type of urban region and network city has emerged, Chapter Three proposes that the evolution and initial failure of metropolitan governance is the result of a “scalar dilemma” of intervention that is still being mitigated through new experiments in metropolitan planning and governance.

3.2 METROPOLITAN SYSTEMS

GOVERNANCE

AND

URBAN

Chapter Three of this thesis will move from a general discussion of the functional organizations of modern urban systems and their evolution throughout time, to a more specific discussion about a specific social and regulatory component operating in functional urban systems: government and governance networks. As was discussed in Chapter Two of this thesis, the socio-spatial organization of modern urban systems has evolved into a hyper-connected, polycentric, urban region. Functioning as a productive system of goods and service exchange at local and global levels, cities have evolved to meet and encompass the scale economies of their economic and social outputs. Social constructs imbedded in these functional systems so too have evolved across time.

With the expansion of geographic spatial scale of urban systems, so too has the social scale and consciousness of their functional organization been expanded. Thus, with the expansion and development of the city as a polycentric mega region, urban governance networks have attempted to respond to the greater needs of a larger functional

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FIgure 3-1 ; a schematic depiction of the role of infrastructure in the growth and development of urban regions, adapted from the works of Pinzon Cortes entitled Mapping Urban For Morphology: Studies in the Contemporary Urban Landscape, TU Delft, 2009.

system with the concept of “metropolitan government”.

Neil Brenner, in his work, Globalisation as Reterritorialisation: The Re-scaling of Urban Governance in the European Union, highlights the socio-economic importance of a congruency between “functional” and “institutional” systems in urban regions. Brenner asserts that technology and social change induce evolution in the urban system and thus a need for institutional change.

The development of an increasingly interconnected global economy superimposes a new layer of sociospatial meaning and spaces on cities. Development induces an evolution in the functional organization of the urban system. This new socio-spatial layer has similarly a given form shaped by contemporary technological inputs, the needs which need to be reckoned with by governance networks to promote healthy and stable regional economies. Technology, or capital, is imbedded in complex and fixed territorial systems, but also influences and shapes the needs to be met by governance networks.

Cities, he asserts,

territorialize capital through their agglomeration of

relatively fixed and immobile infrastructures such as transport systems, energy supplies, communications networks and other externalities that underpin historically specific forms of production, exchange, distribution and consumption (Brenner, 1998).

The “restlessly transformative dynamics” of capital, through structuring urban regional systems, constantly induce evolutionary changes in these very systems, as was discussed in Chapter Two. This is because capital “renders its own historically specific geographical preconditions obsolete, inducing a wave of restructuring to reterritorialise” the socio-spatial organization of the urban system. The city is not a fixed system, but rather a system of constant flux and evolution of capital. “Territorially fixed state institutions” aiming to control and coordinate capital investment remain the “scaffolding within and through which differential forms of capital are successively de and re-territorialized” (Brenner, 1998). While technological change through capital investment changes the sociospatial form of urban systems, it similarly induces the same evolutionary activity in institutions that serves

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as the very backbone of their existence. The change in functional organization of urban governance is reflected in the Fordist and Post-Fordist epochs discussed in the previous chapter of this thesis. While in the Fordist era metropolitan governance and government was “a vertical, coordinative and redistributive relationship within a national administrative hierarchy” the retrenchment of the welfare state and the transition to a Post-Fordist, global economy induced a shift to “a horizontal, competitive and developmentalist relationship between sub-national economic territories battling against one another” (Brenner, 2003).

Both Lefebvre and Brenner assert the need for an urban

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institution that can effectively act upon and within the functional urban system. Technological change has induced the evolution of urban socio-spatial systems, requiring institutions to respond in evolving bundles of jurisdictions and service provisions with “the historical evolution of metropolitan institutional arrangements being closely intertwined with successive phases of capitalist organization” (Brenner, 2003). Lefebvre and Brenner also touch upon observations that modern metropolitan planning institutions are facing new challenges in sociospatial organization and service provision deriving from the development of a hyperconnected and globalized economy. Today, cities influenced by global “capital” provision at a regional scale, this often requires action outside their established administrative boundaries. While in the Fordist Era such geographic productive restrictions were mitigated by the outright expansion of the boundaries of the city (colonizing and securing resources in the hinterland), today such expansion is limited by a retrenched sense of localism. The expansionist city being fed by a vast hinterland progressively incorporated within its boundaries is no longer a paradigm that captures the global dynamics of capital organization in urban regional systems.

3.3 METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT GOVERNANCE: AN OVERVIEW

FIgure 3-2 ; a schematic representation of the urban regions showing superimposed ayers of urbanized space, government boundaries and infrastructure

AND

According to Lefebvre, a metropolitan government is the overarching authority of a wider city region, or metropolitan area. The notable characteristics of a “metropolitan government” are the fact that such government entities: “have strong political legitimacy…and meaningful autonomy from both senior governments and local authorities… wide ranging jurisdiction and ‘relevant’ territorial cover consisting of the functional urban area” (1998). A metropolitan government is thus the overarching institution charged with the organizational and strategic planning of a wider city region, the “functional geography” and “economic footprint of the city (Turok, 2009).

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While various names and definitions have been given to describe the form of metropolitan government and governance networks, what remains certain is the need for a form of “metropolitan government” in a functional city region. As asserted by Lefebvre in his 1998 work, Metropolitan Government and Governance in Western Countries, A Critical Review, “there is a need to make the urban institutional system correspond to the economic and social development of cities”. Metropolitan governments that first emerged in the Fordist era capturing this dynamic being that they reflect an organization based on,

large units of government are more efficient in the production of a certain number of services because they can take advantage of the vast economies of scale that a vast territory and large population can afford them.

In addition, “larger metropolitan government structures” during the Fordist era, “allowed resources to be better distributed within the territory, and their planning ability makes the localization facilities, activites and housing more harmonious” (Lefebvre, 1998). Lefebvre thus claims that there is an “economies of scale” of social “goods” provision that, in a functional urban region, can only be met by some sort of metropolitan regional government structure.

To meet such needs, Lefebvre goes on to make a number of policy recommendations about the ideal institutional organization of regional governments and governance networks, based on his supposition that “institutional” and “functional” systems must somehow overlap to ultimately provide for the well-being of the urban region’s inhabitants (1998). He first makes the assertion that metropolitan governments must be “powerful, autonomous and legitimate” (Lefebvre, 2002). “Powerful” implies “responsibility and financial means attributed to government”, while, “autonomy” implies “capacity to implement policy relative to spheres of authority in territories they control” (Lefebvre, 1998). “Legitimacy” instead implies, the recognition of metropolitan

31

government authority through “the direct election of executives” (Lefebvre, 1998). What remains certain is that to accomplish the economies of scale in service provision at a regional level, the metropolitan government must have some level overarching authority over local governments.

This authority is derived both from legal concessions and frameworks and socio-cultural norms whereby individual citizens recognize and are loyal to the institutional authority of the wider organization.

In terms of functional organization Lefebvre goes on to assert that governments can either be structured as “supramunicipal” bodies or “intermunicipal bodies” (1998).

“Supramunicipal” refers to a government organization that is an overarching authority in a metropolitan area, wielding power that overrides local interests for the sake of wider metropolitan goods and services. English metropolitan counties, observes Lefebvre, are one of the best examples of this form of governmental organization. “Intermunicipal bodies” represent in practice more of a collaborative planning process between local municipalities and governments at the metropolitan level. This is because “intermunicipal bodies” often derive power and legitimacy from member institutions and because they “rarely have financial autonomy” (Lefebvre, 1998). These metropolitan councils were composed of officials directly elected from local municipalities and wield wider organizational and collaborative powers in transportation planning, waste disposal and water management, public transit and urban planning. In Lefebvre’s opinion, metropolitan governments derive their power from being the sum of individual local parts. Whether this is enshrouded in an overarching regional body or collaborative network of local municipalities, there remains an important interplay between local and regional needs provision.

Lefebvre closes his discussion about the need and organization for metropolitan government with a number of cautionary notes about why metropolitan governments could, in theory, fail. Metropolitan governments are only truly “legitimate” if “the population recognizes itself in

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them and identifies with them” (Lefebvre, 1998). What remains crucial in this regard is the “recognition” of the metropolitan government’s authority by citizens, local authorities and “pressure groups” in the area. Lefebvre observes, however, that “existing local governments always have looked unfavorably upon the appearance of new autonomous and powerful political structures in a given territorial organization that would call into question the legitimacy and authority of the existing system” (1998).

Lefebvre ends his remarks with a cautionary quote highlighting the importance of metropolitan government.

He states that,

if the central cities agree to play the game, it is because they are now aware that they need the peripheries in order to develop, or quite simply to keep their place, in the ranks of world cities. The urban hierarchy of today is international. The globalization of the economy has once again meant that the economy and functional considerations are factors which make the introduction of metropolitan governments necessary, no longer to provide urban services, but infrastructures and facilities that a world metropolis, a European town, must have if it wishes to continue to play a major international role (1998).

Lefebvre, in this statement recalls that it is precisely for the sake of economic competitiveness and continued development in a globally competitive market that collaborative metropolitan planning must be considered as essential in polycentric urban regions. Given the evolution of urban systems into polycentric urban regions, the re-emergence of metropolitan governments and governance systems is crucial for continued socioeconomic competitiveness in a globalized economy.

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3.4 LOCALIST INTERESTS AND THE REBUTTAL TO METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT The rise and construction of metropolitan governance networks and collaboration, though needed given the socio-spatial evolution of urban systems, has run aground on a number of socio-political debates. One of the most crucial obstacles standing in the way of the construction of more cohesive metropolitan governance networks, as discussed in the previous paragraph, is the resurgence of a more “localist” response to the question of urban service provision. As was mentioned by Lefebvre “center cities… are now aware that they need their peripheries in order to develop…and keep their place the world economy” (2002).

That being said, the metropolitan scale of intervention and urban governance during the Fordist era, though functional in that epoch, lost legitimacy as it did not embody the institutional tools need int the Post-Fordist era. Under Fordist modes of accumulation and regulation, there was a constant redistribution of economic development across metropolitan areas, with interventions being implemented in ascribed and defined geographic areas. As economies and modes of accumulation have shifted, Post-Fordist regimes articulated the need to enhance and stimulate globally competitive place-making initiatives to attract capital and generate endogenous economic growth.

With an evolution to a Post-Fordist capital regime and retrenchment of the Fordist welfare state, there is a friction of modes of regulation and modes of accumulation of two diverging regimes in juxtaposing spatial organizations.

Localist planning is thus a response to the inequities and inefficiencies generated by past, authoritative and redistributive metropolitan planning institutions and an effort to cope with Fordist, Keynesian welfare state service retrenchment.

Localist policy agendas in response to metropolitan government coordination have arisen for a number of reasons. Supporters of a localist agenda claim that the “incentive for participation is in immediate neighborhoods” is “strongest” and note that “informal contacts” between

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citizens and officials at a local level constitute a stronger form of political action than “voting alone” (Cashin, 2000).

Local governments, similarly, would be more efficient to compete for “consumer voters” through the best bundle of “service provision, generating a mosaic of local choice at the metropolitan level. Finally, the “alienation” of the individual in the metropolitan community is mitigated by more local forms of civic participation. Local commitments and interests, thus generate local political participation and an active local citizenry. The torch of localism in the 20th century was thus taken up as a socio-political response to the authoritative and seemingly mechanical nature of central city and metropolitan government organizations.

In her 2002 work, Addressing the Barriers to New Regionalism, Sheryll Cashin presents the normative case for enhancing the power of local municipal organizations.

One of the most interesting arguments put forth by Cashin is the conviction that families in suburbia sought to use local municipal incorporation to control local development and prevent the expansion of larger central city neighbors.

Local zoning codes, in response to the expansionist nature of Fordist city governments, was encouraged by state and national law specifically in the United States (Cahsin, 2000). In juxtaposition to the seemingly unwieldy and corrupt central city political systems, local governments were seen as an ideal level of service provision because they provide the most direct forum for democratic participation, the most “efficient” form of service provision and the strongest generator of a sense of feeling (2000). As the scale and interventions of metropolitan administrations became more detached from day to day functions of urban systems, they began to lose the legitimacy of recognition by the local populace, inciting local protective measures to encourage endogenous economic growth and ensure a sustained quality of life and public administrative services.

3.5 NEW REGIONALISM: LOCALIZED REGIONALISM? The Post-Fordist era of metropolitan planning was marked by a mismatch and friction of regional policy with local

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needs. The inability of local governments to respond to the authority of regional governance networks results in an exacerbation of geographies of socio-economic despair at the metropolitan level. Attention to context in this regard is crucial to the success of regional projects imbedded in the local urban areas. At the same time, as observed by Brenner, the evolution of technology has lead to a shift in the development of functional urban systems. Central city governments are recognizing the fact that competitiveness and urban vitality in a global era are indelibly tied to the capacity to mobilize initiatives that integrate regional economies of scale into one functional urban system (Brenner, 2003). The torch of localism was taken up as a response to the seemingly mechanical functional organization and image of the metropolitan city; as the power of metropolitan authorities being progressively dismantled, urban regional policy coordination faded from political conscious and concern. That being said, central city governments are increasingly being confronted with constraints in the form of ascribed geographic boundaries to their institutional spheres of influence and the limitations of such localist tendencies in urban policy formation.

These constraints in collaboration and service provision now in turn translate into constraints in “promoting the territorial competitiveness and attracting external capital investment” (Brenner, 2003). Brenner thus notes that,

the defeat of more comprehensive metropolitan reform initiatives has generated a new momentum for compromise solutions that address regional governance problems through informal partnerships, interorganizational coordination and public-private cooperation (2003).

The seeming paralysis of metropolitan governance and service provision because of local institutional fragmentation, however, still needs to be addressed. While in the past metropolitan governance organization solutions have tended toward Lefebvre’s concept of “supramunicipal” organization, today, solutions are instead being generated based on the “intermunicipal model”. Politicians, planners

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THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

and scholars have realized that, in order to generate a sense of identification from individual citizens with more extensive levels and geographies of institutional organization requires the activation of civic participation and collaboration deriving from primary local self interest. New Regionalism “accepts the futility of seeking consolidated metropolitan” government and instead focuses on “attempts to bridge metropolitan social and fiscal inequities with regional governance structures, or for a for robust collaboration that do not completely supplant local governments” (Cashin, 2002). Projects respond to localist issues concerning the determination of community self interest by operating in governance projects that derive from “grass roots coalitions” and policies of “smart growth and sustainable development” (Cashin, 2002). The notion that individual action has a regional impact and that no community can truly “go it alone” in stemming issues of pollution and traffic congestion becomes in this sense a starting off point for more collaborative policy initiatives at the metropolitan level. The resulting governance network is one that emerges “as a product of the system of actors as the process of institutional reform unfolds” (Brenner, 2003), without prescriptively emanating from higher levels of government.

3.6 INSTITUTIONAL PROBLEM AT HAND

“FRAGMENTATION”:

THE

It can be concluded that there has been a historically evolutionary cycle where by local administrations retrench in local interests in service provision because there is a vacuum of such services emanating from a regional level, rebuffing power for the sake of local socioeconomic interest. While local interests retrench and drawn distinct boundaries to buffer against the clout of central cities in the forms of local zoning codes and transit policy, central cities instead are vying and negotiating with the very same peripheral local governments to support regional projects outside their circumscribed boundaries. City governments mismatch regional and local interests, asserting in

some ways and neglecting in others. Local governments respond by retrenching in their circumscribed powers and providing local services. As urban areas continue to grow and develop, this cycle is multiplied at the periphery.

Without an overarching regional government coordinating policy, local jurisdictions respond by incorporating local government policies to ensure quality of life and service provision. Growth and development of metropolitan areas in a context of a lack of policy coordination, thus leads to further fragmentation (Carruthers, 2003). As a result, central cities remain with their hands tied, in need of providing infrastructural and services at a regional level to foster economic vitality in increasingly regional urban productive and social systems, but only being to act within their jurisdictions.

This cycle that has paralyzed urban regional governance is known as “fragmentation” of local governance system.

Many scholars of urban regional governance have alluded to such fragmentation and the dangers that it presents in terms of long term socioeconomic vitality, but solutions to such a problem remain limited. While there have been some successful experiments in the implementation of intramunicipal, collaborative, New Regionalist policy, city regional planning institutions today still face institutional barriers.

The cautionary words of scholars like Lefebvre and Brenner, however, serve as tools for first, dissecting the problem of institutional fragmentation then generating possible policy solutions. The issue of institutional fragmentation arises from a mismatch between the functional urban region and the institutional urban region, with populations recognizing the legitimacy of local governments over regional authorities. Brenner notes that, “the process of globalization is creating denser socio-economic interdependencies on urban regional scales that generally supersede the reach of these (local) administrative levels” (1998). In his opinion, “geographic scales come to operate as sites and stakes of socio-political struggle” presupposing “a relatively fixed urban and regional jurisdictional framework” within which “the regulatory preconditions for capitalist urbanization

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are secured” (Brenner, 1998). This is to say that governments and governance networks are products of local and regional socio-political and economic dynamics, responding to and reflecting the needs of the functional urban system. Localist and “fragmentative” policy is an institutional response and defense to preconceived notions of metropolitan governance; they represent an enduring culture of response and reaction to the past mismanaging of metropolitan governance. Defusing the arguments in favor of localism thus requires a tailoring of regional collaborative efforts to suit local needs.

3.7 CONCLUSION While experimentation with local regionalism is generating momentum, new outlets need to be generated to continue political progress that has been made. While such outlets will be discussed in the following chapter of this thesis, what can be concluded from research conducted in chapters two and three thus far is that: • Fragmentation is caused by the fact that, as cities grow, institutions have not caught up with the new complexities posed by contemporary urban systems. In the past there has been a parallel evolution between urban spaces and planning institutions. This is to say that, with the evolution of more complex spatial forms, governance institutions have evolved for needed organizational and coordination activity. Today, as cities grow and develop, governance institutions have not been able to account or plan for growing complexity of urban socio-spatial forms.

As observed by Fernandez Maldonando, contemporary urban governance built on the management of nodes; of urban centers; and of the control and forming of spaces in these nodes; with flows projecting well beyond these boundaries in the ICT error, new problems arise for local governments in managing urban planning issues again. There is a friction of regimes, with the evolution into a “space of flows” without a resulting evolution of governance (2004). The result is a fragmented system

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of spaces and governance networks needing and often failing to coordinate in metropolitan planning initiatives.

• It is the fragmentation of government institutions and spatial systems leads to problems in the conception of metropolitan urban projects and mismatch between institutional and functional urban systems. The evolution of contemporary cityscapes is the product of complex processes of growth and development. The city has grown and developed into an urban system, an amalgamation of spaces and places, functionally linked by transportation and digital telecommunications infrastructure and regionally distributed beyond core urban area boundaries. The functional reach of this system passes well beyond the form currently being acted within. While there is a need for projects that service this metropolitan dimension of urban living, currently there are no institutions capable of proposing, developing or generating consensus around such needs. While boundaries on a map do not reflect the functioning and complexity of contemporary urban systems, governance structures of these spatial artifices lack the tools and know how needed to deal with such complexity.

• Conflict and deadlock among actors derives from the need to work within dated institutions to plan for regional issues and a constant vying for power within dated institutional constructs. Governance tools and practices inherited from antiquated government constructs do not reflect the complex realities of contemporary urban systems. There is however a retrenchment of control on the part of governance institutions and vying to maintain pertinence in an otherwise constantly evolving context.

Contemporary urban systems are built on the exchange of services and ideas in the knowledge economy and hyper-connected through innovations in transportation and communication technology. The Internet is growing as a tool of communication and exchange between city governments, citizens, visitors and businesses and the

36

base at which this knowledge economy functions. External linkages and internal divisions in urban systems are growing.

There is, however, no spatial or governance dimension to reflect and ascribe this shift in functional organization and problem framework being accounted for by current paradigms. While current strategies of intervention do not meet the exigencies of such a constantly developing and evolving spatial form, urban projects servicing this need could serve as the “service� generated by metropolitan governments to meet an ongoing need.

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4

NETWORK GOVERNANCE

40

4.1 INTRODUCTION The first half of this thesis was dedicated to understanding the impacts that society has on space, studying such evolution through the theoretical lens of the socio-spatial dialectic. The first chapter of this thesis presented an organizational structure for later arguments made. The second chapter of this thesis charted the evolutionary trend and nexus between space and society, providing evidence that societal changes shape urban spatial forms and governance patterns and vice versa. Chapter Two depicted and discussed the changes to urban spaces and urban governance networks in the modern era. The third chapter of this thesis focused on the problems faced by urban governance networks in light of changes and shifts in the socio-spatial configuration of modern urban systems.

The concept of “mismatch� was introduced and discussed to highlight the differences between functional capacity of urban governance networks and the organization of the spatial system in which they operate. While the city exists as rich territorial system, it was argued that the scale of intervention of urban governance networks is limited to more localized boundaries, thus rendering urban governance networks ineffective in the dealing with more complex, systemic urban problems.

The second half of this thesis, starting with Chapter Four, is instead dedicated to studying the impact that urban spatial organization has on urban social configuration. The fourth chapter of this thesis will move from a discussion of problems to a discussion policy processes in urban regional governance network reconfiguration. It will propose that emerging urban regional forms require and

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compel institutions to move toward a network governance framework to establish cross-jurisdictional solutions to the problems of metropolitan fragmentation. The chapter will propose a theoretical framework for understanding the activities of mitigation in a system of functional mismatch discussed in the previous chapter. It will show that, through the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies, governance networks can affectively adapt to and mitigate the problem of mismatch by changing the dimension, scale and scope of their operations. Specific examples of how digital telecommunications technologies induce changes in governance systems and change the roles of actors in governance networks will be discussed.

It will ultimately be proven that the installation of digital telecommunication technologies and the servicing of urban regional populations induces shifts in scale of urban regional actor networks, mitigating the mismatch between institutional and functional regional systems.

Information and theoretical frameworks constructed in the following chapters of this thesis derive from literary research and direct observation based on interviews with relevant actors in the region of Emilia Romagna.

Voices and perceptions of these actors will provide a first understanding of reconfiguring of urban regional actor networks. Case explorations will specify these observations in Chapter Five of the thesis.

4.2 THESIS HYPOTHESIS Purely metropolitan or purely local government and governance models do not fit the socio-spatial complexities

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of city regional dynamics now as “cross jurisdictional problems require cross jurisdictional solutions” (Katz, 2000). This is because, as noted by Brenner, “local government boundaries do not necessarily coincide with the fluid zones of urban labor and commodity markets or infrastructural formation… local jurisdictions frequently divide rather than unify the urban region, thus emphasizing the segmentations rather than the tendency toward structured coherence and class alliance formation” (2003). There exists a need to bring region wide problems and projects to move the debate forward and generate this cross-jurisdictional collaboration.

It is the opinion of the researchers of this thesis that digital telecommunications technologies are an “open source infrastructure”, whose installation, use and modification is managed by individual users. Governance, making use of this infrastructure can too move to be “open sourced” responding to social rather than geographic realities.

Making use of such initiatives, urban regional governance networks can respond to populations AND places, by acting beyond traditional geographic boundaries. Using evolving urban spatial systems and technological innovations to redefine existing governance networks induces changes in scale and scope of policy intervention. Such change is achieved through enhancing coordination in regional governance networks without creating new layers of government.

4.3 METROPOLITAN PLANNING FRAGMENTED CONTEXTS

STRATEGY

metropolitan government becomes intermunicipal metropolitan governance coordination, with objects of policy shifting from places to places and populations for service provision.

4.3.1 REGIONAL COORDINATION, LOCAL PROJECTS Emerging urban regional forms that multiply and layer social spatial scale and meaning require a similar shift in scales of governance. As the scale and complexities of urban systems increase, so to does the creativity of governance networks need to increase to promote projects and collaboration at the functional urban region level. Local boundaries and localist governance tendencies, institutional legacies from past epochs of capital organization, limit such regional planning initiatives. The resulting fragmented governance context leads to inefficiencies and overlaps in service provision and the exacerbation of socio-spatial inequality at the metropolitan scale.

To balance out the multi-scalar exigencies of urban regional systems, regional collaboration and coordination

FOR

Mismatch of urban functional and urban institutional systems requires multi-scalar coordination approach focusing on populations. The tools to arrive to new forms of collaboration are instead embodied in network governance strategies that combine regional coordination and local articulation of policy in cross-jurisdictional projects. Shifts focus on a change in scale and scope of metropolitan and urban regional policy intervention. Supramunicipal

Figure 4-1 ; schematic representation of the integration of regional coordination with locally articulated projects

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efforts have to be complimented by and articulated with local project interventions.

Regionally coordinated and locally articulated policy and project initiatives are effective in mitigating the challenges of governance fragmentation because they promote cross-jurisdictional collaboration through a mechanism that comprises regional and local interests in intermunicipal metropolitan planning contexts. While a regional vision concerning urban project implementation and coordination efforts is crucial, it can also limit the attention of larger scale governance networks to local interests and local urban socio-spatial specificities. Local governance networks conversely are capable of capturing such sociospatial specificities, but lack the vision and power needed to effectively impact the “bigger picture�. The merging of the two thus incorporates needed intermunicipal (and not supramunicipal) collaboration with scale initiatives at the local level that generate a local sense of identification with ongoing projects.

Such a general policy goal is a summation of complicated processes of communication and collaboration, involving regional networks of interaction, information exchange and coordination between local and regional actors. Strategies work in an in between scale that is neither regional nor local, operating in policy space of overlapping regional jurisdictions to cover populations of users. Policies operate at a none-scale that engages varying levels of urban actor networks in the co-creation of a specific, urban regional planning agenda.

4.3.2 POPULATION ORIENTED SERVICES As was noted by Knox and Pinch and demonstrated in the first chapters of this thesis, societal changes induce an evolution of space through a process of functional adaptation and appropriation. Such activity is conversely complimented by space inducing a reorganization of societal constructs. Presenting new organizational

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

challenges, emerging spaces generate new urban social organizations to eventually be responded to with specific services by urban governance networks. Modes of capital accumulation require a shift in modes of capital regulation in evolving urban systems.

Working on interfaces with urban populations builds legitimacy and recognition of the regional project and provides for a local identification with new regional collaborative entities. In the case of the emerging urban regional systems, it has been demonstrated that existing boundaries do not respond to regional needs. Urban systems are evolving to a regional scale with glocallylinked users that often traverse institutional boundaries in daily life patterns. The concept of citizen has morphed into a concept of user of multiple and overlapping territorial socio-spatial systems. The movement of people and exchange of ideas compels government to shift to meet and service urban regional needs.

In an effort to respond to emerging spatial systems and operating at a regional and local scale, urban regional governance networks must be linked to space through imagining and responding to user populations, and not just places. Populations operate at an urban regional scale; in an effort to circumvent the constraints of boundaries, interventions servicing populations and the needs of populations will in turn continue to redefine space. h Regional solutions linked with local project articulations must focus on first defining then providing for key urban regional populations for policy implementation.

Responses to these populations morph the scale and scope of governance interventions and ultimate induces government to respond to the complexities of emerging urban regional systems.

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Figure 4-2 ; a schematic representation of the role of the movement of populations in redefining governance network boundaries

4.4 DIGITAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES AS BOUNDARY OBJECTS The complexities of interconnectivity deriving from the adoption of digital telecommunications technologies can serve as a powerful tool in aiding the reconfiguation of region governance coordination to focus both on multiple scales of intervention and user populations to ultimately mitigate the problem of regional governance mismatch.

As was presented in the quote of Saint Exupéry at the beginning of this thesis, common projects create new collective identities. Digital telecommunications technologies serve not just as a tool to enhance connectivity and collaboration in urban regional policy, but also an object of collective experimentation, dialogue and debate amongst regional and local actors to reconfigure and expand urban governance networks. In the same way that such technologies induce changes in urban spatial dimensions, digital telecommunications technologies also induce changes in the configuration and the activity of urban governance networks to respond to the needs of

functional urban regional systems.

The socio-organizational theory of “boundary objects” explains the dynamics and the processes whereby the use and the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies induce shifts in urban regional governance networks, has been applied to this study. The theory shows that the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies in urban regional governance mitigates institutional and functional mismatch by operating in the dimension of policy formation process and policy organization; creating new forums for information exchange and collaboration between regional actors.

A boundary object specifically is a socio-organizational construct that serves as a common project or debate in interdisciplinary policy making. Different groups of actors from varying educational and professional backgrounds are confronted with and respond to a collective organizational problem that, in the process, becomes a source of information exchange between these different groups.

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provision. By focusing on the application of digital telecommunications technologies to policy targeting cross-jurisdictional collaboration and urban populations, governance networks experience collaborative dialogues at new levels of policy intervention that then serve to ascribe and redefine institutional systems to functional systems of urban spaces.

4.5 DIGITAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES AND PARALLEL DEVELOPMENT IN URBAN REGIONAL GOVERNANCE NETWORK DEVELOPMENT

Figure 4-3 ; a schematic representation of knowledge transfer in a boundary object scenario

Scholarly debate and discussions of boundary objects refer to them as a theoretical tool of “collective invention in the creation of a new operating concept” (Virkkunen, 2007). Such entities are symbols “needed to focus actor attention and to direct development towards” a common developmental or evolutional goal (Virkkunen, 2007). It is a technological tool common to multiple disciplines, but where “users (in each discipline) find different problems and possibilities for development…applying in different contexts and for different purposes” a given technology in “parallel activity systems” (Virkkunen, 2007). The interdisciplinary overlap of use of a boundary object allows it to be a form of communication between actors in different informational networks. Serving as a catalyst for information exchange, boundary objects multiply connections between actors that otherwise would not have been incited to debate, dialogue or collaborate to solve an otherwise collective problem.

Digital telecommunications technologies represent a common forum of policy experimentation and service

Digital telecommunications technologies in urban policy serve as catalysts that induce shifts in metropolitan and urban regional governance networks from one form of capital regulation to another because technologies redefine the networks organized around specific technology epochs. They serve similarly as a tool of communication and object of ongoing project work through plans focused on servicing urban regional populations to respond to urban regional spatial configurations by different actors operating at both the regional and local level.

Understanding the mechanisms but which these shifts occur allow for reshaping and reconfiguring of regional actor dynamics and a mitigation of the problems of scalar mismatch in urban policy application. Manipulating urban regional actor network dynamics in this shifting period allows for a manipulation of scale or scales, and objects of intervention, inducing a shift in the role of urban governance.

Applying the concept of boundary object analysis to urban governance networks, it can be first noted in the functional adaptation and appropriation of technological resources induces initial shifts and changes in network actors. Digital telecommunications technologies in urban governance contexts are “weakly structured in common use, and become strongly structured in individual-site use” and thus are readily adaptable to the needs of individual users (Star and Griesemer, 1989). This means

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that digital telecommunications technologies, though common to many users, are specially adapted and fine tuned in the needs of a specific user group. That being said, they serve as a shared point of reference in ongoing project work, allowing for a transmission of information across “different social worlds” (Star and Griesemer, 1989).

Digital telecommunications technologies do “not require coordination through a hierarchy, but the creation of an infrastructure…” that serves as a “mutual point of reference to promote collaboration (Star and Griesemer, 1989).

In the case of technological introduction in urban regional governance networks, there is a process of parallel development. Parallel Development refers to the fact that an external social or technological change will be distributed amongst actors in a network equally. Responses to these changes will largely be informed by past experiences and by the “tools” available to actors to effectively adapt to change. Each actor will thus initially operate independently to understand the possible applications and implications of technological and social change, internalizing and appropriating those elements of technological change most suited to current activity.

4.6 DIGITAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES AND COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION IN URBAN REGIONAL GOVERNANCE NETWORKS In the works of Knox and Pinch, it was asserted that digital telecommunications technologies not only allow for more long distance communication, but also similarly allow for the expansion and refinement of local ties in a given actor network (2000). The implementation of digital telecommunications technologies leads to a process of “co-configuration…based even more on the utilization of new information and communication technologies to create a…customer intelligent product, collaborative value creation and spur continuous redevelopment” (Virkkunen, 2007). The aim is to “extend horizontal collaboration” and “collective active” with human systems often morphing

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into and resembling a constantly modifiable open source software. Infrastructural investments such as digital communications cabling, wireless service provision and e-governance development require long term planning, collective problem solving and shifts in actor network organization and collaboration.

In urban regional actor networks, the first dimension of exchange that is fundamentally impacted by the introduction of digital telecommunications technologies is the dimension of communication. Through the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies, there is a quantitative increase in the amount of connections between actors in a given network both in the process of initial installation of infrastructure and in the process of understanding how to better furnish services in a digital telecommunications technologies framework. The ability to communicate with actors at in a closer distance in a faster and more integrated way has the added benefit of strengthening relationships and ties previously established through by facilitating and opening new forums of information exchange. Local actors are able to share more information and communicate more effectively, thus aiding in the efforts to build consensus on policy interventions in governance networks. A quantitative increase in connections between actors is coupled with a quantitative increase in the scale of communication. The ability to connect with actors at a farther distance effectively increases the scale and possibilities of interaction. The use of digital telecommunications technologies is intangible and is thus not confined to conventional notions of boundaries that limit the scale and effectiveness of urban governance network project interventions. While in the past communication and collaboration between actors was limited by geography and technology, the introduction of digital telecommunications technologies has allowed for a change in the scale and dimension of these activities.

Unconstrained by conventional boundaries and networks of information exchange, actors can think beyond the local but below the regional; a semi space to which urban systems have currently evolved, directing and evolving action to suit the needs of individual users that operate in

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multiple geographic and spatial systems.

The second dimension of urban governance culture that is fundamentally impacted by the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies is the dimension of collaboration. The implementation of digital telecommunications technologies induces increased communication and gives rise to a process whereby actors develop and reevaluate their roles and competencies within a specific urban governance network. The introduction of digital telecommunications technologies becomes a mechanism of forced collaboration, whereby actors not only quantitatively increase the number of connections in a given network, but also qualitatively increase dialogues between one another. Actors engage in “partisan mutual adjustment” in this regard and shift in their relative scales and scopes of intervention through ongoing dialogues and collaborative efforts to effectively engage and prepare for technological change and thus redefine their roles in a given actor network. Emerging spatial configurations, regimes of accumulations, challenge governance regimes to respond with new regimes of regulation. Collaborative activity induces a shift to urban regional governance networks, operating at simultaneous scales and responds to the needs of populations and outside conventional urban hierarchies.

4.7 DIGITAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES AND SHIFTING DIALOGUES IN URBAN REGIONAL GOVERNANCE NETWORKS The plan to implement projects in the realm of digital connectivity is a boundary object for local and regional actors to respond to shifts in regimes of capital accumulation. A shift in functional space induces a shift in social organizations, with regimes of capital regulation responding to the emerging needs of regimes of capital accumulation. As mentioned in the works of Brenner in previous chapters of this thesis, “progress from one stage to the next has always required technical and/or

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technological innovation…every technological revolution has led to new opportunities for organization work and production” (Puustinen and Kangasina, 2010). Networks organized around a specific technological and technical epochs are riddled with “complex networks of codes and nodes of interests and actors” (Puustinen and Kangasina 2010). The process of creative destruction of capital regimes is a cyclical transformation in which the “logic of activity changes” is an opportunity to induce a “collective expansive learning “ that is typically a “long term, complex process in which actors continuously encounter new contradictions that they much overcome” (Puutisen and Kangasjoa 2010).

After an initial process of parallel development, there is process of shifting dialogues. Shifting Dialogues refer to the fact that given an external technological or social change, actors in a governance network, upon internalization of socio-technological changes and recognition of redefined roles based on socio-technological change, recognize each other as possessing different resources that were not previously considered in response to growing problems and “mismatches” between urban form and function. As a result, there is a shifting of dialogue and roles between varying actors, a “mutual adjustment” in role redefinition in city and region wide service provision where different resources are employed and where different actors collaborate.

Both the processes of parallel development and shifting dialogues serve as tools to mitigate the gap in organizational capacity between urban governance networks and the systems in which they operate. It is the functional adaptation of governance, the “shifting dialogues” and networks of collaboration that is most important to understand ways to mitigate functional mismatch. After an initial technological shift, local and regional urban actor networks realign in the reconfiguration and reapplication of their expertise in a new socio-technological context.

Actors

in

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expanded

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communication and collaboration because of sociospatial and technological transitions, revaluate roles in given policy contexts. The main evolution in urban regional governance, the shifting dialogues of the introduction of digital telecommunications technologies, that occurs in light of the implementation and experimentation with digital telecommunications technologies is a transition from a hierarchical, directive structure of urban governance to a network and collaborative structure of urban governance.

This structure eliminates different scales of governance intervention, and instead allows for the simultaneous activation of policy at multiple scales and responding to the needs of urban regional populations.

There is an inherent network structure of actors in different social groups posturing around and experimenting with a common technology or tool, or boundary object. This object or tool ultimately becomes a means by which information about use and application is exchanged across a given

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network of actors that normally may not exchange ideas or engage in collaborative activities.

Through the dimensions of communication and collaboration, the installation and the use of digital telecommunications technologies effectively serve to change the dynamics of urban governance networks and promote this shift from hierarchy to network structure.

Governance shifts from hierarchy to a horizontal network of engaged actors with subsidiary capacities to effect changes in urban systems. Such shifts in dynamics stem from dialogues and collaborative activities engaging both the physical installation of digital telecommunications infrastructure and the social adaptation to and appropriation of digital telecommunications technologies infrastructure once it has been installed. New forms of collaboration in urban governance culture develop in response to a need generated by service provision to individual users.

Responses to user populations take on new scales of policy

Figure 4-4 ; a schematic representation of the transition of urban governance networks from systems of hierarchy to networks

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and project intervention conforming to the need of the functional urban regional system. Such policies ultimately are spatially rooted in urban regional systems through their targeting of urban regional populations moving and living beyond traditional urban boundaries.

4.8 DIGITAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES AND URBAN REGIONAL GOVERNANCE NETWORK PROJECTS The introduction of digital telecommunications technologies has had an unprecedented impact on perceptions of and limitations posed by distance and time. This being said, such perceptions and communications are redefined starting with individual user and actor populations. The impact on urban spatial and governance organization is an indirect function of the changes in cultures of communication of various urban populations. Forced to respond to urban populations in emerging and constantly reconfiguring urban regional spatial organizations, cultures of governance are compelled to change to meet service needs.

Shifts in urban regional governance networks are the products of implementation of digital telecommunications technologies in three policy and project dimensions. These inititatives, that take the form of regional policy and plans, are the boundary objects of common collaboration that aid in inducing shifts in urban regional governance networks.

These three activities in particular are: installation, servicing and regulating of digital telecommunications infrastructures. These activities vary in both scale and scope of intervention and engage different types of actors in a given urban governance network, providing for the long term boundary object necessary to motivate actors to collaborate and ultimate induce shifts in scale and object of policy implementation.

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4.8.1 NETWORK INSTALLATION Spatial infrastructural projects create new institutional boundaries of intervention for urban regional governance networks. Infrastructural installation is the product of a dialogue between actors in region and local levels of government. It is also the product of dialogues and negotiations between public and private service providers in a given macro geographic jurisdiction. In physical infrastructural interventions regional actors engage with local actors to construct an infrastructure that will provide for cost effective implementation to enhance dialogue.

The implementation of digital telecommunications technologies in this regard follows suite because it is achieved with the installing of a system of DSL cables in a given territory. Such a constraint induces dialogue between varying levels of government. Governance networks at a regional level consult with and engage local governance networks to effectively understand local territorial opportunities and constraints in the installation of DSL cable infrastructure.

While the installation of digital telecommunications technologies infrastructure provokes new dialogues between varying levels of government, it also serves to provoke dialogues between private and public service providers. The construction of a new DSL cable network requires the installation of a new series of piping and tubing at a regional territorial level. The construction of such an extensive network of new piping and tubing is expensive to either the regional service provider or local service users depending on the business model ultimately implemented and where the costs are ultimately distributed. Running DSL cabling through existing tubing networks however, eliminates the need to install costly new infrastructure. Installation efforts go beyond digital cable installation. Wireless Hotspot (WiFi) installation in urban environments opens another dimension to shifting dialogues. Wireless Infrastructure, and specifically wireless routers require negotiations between public institutions

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and private service Internet service providers. While WiFi Hotspots do not embody a physical spatial intervention, they not only have an impact on the use of public space, but on governance network coordination to ultimately install the routers.

In responding to the reconfiguration of the urban functional system given the addition of a new layer of infrastructural investment, the institutional system redefines its scale and scope of policy intervention, creating new interfaces with urban regional populations. The installation of a new technology requires the opening of new dialogues between actors at both the regional and local level and thus can serve induce processes of shifting dialogue in urban governance networks and the scale of project intervention. Actors are compelled to communicate to effectively complete an infrastructural project, an increase in communication after installation opens new discussions about effective policy applications of a given technology.

Given an initial installation of digital telecommunications technologies, an increase in communication between actors in an urban governance network, there is an increase in the discussions and understanding of how to effectively use the technology and furnish services at an urban regional level.

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Service provision, unlike the example of infrastructural installation, induces new forms of collaboration between public and private actors at the local and regional level and challenges local actors to experiment with new forms of communication, tailoring and enhancing services to the online world and user populations. Local governments change from a position of providing specific services to citizens to a position of mediating the provision of services to citizens from private service providers. The city changes its role to that of a negotiator and “guide� of public project interests, that in the process allows for an expansion of service interest beyond the constraints of local boundaries.

Internet connectivity and service provision is delegated to a private interest, with a vision for provision that is shaped and negotiated by the city government, that is ultimately aimed at targeting populations that act upon urban spaces and have multiple life patterns in functional urban regional systems.

With the introduction of digital telecommunications technologies and services, city governments are forced to generate local solutions to provide Internet connectivity to user populations on one hand, while updating and modifying the legibility of existing services in the administration on the other, all with the aim of enhancing the interface with and voice of local user populations in online dialogues.

4.8.2 NETWORK SERVICING A second lens of analysis in studying the evolution of urban governance networks and step in inducing shifts in urban governance network coordination is instead related to the provision of online services. While in the past urban governance networks targeted service provision through spatial modification, with network servicing there is a shift to a meditative role between local actors and creating a legible organizational structure and interface with urban regional populations. Projects are focused on targeting populations and not just places and serve as a strategic interface with populations crucial for building governance network legitimacy.

4.8.3 NETWORK REGULATION A final lens of analysis in studying the evolution of urban governance networks is instead related to regulation of online activity. New infrastructure and new services require new forms of institutional cooperation and regulation. Providing wireless or other forms of Internet connectivity requires a series of safety measures such as the authentication of users, the limitation of connection time in public networks, the enforcement of privacy and security of usership and finally the limitation of accessibility to specific online sources. Such regulation

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systems have costs related to monitoring of user activity and of coordination of resources between different actors involved in authenticating and monitoring usership.

Thinking about a regional system or provision of Internet services, it becomes essential to open dialogues between major organizations in the city that cover a majority of users in order to effectively provide internet connectivity and online services to citizens at a city and region wide scale.

This is to say that, city and region wide public and private actors move to create “federations” of authentication of usership to ultimately cover all users in the same online service network at the city level. Such federations induce new operative dialogues and forms of information sharing between city and regional institutions. Institutions may be fixed in geographic space, but online space represents a possibility to redefine cultures and scales of collaboration at a metropolitan and regional level. Service sharing in this regard in the provision of Internet connectivity a new opportunity to reform governance culture, as seen in examples of waste disposal and transportation policy in new regionalist coordination schemes

4.7.4 NETWORK PROJECTS SUMMARY A number of common logical threads can be woven through these three areas of intervention.

First, the changing face of the institution vis-à-vis the individual user to an online service provider is an important impetus for shifts in governance networks.

Secondly, in this shift, there is a similar shift to identify and open dialogues with populations rather than places, focusing on services and dialogues with individual users that may embody and live with in many different functional geographies. Finally, there is an opening of new forms of collaboration and information exchange, as the Internet is used not just as a tool but mutual point of reference and collective project for information exchange between public

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administrative bodies.

In both these cases, changes in both communication and collaboration between actors serve most notably to highlight gaps in the ability of governance networks to effectively intervene in the functioning of wider urban systems. With the installation of digital telecommunications technologies, there is a process by which actors revaluate roles and relative positions in governance networks to respond to changing needs of their given constituencies.

Such a vying for pertinence in this sense is crucial because it provides a link by which actors turn to each other in an effort to fill functional needs at a wider scale. While no new layers of government are created, actors are compelled to create new network of connections and open new dialogues to engage in the wider urban regional system.

4.8 CONCLUSION Chapter Four has been dedicated to charting a theoretical framework for understanding what forms of crossjurisdictional collaboration are needed to mitigate the problems of mismatch between functional and institutional urban systems. The chapter has also been a study in how urban regional governance networks can induce shifts to accommodate new forms of crossjurisdictional collaboration through the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies. In particular, it was noted that: • new urban regional spatial systems generate a need for a the construction of a new institutional system • strategies to accommodate urban regional spatial systems should focus on coordination at multiple scales and targeting the needs of user populations, agents that circumvent socio-political boundaries.

• plans for the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies serve as boundary objects for urban regional governance networks to

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open new forms of collaboration and communication regarding a collective project and change scales and scopes of policy intervention • shifts and communication in light of the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies leads to changes scale and scope of intervention to ultimately be used to mitigate mismatch between functional and institutional urban systems The conclusions will be expanded upon with and affirmed by specific project details highlighted in the case studies in Chapter Five of this thesis.

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5

NETWORK GOVERNANCE POLICY AND PROJECT EXPLORATION

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5.1 INTRODUCTION The first chapter of this thesis presented an organizational structure for later arguments made. The second chapter of this thesis charted the evolutionary trend and nexus between space and society, providing evidence that societal changes shape urban spatial forms and governance patterns and vice versa. The third chapter of this thesis focused on the problems faced by urban governance networks in light of changes and shifts in the socio-spatial configuration of modern urban systems. The concept of “mismatch� was introduced and discussed to highlight the differences between functional capacity of urban governance networks and the organization of the spatial system in which they operate. Chapter Four represented a passage from understanding the impacts of society on space to understand the implications that spatial organizations have on society constructs. It was asserted that emerging urban regional forms require and compel institutions to move toward a network governance framework to establish cross-jurisdictional solutions to the problems of metropolitan fragmentation. Strategies suggested pointed to merging regionally coordinated but locally articulated projects and focus on urban populations to mitigate mismatch. The chapter then outlined the theoretical framework for understanding the policy processes that mitigate the mismatch between functional and institutional urban systems through the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies to governance coordination.

Chapter Five is a detailed study of the theoretical assertions of Chapter Four. The chapter details specific

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observational and participatory experiences in the realm of regional and local digital telecommunications policy in Italian contexts. Studies and observations will be analyzed to generate a series of policy recommendations for digital telecommunications policy application to break mismatch in urban regional systems. The aim of the chapter will be to evince different dimensions of network governance policy and project initiatives and conclude with a cohesive set of recommendations to be applied in the final two chapters of the thesis.

5.2 CASE EXPLORATIONS Two cases were explored in depth to the highlight the complexities of network governance policy and project application. Explorations were accomplished by direct observation and participation.

The first case explored in depth was the regional comprehensive digital telecommunications plan implemented of Emilia Romagna. The plan, the Piano Telematico di Emilia Romagna, has laid the foundation for online information exchange and network collaboration between local and regional public administrations though first the installation of a DSL cable network and then local project experimentation. Dynamics and policies of the plan were studied primarily through six interviews conducted with actors at the regional level, city administrative levels in Bologna and Reggio Emilia, and finally with regional Internet service providers and multi-utilities. Interviews were used to grasp the panorama of Internet policy debate and understand evolutionary trends induced by policy

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application in regional governance networks. Interviews were also used to understand actor perception of shifts in dynamics in light of the institution and application of the digital teleconnectivity plan.

The second case explored in depth was a project focusing on the interface between governance networks and populations. This project, entitled Where A Mi?/ Where TO? was an experimentation with generating new forms urban service legibility through a local pilot project proposal. The project was developed in the context of the UC@MITO (Urban Computing at Milan and Turin) project of the Alta Scuola Politenica, in which the authors of this thesis participated. Based on the research and project work, the Where A Mi?/Where TO? Project served as local initiative allowing for experimentation with different forms of information communication and interfaces with local populations. The experiences and lessons learned in the project are detailed the second case exploration.

Each specific case will explore the organizational dynamics around the structuring and then implementation of the policy and project, serving as an overarching package in which multiple arguments and discussions related to network governance policy and project work can be unfolded. By providing a deeper understanding of the theoretical concepts presented in the previous chapter, it is the aim of the authors of this thesis to condense the specificities of network governance regional policy and project application to a cohesive set of recommendations to ultimately be applied in other planning contexts at the end of this chapter.

5.3 PITER INTRODUCTION The first case study of this chapter showcases a regional organization and collaboration plan for the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies to enhance governance performance. The study details the processes by which the plan has been implemented and the specific

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implications of implementation for regional network governance organization.

Interviews cited in this case were conducted directly by the authors of this thesis; summaries of these interviews can be found in the appendices of this document.

5.4 EMILIA ROMAGNA: CONTEXTUAL OVERVIEW The region of Emilia Romagna has long been revered as a hotbed of civic participation and as having a political culture that serves as model of good governance in Italy. To better understand current benchmark practices in the installation and servicing of digital telecommunications technology, it is first important to understand the socio-political context in which Emilia Romagna’s culture good governance emerged. This initial socio-political survey will ultimately to serve to then understand the best course of action and application of similar policy models in the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies in other Italian and global regional contexts.

Emilia Romagna is located between the Adriatic coast of Italy and the Apennines. The region’s capital of Bologna is located between Milan and Florence and is an important crossroads for many of Italy’s north south railroad lines.

Bologna, apart from being a regional capital and economic crossroads is also a university center; out of a population of about 300,000, 100,000 are students coming from across Italy and across the world. In terms of governance and political culture, Emilia-Romagna was described

by Putnam in his 1993 study of Italy entitled “Making Democracy Work” as a model of “good governance” practice on the Italian peninsula. In terms of indicators of regional government performance, collaborative political culture and a sense of “civic community”, Emilia Romagna consistently preformed at the top of his empirical indicators (Putnam, 1993). Putnam deduced from these findings and from historical research that the region benefited from a historical continuity of collaborative culture that

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started in the medieval era and has been ingrained in political thought in regional governance practices since.

He observed specifically that regions had a “history of ‘historical collaboration’” beginning in the republican free “comuni” of the medieval era preformed empirically better in terms of good governance practice than their counterparts which were ruled for centuries by more autocratic regimes in the South (Putnam, 1993). Using Emilia Romagna as an eventual model for future policy recommendations, in this regard, it is first important to study the past conditions and historical contexts that led to the governance culture currently being practiced.

Putnam asserted that Emilia Romagna has been “blessed with virtually one of the most successful civic cultures in Italy” and has asserted that such a culture of good governance and civic collaboration has socio-historical roots (Putnam, 1993). Looking to Emilia Romagna’s past, after the fall of the Roman Empire and upon his return to Milan, Saint Ambrose passed through the region of Bologna and described it as a desolate, wasteland of “destroyed urban cadavers (semirutrum urbium cadavera)” (Sassatelli and Donati, 2006). A once thriving chain of Roman cities and settlements hugging the Apennines and dominating an abundantly fertile agricultural region of the empire lay at that era in ruins. What emerged from the ashes of post-imperial destruction would become however, one of the densest concentrations and networks of independent “comuni” in Europe during the medieval era. These comuni were essentially independent city states that developed a republican form of democratic order and public debate. A dense and politically active network of civic associations, trade guilds and consortia enlivened and participated in direct political debate (Putnam, 1993).

While during the course of time the power of these individual republics waned, a culture of collaboration endured until the modern era. In the wake of Fascism at the end of World War II, Emilia Romagna was at the center of what would eventually be known as Italy’s “Red Belt”, with the Communist Party rising to political prominence. The

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Communist Party however, was no more than “old wine in new bottles” and instead reflected a modern permutation of the collaborative political activity experience during the medieval era (Putnam, 1993).

Innovations in governance in Emilia Romagna are not limited to the medieval era. In the Post War era, the city of Bologna has also served as a model in the implementation of metropolitan governance policy to Italy and the rest of Europe. In 1994, the city of Bologna, the province of Bologna, and the 50 comuni comprising the province of Bologna signed the Accordo per La Città Metropolitana.

Again deriving from a latent need from space on the part of the city of Bologna, the “città metropolitana” was envisioned as a twofold response to both the need to rationalize government services and governance in the post-tangentopoli era and dote the city with infrastructures (expanded airport, intermodal trade hub and high speed train) that would render it more competitive on the global market (Jouve and Lefebvre, 1996). Such infrastructures, needed to service the center city and stimulate economic vitality in the wider, could not simply be allocated on municipal soil, as such, the city was charged with “opening itself” to the periphery and devising a new governance system to tackle emerging socio-technological needs. The Accordo does not impose a new level of government on existing institutions; instead, it works within local and what are otherwise considered “fragmented” local government institutions to affront regional issues. The ACM is voluntary, meaning that comuni only belong if they wish and may withdraw when they wish, and flexible, meaning that comuni may participate in all or only part of the action prescribed by the ACM (Lefebvre, 2002). Activity of the ACM administration does not substitute or override municipal and provincial councils and serves primarily as a “forum” orienting and shaping the ideas generated by member and non-member cities. Collective projects undertaken under the umbrella of the ACM thus has the potential and power to unite and incite discussion between multiple municipalities (Lefebvre, 2002).

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Figure 5-1 ; a map of the Emilia Romagna region

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(Portici and Policy) Reading the space and the form of the city of Bologna, a number of conclusions can be drawn about historical governance culture that can later help to shape and understand current practices. In the case of Bologna, the cities historical urban project par excellence are its portici. The historic center of the city is connected by over 44km of portici that run along nearly all major thoroughfares and most side streets. While the portici were originally devised to maximize the use of limited space in a tightly concentrated, walled city, their existence later became a mark of civic identity and issue of civic debate. Built on private property, the portici were, as early as 1250, regulated as a public space; it was thus forbidden to impede the free flow of traffic along these corridors with commercial and productive activity (Bocchi, 1997). City “statuti”, or law code, culminated regulation in 1288 with the declaration that “all citizens living under the jurisdiction of the city of Bologna, owning and maintaining houses or workshops without portici in the city and in the suburbs of the city, in places where there are otherwise needed are required to construct portici if they are not present, each individual for their given storefront. If a portico is already existing, the space must be maintained with private funding” (Bocchi, 1997). City organizational code was enacted and carried out by individual citizens.

Figure 5-2; a photograph of Bologna’s portici

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In both the historical and modern examples of governance in Emilia Romagna, what can be compared and noted is the adaptation across time of governance institutions. Given a specific technological or sociological phenomenon, governance in the region and its cities has responded with policy initiatives to regulate and promote change.

Sociological and technological change have become the catalysts by which wider policy reforms have been adopted and enacted.

5.5 PIANO TELEMATICO DI EMILIA ROMAGNA Emilia Romagna is a region composed of a network of cities engaged in ongoing network governance and policy collaboration. The region of Emilia Romagna, in partnership with provinces and cities within regional jurisdiction, has developed a multi-level policy initiative for the implementation and use of digital and telecommunications technologies – a network plan to service the populations and spaces of the emerging regional urban system within its boundaries. This policy makes use of a regional collaboration and local project initiatives in the realm of digital telecommunications technology projects to promote connectivity and enhance dialogues in multi-level public administration and regional entities. The ultimate aim of this effort is to meet the needs of populations in urban spatial systems; working on legibility and dialogues with the user. The region of Emilia Romagna in 2006 began implementation of a strategic plan known as PITER (Piano Telematico di Emilia Romagna). PITER has emerged as a policy tool aimed at enhancing information exchange in public administration collaboration, public health and education.

The following sections detail for the regional then the local specificities of the implementation of PITER.

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5.5.1 REGIONAL COLLABORATION AND COORDINATION

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PITER has as its primary strategic planning concern the infrastructural implementation of a regional telecommunications “intranet” to serve as tool for project and policy exchange between local governments and the region.

as a coordination tool between actors at varying levels of government. Given rapid shifts in technology, the strategic plan is brought to the table and discussed every three years to ultimately ensure up to date and quality information exchange and regional services. PITER is a physical infrastructure initiative that reflects a governance shift to network coordination and collaboration

Under the Piano Telematico di Emilia Romagna, the region founded two specific entities: the Community Network and Lepida SpA.

A number of critical activities result from regional collaboration in the Community Network and infrastructural implementation under Lepida SpA.

The Community Network is a forum of online information exchange between local governments and the region.

The body is also the organizational body that implements and strategically organizes the PITER plan in the region.

The Community Network itself is composed of actors operating at both regional and local levels, and operates in conjunction with digital telecommunications technologies think tanks and service providers to create a network of collaboration for the eventual implementation of the project.

First and foremost, the network installed by Lepida SpA is favored and used by the region as a forum for information exchange with local governments on the Community Network; local actors have their choice in providing connectivity but in the end are compelled to buy the services of Lepida to have access to the Community Network. In this case infrastructure and connectivity is used as a political instrument to induce and encourage political participation and collaboration in the Community Network, incentivizing actors to participate by providing them with a value added service and creating multiple spatial dimensions to public project interventions. The aim is to create a new governance network through the construction of an online infrastructure and network of government and policy information exchange.

Technical implementation and support of this plan is being carried out primarily by the region and the public/private service provider created specifically by the region known as Lepida SpA. Lepida SpA is a public/private regional DSL service provider that has installed a DSL cable and Wifi network accessible to local governments in the region of Emilia Romagna. The purpose of the installation of this cable to connect local actors under the regional umbrella of the Community Network. While the Community Network is the governance organizational mechanism operating simultaneously at regional and local levels, Lepida SpA is instead the infrastructural network that allows for expansion of collaboration to local public administrations through the Community Network mechanism across the region.

The network at the moment can only be accessed by government administrators and is being primarily used

Secondly, in the experience of implementing PITER, infrastructural projects has served as a tool to activate and encourage collaboration on local digital and telecommunications technologies projects, that is only economically feasible on a regional scale (Mazzini, 2010).

PITER takes advantage of economies of scale and relative cultural homogeneity at the regional level to distribute telecommunications infrastructure equally across space, linking all levels of public administration to the same network. This strategic advantage was reflected in conversations with the director of Lepida SpA, the regions intranet provider, Gianlunca Mazzini, who envisioned the construction of this infrastructure as “building the highway

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Figure 5-3 ; a map showing the expanse of Lepida SpA’s DSL cable network in Emilia Romagna

before the car�, looks ahead to a need of populations and scales of service that public administrations are only starting to grow conscious of.

Third and finally, the installation activities of Lepida SpA are achieved through the reuse of existing electrical and piping infrastructure. As such, Lepida SpA as an organization has to enter into negotiation and collaboration with local actors to provide a regional level service. Negotiation and collaboration activity for the installation of infrastructure thus involves public and private sector actors working at both the regional and local level in Emilia Romagna to effectively and equally cover the whole region with DSL infrastructure.

5.5.2 LOCAL INITIATIVE Region-wide projects and interventions under PITER have been complimented with local government initiatives. The region-wide plan puts the impetus on local governance networks to develop city specific plans for enhancing

Internet connectivity. What has emerged from this impetus is a multiplicity of local initiatives and experimentations in service provision that are then discussed and shared in the context of the Community Network. Local experiences in service provision and enhancement are thus transmitted via the Community Network to localities across the region, enhancing and diffusing good governance practices and creating a culture of collaboration that is articulated at both the regional and local level.

5.5.2.1 E-GOVERNANCE Regional efforts to enhance governance connectivity are complimented in Emilia Romagna by local efforts to enhance service provision and dialogues with the citizen user. As part of the Community Network, a number of member cities have engaged in the Power 2.0 project to experiment with and enhance governance network interface with user populations. These shared experiences in experimentation with more collaborative platforms with citizenry were implemented in individual cities but across

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the region and targeted different user populations, but ultimately were captured in the regional Power 2.0 project.

“In a world where the Internet is growing ever less virtual and ever more real, what is emerging is an Internet of objects. The web moves beyond computers and encircles citizens, permitting them to interact and express themselves with continuity and frequency. Sensors of every kind, cellphones and Smartphones, gather such information and share such information on online networks” (Power 2.0, 2010).

Public connectivity has become a major policy concern and the object of ongoing experimentation by the city government. This commitment is complimented by a commitment to teaching citizens how to use online services and measuring user activity to ultimately enhance governance services. The next part of this ongoing project is Power 2.0. Power 2.0 uses the concept of “wiki” website development, user generated and updated interfaces, to enhance e-governance strategies.

With the ultimate aim of measuring and responding to the needs of the citizen user a number of particular projects have been developed.

In Ferrara, online platforms were used to chart perceived architectural barriers in the city. In Piacenza, a web portal for young artists looking to network. Modena use an interactive web portal to allow users to rate municipal website. Reggio Emilia implemented a portal as youth forum. In Bologna, the Iperbole portal serves as an initial base to then “strengthen the sense of belonging within the Community, makes citizens aware of his / her rights and new e-rights, foster citizens’ participation and inclusion in the digital environment, develop a civic model of dialogue and spread conversation, make the social capital growing up” through user generated and updated wiki-interfaces (Comune di Bologna, 2010). The ultimate goal is to create an online, real time forum of public and institutional communication, complimented by ongoing e-literacy and

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educational projects.

E-governance and Web 2.0 service provision applied to online municipal service delivery in the Power 2.0 project is important for a number of reasons. Innovations in dialogues with local user populations show a commitment to the redefinition of the roles of the public administration in service provision and dialogues with the citizenry. As was discussed during interviews with public administration officials, Internet and digital telecommunications technologies allow for a streamlining of services (Guidi, 2010). Bureaucratic processes that often required the time of public administration officials to compile paperwork have now been refined to simple online procedures.

Such streamlining is balanced conversely by a capacity to explore and open up new forums of information provision and focusing on policy implementation. Administrative officials have traveled beyond the region to discuss city policy debate; going to the European level to share and discuss policy. Public administrations can focus on needs beyond bureaucratic procedure, and can be concerned with the urban populations rather than just focusing on the control of urban spaces.

Each initiative targets working on the application o the social web of information for the enhancement of government service provision. The aim is to make use of existing cultures of communication and incorporate these online cultures of communication into dialogues between the public administration and users.

Finally, the initiatives under the Power 2.0 project represent a first experimentation with targeting the needs of user populations and not just citizens. Rather than focusing specifically on citizens of the city, administrations have moved to target user populations from specific cities but also present and making use of urban space. Moves have been made to expand civic voice to larger pools of participants with the ultimate aim of enhancing service provision of the public administration.

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5.5.2.2 WIFI PROVISION Policy experimentations in the provision of free Wifi in public spaces were one of the most notably discussed by officials in local public administrations and consequently a primary forum of experimentation present in Emilia Romagna.

Public Wifi projects were viewed as an opportunity to expand connectivity to populations who do not have ready access to a computer to mitigate the problems of digital divide in service provision.

In the case of the city of Bologna, the city has undergone the implementation of the Iperbole program. Iperbole, Bologna’s online service network, began in 1995 Iperbole and was created to facilitate communication between the local government and citizens. As part of Iperbole, each citizen of the city of Bologna was assigned an email address and log in information that would allow for access to a series of online services. This initial structure was complimented in 2005 with the implementation of a series of wireless hotspots in main civic social spaces. Piazza Maggiore and via Zamboni are the specific areas of interest in this wireless project, and accessibility to the network is granted to both citizens and students and university professors at the University of Bologna. University students, professors and citizens all have free access to this wireless network.

The network itself is not provided by the city, but rather the local multi-utility, Hera. This local multiutility provides wireless connectivity for free in main public spaces in the city center, but does not cover the whole historic center of the city of Bologna. Instead, the city has negotiated with HERA to provide a wireless connectivity kit at a minimal cost to local businesses choosing to participate in install the infrastructure. What results is that, small businesses, choosing to install a WIFI hotspot, install the same WIFI hotspot as is provided in main public, freely accessible to all citizens. What results is a “macchia di leopardo” of service provision, with the city of Bologna providing in main public spaces, while small businesses, looking to attract and retain clientele, install wireless on their premises.

The macchia di leopardo approach, pictured above,

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implements a similar policy strategy to that of the statuti that governed the construction of the portici hundreds of years before in the city, with local businesses and private landowners enacted city mandated and coordinated policy and urban projects.

The city of Reggio Emilia similarly has installed a wireless network that covers the entire historical center of the city and accessible to both citizens and visitors for free. Like the city of Bologna, free Wifi service provision is accomplished through a consortium of a local creditor, CREDEM, the city of Reggio Emilia and finally a private Internet service provider, Guglielmo. Guglielmo is an Internet service provider that operates hotel and citywide wireless Internet hotspots in Reggio Emilia, but also in cities across Emilia Romagna and the Veneto. Such a diffused provision of Internet services has allowed for a relative distribution of costs between a wider network of clients and thus a relative achievement of economies of scale. Such services also extend to the realm of regulation where Guglielmo has also set up a federation of local organizations operating in Reggio Emilia that can authenticate visitors to provide wireless infrastructure in the city.

The city of Reggio Emilia has thus differentiated itself from the city of Bologna and instead moved toward a “complete coverage” approach, pictured schematically above. This approach guarantees uniform hotspot access in key public places identified by and contracted to a regional service provider. Whereas the approach in Bologna guarantees that the infrastructure will follow the activity and service demand, the approach of Reggio Emilia guarantees complete coverage.

Such servicing is important for a number of reasons. The first of these reasons is because the installation activated through public private partnerships between regional service providers and local city administrations. Service provision is accomplished through networking. The resulting collaborative activities are critical because on one hand the cities role on one hand has shifted from that of a primary

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service provider to that of a guide and mediator for a public project vision between private citizens and small businesses and the private internet service providers. On the other hand, private actors such as small businesses are induced by the results of such mediating activities to internalize a small cost of a much wider urban project and install individual hotspots serviced by a city-wide network. While the city cannot simply cover the historic center of Bologna with its own funding and network, it can provide a guiding and organizing vision by which there is a coordination of individual entrepreneurial activity for the ultimate provision of a great public good. Nonpublic administration officials are thus charged with the implementation of urban spatial projects; having an immediate impact on the use of public space in their surrounding city. In the case of Bologna, new networks of collaboration and consortia with local Internet service providers have been struck to ultimately implement a public private policy of service provision.

The public administration, as suggested by Leida Guidi, is not responsible, nor should it be for hardware provision of wireless. As was the case in the historic construction of Bologna’s portici, it is instead the role of the public administration to operate as a negotiating voice for quality services on behalf of the citizenry. Again, there is an attention to service for populations, not just places, with the public administration redefining its role as a mediator in a network, rather than a provider or delegator of tasks.

Figure 5-4 ; a a schematic representation of the macchia di leopardo approach to wireless service provision implemented in Bologna and a schematic representation of the complete coverage approach to wireless service provision implemented in Reggio Emilia

Secondly, such negotiation between public administrations and local service providers at a regional level leads to a domino effect whereby the same wireless coverage by the same service provider is offered in a number of cities across the region. Once identified by this service and authenticated as a user, individuals can travel to different cities in the same region and still have access to free Internet. Such a freedom of connectivity creates a new scale of activity and a new conception of what is the “city” on the part of the individual user. While in past epochs such conception and perceptions of what is “the city” were limited to one square and one Duomo in one city, the possibilities of network connectivity also open up

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possibilities for the network use of cities.

5.5.2.3 REGULATION Apart from but going in hand with the provision of wireless, online security and authentication of usership remains a discussion of intense collective debate and collaborative problem solving. Regional and local actors in Emilia Romagna discussed at great length the common institutional constraints imposed by the national “Legge Pisanu” that requires the traceability of usership on by Internet service providers. This law, which was written in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, has constrained public administrations looking to make strides in the realm of e-service and wireless service provision to promote and innovate new forms of information sharing.

As such, city service providers must also provide a system of secure log-ins to anyone wishing to connect to the Internet in a public place. The Legge Pisanu a constraint to entire network, creating a collective project to provide for most efficient service organization.

At the local level, a number of public administrations have responded to this constraint by constructing regulation federations of major urban institutions to service populations using wireless in the city. Public administrations are compelled to consider users that go beyond the definition of citizen to provide complete service.

In terms of regulation of digital telecommunications technologies infrastructure and servicing, the city of Reggio Emilia provides the clearest example of shifts in dialogues amongst local actors. It should be noted that, in the case of regulation, there are specific national legal constraints that place organization and operation costs on local actors looking to provide Internet services. In the case of the city of Reggio Emilia users are covered either by the city, the University of Reggio Emilia and Modena or the Congress Center located in Reggio Emilia, with

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coordination of authentication activities focusing more on service provision rather than the specific geographic boundaries of intervention. The authentication server provided by Guglielmo, being that it is diffused wherever their services are, allow for users from Reggio Emilia to travel to cities such as Parma and Piacenza where Guglielmo is also present and freely surf the internet as if they were in Reggio Emilia.

In Bologna, citizens are covered by registration under the pre-existing Iperbole system. University students and professors, almost a third of the cities population, are instead covered by authentication to the university.

In ongoing conversations about brainstorming services urban populations, Leda Guidi noted that one of the crucial populations missing from this equation was nomadic users and visitors. The ongoing challenge for the administration of Bologna has thus been to capture and “authenticate” this population of online users.

Regulation is guaranteed through acting on populations living in different spatial dimensions reflected in daily life patterns. Paying attention to authentication involves and requires the definition and bounding of social space rather than geographic space. Authentication can be provided at a provincial or regional scale, operating primarily through social institutions rather than government boundaries.

Such a system is a defining feature of redefining actor collaborations on urban projects and be well-defined in order to ensure safe and strategic information sharing and internet accessibility. There is an elimination of perceived spatial boundaries as public administrations move to act upon flows and social groups. Such populations imply overlapping identities and geographic scales, put also overlapping opportunities to provide for authentication services. Scale of policy intervention is thus a function of urban populations’ use of spaces and not just spatial configurations; the public administration is thus compelled to think in new dimensions to generate the services need to provide for such socio-spatial adaptations to technological realities.

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Figure 5-5 ; a schematic representation of the authentication approach to wireless service provision implemented in Reggio Emilia and Bologna

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While such federations exist in a non-space dimension, legal constraints imposed by the Legge Pisanu have also provided a new symbol around which actors can redefine their activity in a given context and discuss strategies for wireless implementation. The administration of the city of Bologna in this regard, through experimentation with WiFi systems, has become an expert in the dynamics of circumventing such constraints. Strategies to ensure authentication are regularly discussed and shared among actors in public administrations across the region, opening up new channels of collaboration and debate.

5.5.2.4 CONNECTIVITY SPACE As the public administration is moving to an e-governance dimension, it has recognized the need to have a legible interface with users. There has thus been a commitment to a public spatial dimension of information exchange.

Roman core of the city, serves a testament to the ongoing pertinence of place and forums of gathering to compliment Internet service provision.

While in the case of Bologna connectivity spaces concentrated activity in Piazza Maggiore and via Zamboni, the civic heart of the city of Bologna, other cities in Emilia Romagna moved to have a more diffused service. In the case of Reggio Emilia, the city has installed in main public spaces across city where Wifi connectivity is present, a number of new benches that give clear indications that Wifi is present in the square. The bench because a space of microconnectivity, where users can quickly connect to write emails or briefly research about activities in the surrounding city. This spatial marker is diffused across the city and becomes a visual link to online service provision.

The spatial dimension of service enhancement is crucial

In Bologna, iconic civic spaces become also main spaces for online connectivity and main centers of information exchange between the public administration and urban populations. Piazza Maggiore and Via Zamboni, the social cores of the city, are consequently the prime areas of public provided wireless connectivity. The Bologna administration has thus worked within the confines of public space to redefine these paradigms to the norms of e-governance, whilst enhancing service provision through the implementation of wireless hotspots.

While working on the diffusion of wireless services, the Sala Borsa, the city library and a historically important civic structure was transformed into the cities new urban center.

The Sala Borsa now serves as a spatial manifestation of Bologna’s ongoing project in the realm of Internet service implementation to user populations; it is a space of layered social meaning that serves as a WiFi hotspot, the civic library, a forum for civic organization and even has a number of commercial services. The building itself, which sits directly above the ruins that mark the historical

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Figure 5-6 ; Bologna’s Sala Borsa Urban Center

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in this regard because it asserts and superimposes an e-public space on existing public space. This visible forum of service provision, linked to the larger regional project of PITER serves also a symbol of good governance, garnering recognition and solidarity for ongoing project work.

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The most recent, entitled Wireless Cities, was an exposé of the unifying concept of PITER “teniamoci in contatto” (let’s stay in touch), highlighting the need to ongoing policy communication and sharing. Under PITER in this regard, an important goal was for local and regional actors to exchange information and ideas in software innovation and hardware configuration strategies.

5.5.3 ACTOR EXCHANGE The final organizational aspect of the PITER project are annual conferences in digital telecommunications policy.

The strength of such ongoing dialogues should be noted. Relatively frequent conferences keep actors communicating. The region in the context of the biannual

Figure 5-7 a photograph of a wireless hotspot bench in Reggio Emilia

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conferences, takes on the role of catalyst, organizer of event and talks. This effort serves to build a culture of collaboration and information sharing to promote the adoption of technologies. In promoting the adoption of these technologies, regional actors remain in contact, exchange ideas and collaborate on projects in the realm of wireless Internet service provision. During the recent “Wireless Cities Conference”, presentations were broken down into three categories: national policy framework, the role of public administration in promoting new wireless applications, and finally local, regional and European experiences and models. These presentations keep relevant actors informed about ongoing developments and trends in ICT and digital telecommunications policy at the regional, national and European level.

The conferences supported by PITER serve to activate networking possibilities between relevant actors in regional and local. The density of ongoing project activity suggests that such information sharing has been fruitful and is essential to the success of the PITER project – a network of professional information exchange between actors in relevant public and private service sectors.

5.6 PITER CASE CONCLUSION What has emerged thus far from PITER is a collaborative governance network that envisions and takes into account the infrastructural problems and evolutions of socio-spatial configurations related to the implications and applications of Internet connectivity projects in urban regions.

PITER is a project with a regional vision that coordinates the implementation of specific policy initiatives by encouraging local interventions aimed at enhancing the public administrations presence and interface with user populations. The region works within prescribed spatial jurisdictions to redefine cultures of collaboration and coordination from that of hierarchy to governance network.

This attitude was reflected during the course of interviews

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with the regional director of PITER, Sandra Lotti. The region is in between entity, serving as a buffer of information exchange between local public administrations and technology providers (Lotti, 2010). Focus is on collaboration and consensus building through the enhancement of regional dialogues based on this role of super connector in an ever-densifying network of policy actors. City governments under PITER similarly are encouraged to develop and discuss local plans for increasing connectivity through efforts such as the provision of free wireless hotspots, social programs aimed at decreasing the digital divide through internet alphabetization and providing local portals of e-governance information exchange between local governments and citizens. PITER there is no particular space or scale of implementation. Being a policy that is articulated at both regional and local levels by a network of urban regional actors is an institutional and spatial in between.

The aim of collaborative policy interventions is to break scalar constraints and enhance the efficacy of the public administration through the coverage and the servicing populations of users and networks of users extending beyond traditional conceptions of boundaries under the same policy umbrella at whatever scale such action is ultimately manifested. As was discussed in the above chapter, digital telecommunications infrastructure is an open source infrastructure that has an indirect impact on urban regional systems by acting on populations that do not necessarily conform to specific geographic boundary.

The urban spatial fix for governance come through an implementation of services and a morphing to suit the needs of individuals, a macro change reflected in various aspects of policy initiatives acting within populations and at an in between scale that always has an indirect influence on space. The plan thus serves as an object for a redefinition of actor networks, but it ultimately rooted in urban spaces because of its interface with populations.

An object of collective effort, it is also a tool to enhance communication; becoming a policy multiplier for urban regional governance networks. The plan represents a

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coordinated effort to target an urban regional system, moving beyond e-governance initiatives taken on already by individual city governments. What has emerged from the experience of Emilia Romagna in this regard is an example of the evolution of governance processes through the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies.

Network building requires phasing that is accomplished under PITER first by the collective construction of the Community Network then by collective experimentation PITER is innovative because it demonstrates specifically how urban regional governance networks in Emilia Romagna have moved proactively to respond to urban regional needs with an urban regional telecommunications plan, moving to update the existing governance configuration to a network structure through the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies and an online e-governance interface. Internet connectivity is a policy that has an indirect impact on urbanized areas but represents a large intervention that no one city can “go at alone�.

Instead, the experience of Emilia Romagna underlines the fact that there needs to be a specific delegation of tasks between local and regional governments to tackle complex and expensive planning issues like Internet connectivity, but that such delegation will ultimately lead to a network of information exchange that breaks down the rigidity of governance hierarchy. The region uses its specific technical and political capacity to coordinate with local actors but is similarly able to provide a global vision of the intended goals of the project. Since the region becomes a point of reference in a galaxy of local governance networks, it can evade the problem of fragmentation of local governance not by extraditing and imposing projects, but instead by suggesting and mediating between public and private actors at the local level with a wider scale strategic vision in mind. As trust is built through ongoing collaboration, local actors similarly learn to work together in the achievement of providing a public good through project intervention..

The success of Emilia Romagna’s PITER policy is that

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

it similarly works within and builds upon the geographic and social diversity of the Emilia Romagna region through local interventions but regional coordination.

The policy serves to reframe the scale and scope of urban intervention, envisioning the Emilia Romagna region as a network city of socio-spatial organization and productivity. Internet connectivity has thus complimented transportation connectivity, mirroring other experiments in regional coordination such as the Raandstad. In such agglomerations, competitiveness is derived from regional diversity and specialization of services, but enhanced and complimented by such connectivity. Now, as Emilia Romagna moves from infrastructural investments in the spatial realm of transport, to the virtual realm of Internet connectivity, PITER presents an opportunity to undo the constraints imposed by antiquated institutional systems of government by redefining and encouraging collaborative policy interventions at a regional level. Islands of urban governance with largely localized planning agendas and project initiatives are now evolving into to dense interpersonal and multi-scalar urban networks connected through infrastructure that extends beyond local boundaries and diminishes hierarchy in actor collaboration and information exchange. Individual city governments, recognizing both limitations to effective project interventions at the local level and opportunities deriving from collaboration and participation in a larger urban network effectively solve problems of internet connectivity. Through engaging in such collaborative dialogues however, new governance cultures, governance network connections and new scales of project intervention are opened up. The project thus becomes a means by which actors solve a problem that of wireless connectivity, and in doing so learn to collaborate more effectively.

5.7 UC@MITO CASE INTRODUCTION The second case exploration showcases highlights strategies to develop dialogues with and between user populations. The ultimate aim of the case will be to showcase

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a project for providing an interface between emerging urban governance networks under the organization and collaboration of a regional plan and user populations. The project was an experiment with new forms of service and information provision to be applied first in an event context then on a wider urban scale.

The case is highlights experiences in learning through practical application, generating policy suggestions through insight based on project participation. The aim of such an exercise on the part of the authors of this thesis was to test and challenge research and observational work in a project context, testing and re-evaluating research and observations.

5.8 UC@MITO CONTEXTUAL OVERVIEW After having studied the network governance dynamics of the Emilia Romagna region and the emerging capacity to activate regional governance networks to tackle regional governance problems, observations and strategies for configuring a service interface with the individual city user were studied through an ongoing academic project at the Politecnico di Milano. This project, entitled, Urban Computing @MITO (UC@MITO) was part of the Alta Scuola Politecnica double degree program at the Politecnico di Milano. The project served as a forum of experimentation for how such urban computing projects can be applied in varying contexts to activate regional governance networks and challenge them to collaborate through the use of the Internet and through the implementation of a project in the realm of digital telecommunications technologies to enhance dialogues with user populations. Lessons learned will be presented and serve as the basis for later policy recommendations in network governance contexts.

The project itself lasted for two years and culminated in generation of a concept and the presentation of a pilot project proposal to the Turin Chamber of Commerce.

While the project was ultimately accepted by the Turin

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Chamber of Commerce, it was never implemented due to organizational and time constraints.

5.8.1 URBAN COMPUTING UC@MITO was a project aimed at problem setting and applying urban computing to the cities of Milan and Turin.

In understanding and learning about the organizational dynamics and organizational systems involved in urban computing projects, it was clear that such a strategy of information exchange is also pertinent to understanding and enhancing the interface between governance networks and local user populations.

Urban computing projects focus on the evolutionary form of information generation. An urban computing system is composed of a system of sensors that compile information streams and sensors that respond to information flows.

The following diagram explains the specific dynamics of urban computing studies. Sensors are objects that perceive real time movement and changes in the urban environment. This real time movement is calibrated as intelligence or information that is compiled to then effect changes in the urban environment through actuators. As actuators respond to real time information, they also have an impact on such flows and thus continue to have an impact on the entire system. The cycle of urban computing in calibrating and modeling the urban environment is thus one of constant feedback. Such dynamic information monitoring and modeling is crucial to the refinement of public administration service provision as it allows for a system of rapid feedback and response to system flows and dynamics.

Urban computing is a mechanism that can allow for feedback and exchange between different types of users.

This dynamic, real-time information exchange can also be applied to enhance efficacy of network governance strategies, plans and projects. Urban computing systems

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INTELLIGENCE

THE CIT Y

ACTUATORS

SENSORS

MODELS OF

Figure 5-8 ; a schematic representation of the dynamics of urban computing adapted from the original KickOff Presntation of the UC@MITO project.

applied to governance networks to ultimately provide a spatial and project face to new network governance organizations while at the same time measuring the changes and impacts that policy decisions have on the flow of people and information through urban spaces.

Governance networks in urban regional systems taking advantage of such systems enter into such dialogues and information exchange through the provision of online services to ultimately engage citizens and enhance service quality.

Urban computing allows governance networks to harness collective intelligence of populations regarding urban spaces and services to enhance service provision; molding the face of governance networks to the needs of the individual user.

5.8.2 MILAN AND TURIN Milan and Turin were chosen as the urban regions to

study for the UC@MITO project. Of the two cities, Turin was ultimately chosen for pilot project application and experimentation; concepts were however developed for both cities. Concept presentation to the Turin Chamber of Commerce provided an opportunity to study the city’s policy and planning context for the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies in e-governance and public connectivity initiatives. During this phase, a number of critical issues with regards to Turin policy initiatives were noted. Examples serve to highlight and understand the policy contexts in which such connectivity projects operate.

First and foremost, the regional strategic plan for Turin calls for Turin to become an important “high tech” pole in Italy (citation). While regional strategic policy calls for the creation of this pole, no local project initiatives have been implemented to showcase this high tech evolution and aim of the public administration. Such an initiative needs to be coupled with a qualitative increase and update of urban services to foster the growth of such a high tech pole.

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This gap in local project initiative is an opportunity for experimentation with the layering of Internet connectivity in public places in an effort to generate attention to the city as an emerging player in digital telecommunications infrastructure policy and provision. In the case of Turin specifically, while a regional project and strategic vision had been implemented, specific local articulations of this strategic vision were not present or coordinated by a wider plan.

While the city of Turin has taken measures to implement a number of wireless hotspots in the city center, accessibility is cumbersome and difficult. While hotspots do exist, the citizenry at large has no reason to take advantage of connectivity in public spaces. Such cumbersome efforts at public connectivity are the result of a number of institutional organizational problems, the largest of which is ensuring the traceability of Internet users under the stipulations of the Legge Pisanu. In the case of Turin, authentication operates by antiquated logics. Users requesting authentication must register online to have a TorinoFacile card sent to a fixed address. Such an organization targets and services private citizens with access to the Internet, excluding both nomadic users for example, from WiFi usage. Like city administrations in Emilia Romagna, administrators in Turin are thus grappling not so much with the actual provision of wireless, but the servicing of such infrastructure. There is a need to create a project that would generate demand for connectivity in public spaces to promote the use of existing and future hotspots and challenge the city to find new outlets for enhancing existing service provision.

Thirdly, Turin (and Milan) are both marketing themselves as “cities of big events�; as such, both cities need to provide for proper infrastructure to not only host and facilitate the movement and interaction of tourists, but also to provide for the collective good of the greater metropolitan community and visiting users through a qualitative increase services. Crucial to the hosting of such events is information exchange and diffusion from urban regional governance organizations to visitors and citizens. Events

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were also seen as an opportunity to take advantage of large infrastructural investment opportunities to ultimately implement a possible pilot project. Taking advantage of the creative energy associated with ongoing events and the upcoming EXPO 2015 and Torino 2011, Where A Mi?/ Where To? proposes to incrementally modify urban public spaces and open up new forums of information exchange to city users.

In brainstorming and proposing a pilot project to the case of Turin, it was noted that mismatches and missing linkages in scales and scopes of coordination, ultimately hindering the implementation of such project work and interfaces with local populations. While scalar mismatch in implementation proved to be one weakness and consequently opportunity of the Turin policy, the manner in which wireless is currently being implemented is another problem. The city at the moment is providing wireless to citizens, taking for granted the legibility of the service to non-citizens that make use of the hotspots. Expanding legibility to user populations requires an upgrading of bureaucratic procedure to encompass the needs of populations making use of such connectivity spaces.

5.9 WHERE A MI?/ WHERE TO? Where A MI?/ Where TO? was the project concept developed in response to the initial problem setting call of applying urban computing technologies in Milan and Turin. The following is a brief presentation of the main components of the project.

5.9.1 CONCEPT AND SYSTEM Where A Mi?/Where TO? proposes keeping word of mouth human, creating a spatial dimension for online information sharing. The system itself is composed of three parts: first, hardware system composed of free wireless hotspots distributed across the city in important public spaces.

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Second, software system composed of a mobile platform generating a user profile accessed either by laptop or Smartphone connections. The software system is also composed of a Livefeed, providing real time based that streams real time information based on the user’s location.

Finally, the third element of the Where A Mi?/Where TO? project is a spatial system composed of the creation of a “place” for internet connectivity.

5.9.1.1 HARDWARE At the base of the Where A Mi?/Where TO? project is wireless internet hardware. Wireless Internet hardware in this case is embodied in the construction of a WiFi hotspot.

Hotspots are indoor or outdoor areas of wireless service provision and serve as defined spatial realms of Internet connectivity. This mechanism of bounding is crucial not just to computer engineers but also to architects and planners because it similarly prescribes and defines an area of spatial project interventions.

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system is a real time modifiable software platform allowing for local and georeferenced information exchange between user populations. Where A Mi?/Where TO’s software components compliment both the hardware and urban furniture installed as part of the project. While the hardware is the backbone of the service to be provided, the software functions to generate an added user experience to the system, providing a forum, an e-public space, for online information exchange between user populations.

The bounded space of the hotspot is serviced by an online space with bounded accessibility. The software system of Where A Mi? / Where TO? is broken down into three parts: an authentication system, a geo-localization system and a Livefeed.

• Authentication Component refers to the security that allows for access to the wireless and online services.

The authentication system similarly refers to necessity to build a user profile that serves as a vehicle for

Wireless hotspots were chosen as vehicles of service delivery in direct relation to the observations and experiences in Emilia Romagna. Policy makers in the region repeated at multiple meetings and during the Wireless Cities conference that “Internet is the killer application” (Wireless Cities, 2010). This means that, service provision has to innovate around delivering the Internet in the most legible way possible to end user populations. Instead of focusing on innovating new technologies, organizational focus and experimentation should instead focus on the innovation and adaptive reuse on existing technologies.

Governance networks in this regard are charged with providing the basic forum for information exchange, the Internet, to instigate dialogues with user populations.

5.9.1.2 SOFTWARE The second element of the Where A MI?/Where TO?

Figure 5-9 ; a schematic representation of wireless hotspot hardware configuration

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information sharing. The LUNA Project discussed in the previous chapter served as a model for this component. • Geo-localization Component refers to the determination of spatial location. This component is used to generate information about activity in the surrounding neighborhood, city or event. Such a component would ideally combine the geo-localization capacities of LUNA with the attention to neighbor specificity as presented in the NYC NOW website. • Livefeed Component instead refers to a localized

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forum for discussion between users. Such Web 2.0 tech will be employed to connect users and promote location specific information exchange.

Software component organization focuses on a uniform service platform accessibile via multiple forms of connectivity such as PCs or Smartphone. Multimodal universal access via multiple modes of connectivity aims at increasing accessibility and legibility to multiple user populations.

Figure 5-10 ; a schematic representation of Where A Mi?/ Where TO? software system

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5.9.1.3 SPACE Where A MI? / Where TO? space provides a physical marker and evidence of project by responding to the needs of public connectivity with public connectivity spaces As previously mentioned above, wireless Internet signals bound and define a space for project intervention.

To compliment this spatial bounding with an urban project conversely, spatial project interventions structure forums and “places” for online connectivity. The spatial system of the Where A Mi? / Where TO? project would take the form through urban furniture installations. These installations would vary in size, and would, as previously mentioned, reflect the socio-spatial hierarchies already present in the city.

• The first element of Where A Mi? / Where TO? space is the cube. The cube is a form that would appear in central spaces, main squares and stations. It would be a large presence that would also provide information about registration services, Internet hotspot locations and similarly information about ongoing neighborhood or citywide activities and large events.

• The second element of Where A Mi? / Where TO? space is the bus stop. Structured much like a traditional transport bus stop, Where A Mi? / Where TO? bus stop would be a sheltered place to sit and connect to the internet along major transportation corridors and in secondary squares and pedestrian spaces.

• The third element of Where A Mi? / Where TO? space is the quick stop. Thinking specifically about internet connectivity in urban environments, what is often important is a place to quickly access the internet to check email, or figure out geographic location. For quick information verification, the quick stop instead resembles a bus stop sign or light post, geographically marking a place of passage for on the go connectivity.

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The spatial element of the Where A MI/ Where TO system focuses on providing legible spatial symbols and systems for to enhance connectivity for user populations.

Strategies for the implementation of such spatial systems were observed in wireless connectivity projects in Emilia Romagna. While in Bologna the city moved to enhance the urban center at the Sala Borsa as a connectivity space, the city of Reggio Emilia instead installed a series of marked benches indicating wireless connectivity in main public spaces. Where A MI?/Where TO? builds off this experience with the installation of a physical spatial network to promote use and understanding off connectivity space, inserting connectivity space in the public realm by giving it spatial forms that morph with scale and context. .

5.9.2 UC@MITO PROJECT STRATEGIES LESSONS

DEVELOPMENT

AND

Where A MI?/ Where TO? was developed as a three part system of services, spaces and hardware. This complimentary package promotes a spatial forum for online information exchange, asserting e public space in e- public spaces with legible spatial and informational symbols.

In terms of project experiences, a number of theoretical and observational inquiries during the course of concept and project generation were explored. These theoretical and observational inquiries are listed below and provide a more detailed analysis of the specific aspects of the Where A MI?/Where TO? project that later will serve to compile a list of policy recommendations to be applied in subsequent chapters of the thesis.

5.9.2.1 E-GOVERNANCE The strategies in e-governance in the Where A MI?/Where TO projects focused on giving voice to multiple voices of multiple populations that conform to prescribed spatial

MILANOFIORI

AUTOBIANCHI

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AUTODROMO

ROZZANO

Epicentres in the city VILLA REALE

Where A MI?

MONZA

ALFA ROMEO

PARCO NORD

FIERA RHO PERO

EXPO

SESTO FALCK

BICOCCA

BOVISA GRECO

PORTELLO

PARCO LAMBRO

SCALO FARINI GARIBALDI REPUBBLICA

SAN SIRO

SAN RAFFAELE

CITY LIFE

MASERATI POLITECNICO

CAVE E SCALO SEGRATE

IDROSCALO

PIAZZA D’ARMI

DUOMO

FORLANINI PONTE LAMBRO

PORTA GENOVA

ORTOMERCATO PORTA ROMANA

SAN CRISTOFORO

SANTA GIULIA

PORTO DI MARE METANOPOLI

Figure 5-11 ;

ASSAGO MILANOFIORI

a map showing the hypothetical distribution of hotspots in the city of Milan

ROZZANO

Epicentres in the city

LINATE

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Figure 5-12 ; a visual representation of a “quickstop”

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Figure 5-13 ; a moodboard representation of a “quickstop”

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Figure 5-14 ; a visual representation of a “bustop”

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Figure 5-15 ; a moodboard representation of a “bus stop”

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Figure 5-16 ; a visual representation of a “cube”

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Figure 5-17 ; a moodboard representation of a “cube”

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realities, overlapping and amorphous given contextual use of urban space. In understanding populations to be serviced, two theoretical works were drawn upon, Martinottis (1996) identification of user populations and metropolitan populations and Balducci et al’s 2008 work, Confini, popolazioni e politeche nel territorio milanese.

Martinotti, identified that urban populations were no longer confined to citizens inhabiting an urban space, but also visitors and tourists, commuters and international business people. Each user structures, reappropriates and lives urban spaces in a different manner. Such life patterns and structures were touched upon specifically in the Confini, popolazioni e politeche nel territorio milanese study of the Milan metropolitan area. Specific population life paths were mapped and catalogued into a series of distinct patterns of movement throughout the territory.

These patterns were at times confined to the central city, but more often conformed to regional movement realities.

With these theoretical frameworks in mind, brainstorming allowed for the identification of four principle user populations: citizens, visitors, businesses and government, focusing first on needs determination and then on user interaction. The Where A Mi?/Where TO? project in this regard was focused specifically on envisioning dialogues with and between urban populations and providing a forum for information exchange between user populations.

Specific tables regarding these analyses can be found in the appendices of this thesis document.

In applying provision approaches based on user brainstorming, it was noted that successful platforms are embodied in interfaces tailored to user needs and preferences. In particular, it was identified as important to balance the needs of the citizen user with the responding to the needs of the “nomadic” urban spatial users responding to the questions of an urban user such as “where am I?” and “what is around me?”. The 2004 work of Dourish et al entitled “Cultural Mobilities: Design and Agency in Urban Computing” highlights both this difference demand and suggests a number of policy reflections to enhance the

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quality of urban computing projects. Cultural mobilities, in the opinion of Dourish et al, focus on designing interfaces for more than just the young urban professional moving beyond A-B movement and understanding. Keeping in mind that this is a primary tool of information exchange in such projects at the moment, design approaches should consider and integrate the needs of distinct populations into dialogues focused on integrating from the traditional moving from points a – b information diffusion, to clarity of accessibility and enhancing an understanding of surroundings.

Strategies for implementing legible interfaces of population information exchange focused specifically on integrated platforms that enhance urban spaces and online multiple access websites to be appropriated and redesigned by user.

In terms of understanding the information to be exchanged in the Where A MI? / Where TO system, it was noted after user analysis that information exchanged in such a system focuses primarily responding to the questions “where”, “what” and “how to move between” georeferenced information points. The ultimate aim of the project in this regard was to build an urban computing feedback mechanism whereby urban governance networks could measure and observe spatial activity to enhance service provision first in event contexts with eventual expansion to the wider city. User modification of georeferenced information was seen as a primary strategy for observational exchange in service provision for the city of Turin government. Understanding the use and the propensity to connect to specific Wifi hotspots and a the density of information exchange and tagged to each neighorhood area by user populations would help the city administration to make decisions regarding the place of future event spaces and modifications of existing urban spaces. Following user activity, the city administration could also understand gaps in activity, responding with specific policies for e-alphabetization.

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5.9.2.2 WIFI PROVISION Wifi and Internet provision strategies applied in the Where A Mi?/Where TO? project also drew upon experiences observed in Emilia Romagna.

In terms of implementation, a macchia di leopardo approach was adopted to ensure wireless where it was most desired by local businesses and users. Main public spaces would be guaranteed by the city administration (as in Bologna) under the existing Torino WIFI strategy.

Additional secondary and event spaces would be guaranteed by local businesses through a city coordinated wireless service provider.

In applying provision approaches experimented in Emilia Romagna, it was noted that added value of the macchia di leopardo approach was the opportunity for incremental expansion of Wifi services. In terms of project phasing and feasibility, this becomes a crucial factor for success.

The original aim of the Where A Mi?/Where TO? strategy was to first be applied in the context of a large event in either Milan or Turin to experiment with connectivity and authentication platforms and wireless diffusion.

Incremental approaches and installation of Wifi hotspots allow for incremental adjustments in distribution of choice of hardware.

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Comune and the Camera di Commercio, coordination of authentication systems is guaranteed hrough the service provider, Trampoline UP. The Where TO? project is thus primarily a local public-private partnership for the diffusion of WiFi. While the POLiTO would cover student, the city instead would cover citizens. The Camera di Commericio, with its collaborative force and clout would instead be used to cover businesses and visitor populations during large events. Based on identification of relevant actors, the following schemes propose the coordination of authentication systems in Turin and approach to WIFI distribution in public spaces.

In applying authentication approaches experimented in Emilia Romagna, it was noted that the city of Turin’s original strategy for wireless provision had focused specifically on the city administration targeting the needs of citizen user populations. Registration and authentication activities to these hotspots still required a civic bureaucratic process that was only accessible and legible to citizens, rendering Wifi inaccessible to visitor populations. Regulation strategies instead targeting multiple authentication and accessibility possibilities either through the university for students, through the city for citizen users but also through local businesses for citizens and visitors. Expanding regulation and authentication strategies expands the likelihood of facility of casting a wider net of connectivity, to ultimately be monitored and applied in urban service provision strategies.

5.9.2.3 REGULATION STRATEGIES Regulation and authentication strategies applied in the Where A Mi?/Where TO? project also drew upon experiences observed in Emilia Romagna. The project served as an experimental adaptation of service provision strategies and authentication system organization based on this research.

Discussions with regional start up working out of Turin; Trampoline Up, to create a universal access platform and help build consortia with local actors involved in wifi projects. It was determined that authentication is provided through three main city organizations: the PoliTO, the

5.9.2.4 CONNECTIVITY SPACE In their paper entitled “Mobility Environments”, Luca Bertolini and Martin Djist offer a conceptual framework for urban digital and telecommunications technology projects.

Bertolini and Dijst suggest that traditional planning methods are “traditionally more used to dealing with zones rather than flows, with proximity rather than accessibility” (Bertolini and Dijst, 2003). Traditional methods of project implementation thus inadequately respond to the “extensive webs of interaction, supported

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TURIN AUTHENTICATION

Figure 5-18 ; a schematic reprsentation of Where A Mi? / Where TO’s authentication federation approach

by fast transport and real time communication networks” typical of emerging urban spaces (Bertolini and Dijst, 2003). In the opinion of Bertolini and Dijst, layered projects in complex nodes, “places where mobility flows interconnect – such as airports, railway stations, and also motor service areas or urban squares and parks “ have the potential to exponentially increase urban quality of life and “cope with the reality of an increasingly borderless urban system” (2003).

traditional spaces of civic gathering compliment ongoing e-governance initiatives. This layering of social meaning and function, in providing for a spatial forum of virtual exchange information exchange serves as the conceptual base for the UC@MITO project.

The mobility environments concept seeks to redefine urban spaces as networks of flows of information and people.

These mobility environments are an essential link between policy research and project application parts of this thesis.

As identified in the first part of the thesis there is a fast emerging need to create new agora that integrate realms of virtual information exchange into a physical project to ultimately redefine actor dynamics in a metropolitan context. As previously discussed, an example of such a strategy of articulating mobility environments can be seen in the case of Bologna; physical project interventions aimed at providing a new layer of virtual meaning to

For Milan, the area around Porta Genova was chosen as a pilot project site. Based on the critieria stipulated by Bertolini and Dijst, Porta Genova is an important place of meeting and passage. Standing at the nexus of southwest bound regional trains, the M2 Green Metro Line and the 29/30, 2, 9 trams. It is also a place of important social significance that serves as the gateway to both Milan’s Navigli district and the Zona Tortona fashion exhibition area. The square space in front of the Porta Genova station is a place of passage, but also hosts a number of temporary exhibitions and gatherings, thus making it easily adaptable to the needs of the users occupying it.

Two pilot project locations were chosen, one project for Milan and one for Turin. The following is a brief description of the locations and the reason for their selection:

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For Turin, the area around Porta Nuova was chosen as a project site. Porta Nuova stands at the nexus of the train network and is important gateway to destinations across Italy and Europe. It is also is an important stop along the 9 tram line and 52, 64, 68, and 101 bus lines. Porta Nuova is an important node in the portici system along via Roma that provides direct access to Turin’s historic center. Piazza Carlo Felice serves as an important resting point and park immediately adjacent to the station.

In both cases, the cube is placed in a square directly linked to the station and serving as an area of transition between different parts of the city. The bus stops are located in secondary public spaces that are still important nodes of activity, while the quick stops are placed along main pedestrian routes to provide connectivity on the go.

The rationale behind the decision to place a specific structure in a specific public space is that when dealing with WiFi, the infrastructure needs to be designed based on the flows of people and the presence of activities, applying the Bertolini and Dijist concept of mobility spaces to a possible project context. This is one of the key themes in urban computing and is also the one thing that sets this discipline aside from other innovation processes.

Images depicting the described intervention areas and spatial distributions of the hotspots are located on the subsequent page.

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The UC@MITO project provided an opportunity for the authors of this thesis to experiment with the application of urban computing to enhance dialogues and voice of user populations in city planning and understanding the use of space. The intended result was to apply urban computing in a policy context that would ultimately enhance dialogues between user populations and the public administrations to ultimately make a more responsive public administration.

UC@MITO also provided an opportunity for experimentation with a legible interface between local populations and urban governance as a tool in co-creating a user population centered interface. Research and theories detailing the configuration and movement of urban regional populations were applied and brainstormed in a project context, with the ultimate aim of understanding complimentary points of information exchange and widdling to what information provision is essential to the success of a project.

Finally, UC@MITO allowed for an experimentation with spatial interfaces. Brainstorming the form and application of population servicing and spatial project interface, the authors of this thesis were able to focus on enhancing providing services for multiple forms of connectivity (laptop users, Blackberry users, PC users) and spatial dimensions of connectivity. It was ultimately deduced and affirmed that e-online service provision on the part of local governments must be balanced with a furnishing of and alphabetization of use of connectivity spaces that take on a spatial form.

5.10 UC@MITO CONCLUSION 5.11 CASE CONCLUSIONS The UC@MITO project was an opportunity for the authors of this thesis to experimentally apply research and observational work in a specific project context.

Application and participatory experimentation provided new insight into theoretical and organizational dimensions and issues concerning the implementations of digital telecommunications policy and network governance projects.

The aim of these case explorations was to understand and to experiment with different project forms in the realm of digital teleconnectivity to compile experiences and deductions in what works, what does not, what observations are founded and what can be successfully reapplied in other project scenarios. Reapplicaiton of knowledge acquired will be presented in the final two chapters of this

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maps showing the spatial situation of the elements of the Where A MI/ Where TO system and their close relation to the existing infrastructure network and uses of the spacein Milan and Turin

Figure 5-19

Figure 5-20

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thesis.

During the course of research and interviews in the region of Emilia Romagna, a number of strategic principles were identified.

• A multiscalar approach eliminates hierarchy; this is because as communication and collaboration expand, actors move to engage in network governance that is coordinated at the regional level but articulated and validated by local level projects.

• The Internet serves as an object of discussion and tool to enhance dialogues between local public administrations and regional networks. Innovative dialogues stem from both experimentation with the application of Internet technologies and discussions surrounding strategies for their intervention. Enhanced dialogues redefine cultures of collaboration, mitigating institutional and functional system mismatch through collective problem setting where outcomes are uncertain.

• Internet projects act upon agents, individual users that often move beyond and within functioning systems of geographic scale beyond local boundaries. Projects can thus be used to change user perceptions of urban spatial scale and public administration intervention, which in the future can generate new dimensions of legitimacy and identification with regional collaborative action.

• Internet infrastructure is spaceless, but can be used to act upon and shape movement within, space. That being said, the Internet is an open-source infrastructure, that unlike previous infrastructures, is shaped by the demands of individuals. WiFi and broadband cabling are demand driven forms that appear where a population chooses to take advantage of the service.

The above-mentioned observations in light of interviews and research in Emilia Romagna were then complimented with the theoretical concept of “Mobility Environments”.

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Theoretical insights lead to concept experimentation with interface between changing governments and changing population. The aims of the project specifically focused on and discovered that: • Responding to the needs of the “nomadic” urban spatial users responding to the questions of an urban user such as “where am I?” and “what is around me?”.

Multiple user populations require multiple dimensions of connectivity and a provision of multiple, but overlapping forums and dialogues of information exchange. The aim is to provide user populations with information that is demanded rather than information that is suggested by the service host.

• Incremental implementation and experimentation with project hardware installation allows for incremental service readjustments and more specifically for a time frame in which user populations can slowly appropriate technologies of information exchange. Demand is grown over time and goes hand and hand with Wifi hardware and online connectivity platform service provision.

• E public space should be complimented by public spatial interventions with connectivity policy should also work on the spatial fix of online servicing with symbols that people know and understand. Such strategies communication a policy message by creating a spatial symbol for a shift in service dimension. Experimenting with socio-spatial legibility captures and provides a structural framework for new forms of urban services, with the ultimate aim being the creation of a spatial dimension for online information exchange.

5.12 POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS The chapter will close after the summary of the analyses of the previous two chapters, with a brief but cohesive series of policy recommendations based on observational and project experience. Recommendations aim to provide a framework to understand the successful

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implementation of network governance regional and local plan strategies to ultimately mitigate and break mismatch between institutional and functional urban systems. The recommendations below will be expanded upon in the final chapter of this thesis.

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policy, the following are a series of recommendations to be applied in the New York and Portland urban regional contexts.

5.13 CONCLUSION Focusing on implementing network governance strategies urban regions, three key points need to be taken into consideration: • First, the combination of regional collaboration and coordination with local project initiatives that take into account and work within an in between scale of plan implementation. Economies of scale at the regional level are complimented by locally articulated project initiatives.

Regional linkages between public administrations embodied in a governance intranet create a network of information exchange and collaboration that helps enhance the quality of future regional projects.

• Second, local projects need to focus specifically on interfaces of service delivery that reflect regional coordination, but that are tailored to local specificities.

Initiatives must have a public spatial dimension and move beyond provision to dialogues with local and regional user populations.

• Finally, the spatial fix of such a plan is directly related to servicing urban populations that operate at a regional scale. Thinking about and servicing populations, governance can morph into a regional area of intervention.

Legibile interfaces within this context need to focus on not just the “citizen” user but multiple user populations and extending multiple forms of accessibility to enhance online information exchange.

The ultimate aim of such network governance strategies is to work within existing local spatial boundary constraints by linking them to a wider regional connectivity project.

Servicing populations, strategies can similarly service socio-spatial dimensions that move beyond local boundaries and breaking mismatches in service provision.

Based on these specific scopes of network governance

Chapter Five has been dedicated to observation and exploration of existing policy and project environments in the realm of digital telecommunications connectivity. It was the aim of the authors to provide an indepth analysis of the issues at hand and possible suggestions from lessons learned in policy and project experimentation, observation and application that can then ultimately be reapplied in another policy context.

Providing a panorama of actor dynamics, regional coordination a strategies, local project interface with urban populations and application of theoretical debate in digital teleconnectivity served to provide a series of cohesive policy recommendations to be carried through to the final chapters of this thesis which will instead detail the application of such policy to mitigating institutional and functional urban system mismatch.

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6

NETWORK GOVERNANCE POLICY AND PROJECT STRATEGIES: UNITED STATES CONTEXT OVERVIEW

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6.1 INTRODUCTION

6.2 POLICY SUGGESTIONS

The first part of this thesis was dedicated to a theoretical survey of ongoing trends in the socio-spatial evolution of urban systems. Main conclusions pointed to a scalar mismatch between the functional and the institutional city.

Digital telecommunications infrastructure and projects were identified as a possible tool for intervention. The second part of this thesis experimented with theoretical observations.

The project intervention detailed a concept and project that articulated regional digital telecommunications policy interventions in a specific local context. The project similarly provided an example of experimenting with an interface between network governance organizations and user populations. The final part of this thesis is dedicated to recapitulating lessons learned during research and project application. This summary will be used to compile a list of policy recommendations detailing how to intervene in foreign contexts. Initial work and observations from Italy with lead to suggestions for eventual policy and project application in an American context. The New York City Metropolitan Area and the Portland Metropolitan Area will be used to evince these policy suggestions in a specific context.

Based on research conclusions and project experimentation, a number of policy suggestions have been formulated. The final part of this thesis proposes applying lessons learned from Italian policy and project experiences in crossjurisdictional collaboration through the implementation of digital telecommunications infrastructure and urban projects to United States and North American contexts. The following sections detail the specificities of metropolitan planning and governance and digital telecommunications policy in the United States context and will take the New York Metropolitan Region and the Portland Metropolitan Regions as examples as a potential object of digital telecommunications project interventions.

Chapter Six will focus specifically on detailing and outlining the policy context of the United States and explaining why and how metropolitan planning policies and policies in the realm of digital telecommunications have failed in the past. Discussions will then move to outlining how such policies can be implemented in the future to ultimately solve problems of cross-jurisdictional collaboration and mismatch between functional and institutional spaces.

Before entering into specific policy details and suggestions for United States metropolitan planners, this section will detail why is it that Italian experiences in cross-jurisdictional collaboration can serve as examples for eventual project interventions in an American context by presenting first United States experiences with metropolitan planning and then presenting United States experiences with digital connectivity policy.

6.3 THE UNITED STATES PLANNING EXPERIENCES

AND

METROPOLITAN

This thesis has been a reflection on the fragmentation of regional planning initiatives and governance. The United States as an object of study has been assessed specifically because of a number of institutional specificities that

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lead to a problematic image and implementation of urban regional and metropolitan planning. Fragmented contexts in the United States stem from a lack of guiding regional vision in planning and a socio-cultural mistrust of centralized power. It was the opinion of the researchers of this thesis that new strategies focusing on regional collaboration and local articulation of local projects, focusing on mitigating mistrust through focusing on local user populations, would be a beneficial policy tool.

This thesis has been a reflection on the fragmentation of regional planning initiatives and governance. The United States as an object of study has been assessed specifically because of a number of institutional specificities that lead to a problematic image and implementation of urban regional and metropolitan planning. Fragmented contexts in the United States stem from a lack of guiding regional vision in planning and a socio-cultural mistrust of centralized power. It was the opinion of the researchers of this thesis that new strategies focusing on regional collaboration and local articulation of local projects, focusing on mitigating mistrust through focusing on local user populations, would be a beneficial policy tool.

The United States was also chosen as an object of specific policy recommendation because it represented an opportunity to apply lessons learned in Italy to one of the authors’ home context.

6.3.1 PAST AND PRESENT As noted by Brenner, the United States is a notable context of intra-metropolitan jurisdictional fragmentation (2002). In both the United States and Italy multiple layers of governments and governance networks compete for institutional recognition, power and funding, with vestiges of competing levels of government and constant vying for power and policy jurisdiction. What emerges from such a complex system of superimposing scales of governance initiatives is the need to collaborate and work within

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existing legal and geographic constraints. While such federal systems induce institutional competition, strong localist and regionalist identities require policy adaption to local and regional geographic specificities and social realities (Malloney, 2007).

A number of regional planning and collaboration instruments have already been implemented, the most important of which is embodied in the federally mandated Metropolitan Planning Organization. Metropolitan Planning Organizations “were originally organized to respond to federal mandates and to capture federal funding opportunities” for urban regional projects in United States metropolitan areas (Goldman, 2000). In the 1950s and 1960s, the main area of intervention of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, which consequently remains their enduring principle area of intervention, was the coordination of regional transportation (Goldman, 2000). Under the Federal Highway Act of 1962, “institutitional realignments… led to MPO’s having decision-making responsibility for transportation in metropolitan regions” (Goldman, 2000).

MPOs were also strengthened through the Clean Air Act of 1977, which allowed for the implementation of federal mandates in regional environmental policy. The power of MPOs to this day is largely determined by federal funding and local acceptance of federal interventions, with power held by local constituent governments in regional assemblies. Composed of a council of local governments and stakeholders in metropolitan planning, Metropolitan Planning Organizations are largely tailored to suit the needs of local contexts. Portland, Oregon, internationally recognized as having a progressive metropolitan planning network, was able to institutionally tweak the federal apparatus to suit contexts. The city has used its Metropolitan Planning Organization as a tool to spearhead regional transportation and environmental preservation efforts.

While Metropolitan Planning Organizations serve as an example of institutionalized regional cooperation and collaboration, there exist a number of other examples of

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regional policy coordination in the American context. A number of regions like Minneapolis having taken steps to foster regional governance and collaboration through regional tax sharing (Brenner, 2003). Such strategies “eliminate wasteful competition, spread the costs of economic growth and public infrastructure investment throughout a metropolitan region and counteract the effects of concentrated urban poverty” (Brenner, 2003).

Public-private partnerships and strategic plans are another example of such strategies. Cities like Dayton, Houston, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and New York have all moved to adopt such regional development strategies that seek to organize actors at varying levels of government and often across state boundaries (Brenner, 2003).

As suggested by Brenner, however, the United States has a “legacy of extreme jurisdictional fragmentation within major city regions” (2002). This is to say that, although institutional systems of regional collaboration exist, their relative weakness has lead to a seeming vacuum of regional policy collaboration. Metropolitan Planning Organizations in some instances were largely dismantled or had their powers stricken by State authorities. Such dismantling was accomplished largely through the lack of provision of “matching funds…needed to obtain federal project” making “acceptance of state-sponsored projects a condition of funding for locally desired ones” (Goldman, 2000).

Those who have largely dismantled the Metropolitan Planning Organization as a functional apparatus of policy intervention, have done so because,

they tend to view ‘top-down’ approaches to metropolitan governance with skepticism and generally shy away from proposals to create new regional institutions favoring instead more flexible, decentralized approach to problem-solving which promotes ‘cooperation, coordination and collaboration (Brenner, 2002).

Metropolitan Planning Organizations are present in all

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United States urban systems with populations above 100,000. Though federally mandated, given institutional limitations, the organization and efficacy of these bodies is largely based on local context and acceptance of federal mandate.

6.3.2 FAILURES AND OPPORTUNITIES While regional planning initiatives vary greatly in an American context, a common thread and organizational issue for metropolitan governance networks and policy collaboration initiatives are the “highly dynamic economic clusters” at the fringe that have, through localist policy and legal tools, zoned themselves out of responsibility to larger regional entities (Brenner, 2002). If palatable regional policy and coordination is proposed, such fringe economic clusters could serve as invaluable resources to such initiatives through collaborative activities that focus on the entire region at stake.

The failures of United States Metropolitan Planning Organizations very much echo the observations of a need for identification with such institutions by individual citizens as discussed by Lefebvre. While federally imposed projects were adopted in some contexts, in many United States metropolitan contexts they were instead viewed as a policy imposition and thus largely dismantled through funding limitations. As noted by Goldman and Deakin, Metropolitan Planning Organizations have an “incomplete mandate because power tied only to infrastructural investments and not land use” (2000). The inability to garner legitimacy and have a spatially tied project object has led to a situation where Metropolitan Planning Organizations have a passive organizational role in regional contexts.

Past experiences speak to failures, but given the regional scale of intervention and organization, provide new opportunities for application. Metropolitan Planning Organizations represent institutional apparatus that can be tapped for future policy initiatives dealing specifically

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with the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies. While the weakness of Metropolitan Planning Organizations lies in their incomplete mandate, such a policy apparatus forces Metropolitan Planning Organizations to “pursue partnerships‌to be viable under the mandates imposed by the Federal government (Goldman and Deakin, 2000). Metropolitan Planning Organizations are required to apply expertise in local and regional projects through collaborative effortsâ€?, much like Italian provinces, in using existing boundaries that contain a relatively continuous urbanized area to promote projects and network coordination that benefit such a scale of organization. Fiscal constraints compel Metropolitan Planning Organizations to take new leadership roles and consult with local governments in a regional context to garner consensus and support local urban projects.

Coupled with new federal policy to promote Internet connectivity, Metropolitan Planning Organizations can serve as a tool for the coordination of federal funding and policy efforts in the realm of digital telecommunications at the regional level. Such regional scale entities and jurisdictions cover a bounded space that captures and comprises regional actors in a strategic project context.

Implementing digital telecommunications technologies and an intranet system similar to that of Emilia Romagna serves as a tool to link government organizations participating in Metropolitan Planning Organizations and thus shift the culture of collaboration. Metropolitan Planning Organizations, become the mediator and institutor for a communications network for constituent governments and agencies, creating a collaborative governance network that extends across the entire metropolitan area. Serving as a forum for idea and project generation in the metropolitan area that takes into consideration regional scale of project interventions, Metropolitan Planning Organizations can enhance consultative and collaborative roles in regional governance debate through the implementation of such infrastructures. Metropolitan Planning Organizations are a channel of federal funding to support local information exchange at a regional level; such efforts, however,

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also need to be coupled with local project articulations to support and give depth to policy by focusing on an interface with user populations. Given the expansion and growth of United States Metropolitan areas, Metropolitan Planning Organizations now do fit and service an urban regional population. The project in this regard becomes the boundary object to induce further shifts and garner recognition for this reconfiguration.

6.4 THE UNITED STATES AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY

URBAN

DIGITAL

6.4.1 CURRENT SITUATION While the Internet was first invented and distributed in the United States, the country now notably lags behind Asian and European countries in terms of adoption rate, e-governance projects and infrastructural investment in urbanized regions. (Regional Plan Association, 2010).

There is, more than ever, a need for progressive digital telecommunications policy on a regional level as research suggests that digital telecommunications technologies still has not received recognition as a regional policy priority.

In terms of regional policy coordination in the realm of digital telecommunications technologies, the observations first proposed in by Marvin and Graham from 1996 can rearticulated today: there is a lacking of consideration of this infrastructural tool with regional policy and place specific interventions (Graham and Marvin, 1996).

Digital telecommunications has growing attention from the United States federal government; funding for state and regional projects will interest and attention, specifically since it implies an infrastructural investment that will continue to shape metropolitan areas and promote economic competitiveness in the next century. Such interest is embodied in the federal initiatives spearheaded by the Obama administration to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act aimed at combating deep economic recession in 2009. The American Recovery

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and Reinvestment Act provides allots over $800 billion to stimulate the American economy, with $7.2 billion being dedicated to broadband expansion projects (Reuters, 2010). The remaining funding under this act is bid for through individual state strategic plans, many of which make mention of the need to invest in digital telecommunications technologies.

While federal funding is currently being channeled into digital telecommunications infrastructures at the state and local level, a current policy vacuum in the United States serves as a space of institutional and legal experimentation.

Thinly defined norms and understandings of the implications of digital telecommunications policy means that norms can be set rather than abated in a regional planning context. It is the goal of this thesis to learn from policy and project experiences in the Italian context to ultimately apply such understanding to metropolitan governance and policy initiatives in the United States.

Drawing from Italian cases, and specifically the successes of PITER in Emilia Romagna, such policies can be tweaked and applied to an American context. In order to better understand such policy adaptation could occur, however, it is first, important to provide a brief survey of regional planning and coordination apparatus in the United States.

6.4.2 FAILURE OF DIGITAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS CONNECTIVITY POLICY As mentioned in the previous section, at the moment there is a vacuum in the determination of network governance policies through the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies in United States metropolitan areas. Such a vacuum is also apparent in specific efforts to foster and promote Internet connectivity in urban populations for the purpose of government service provision. Wireless Philadelphia, is exemplary of the policy mismatches seen. Wireless Philadelphia negotiated with Earthlink, an Internet service provider, to install a series of Wifi hotspots across the city, to be accessed a low monthly

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

rate. The ultimate aim was to provide Internet at a low cost for those who could not afford it living in the city. In the end, however, Wireless Philadelphia failed because Earthlink, the Internet service provider, reneged on its 10 year plan with the city, selling the project to Network Acquistion, a company that ultimately moved to provide wireless for free and eliminating the need for the reduced rate under the old plan. Wireless Philadelphia is now operating to provide “digital inclusion packages” to low-income families in the city, specifically targeting service to these populations with specific microprojects.

The case of Wireless Philadelphia was cited in interviews with officials involved in providing public connectivity in Emilia Romagna, who largely believed it was a case to learn from in terms of providing free wireless to citizens. From a policy perspective, the failures of Wireless Philadelphia, which were extrapolated and applied in Emilia Romagna can be extrapolated and applied to other cases in the United States, are linked to three primary reasons: • Scale: a city cannot go it alone to just provide within its own boundaries. There is a need for a regional economies of scale in service provision to mitigate costs.

• Network: it is essential to understand and create a network before implementing the project. Horizontal collaboration of engaged populations allows for a survey to better understand all relevant actors in service provision. While the city or region cannot go it alone, city administrations, mirroring the regional policy, moved to serve as mediators between relevant actors involved in service provision. Philadelphia instead focused specifically on providing specific populations without understanding ongoing provision activity and the specific role of the city in provision.

• Population: understanding the intended target population of the policy is crucial. Internet connectivity in Philadelphia was targeted only at low-income populations,

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some of which do not have computers or the means to access such a service. Specifically targeting at one population limited the depth of the policy and the scope in which user populations could make use of the product and ultimately ensure the viability and pertinence of the projec.t What can ultimately be taken away from the failure of Wireless Philadelphia and applied to other United States contexts is the need to build a network to understand actors involved and the scope of intervention before passing to a specific city and regional project aimed at Internet services. Creating the social architecture and actor network context around a project is crucial before passing to its implementation.

6.5 CONCLUSION AND FORWARD Chapter Six has served to outline the socio-political specificities of metropolitan regional planning and digital teleconnectivity project initatives in a United States context. The chapter specifically outlined a number of points that will later be tested and serve as a grounds for policy recommendations in two United States cities in the final chapter of this thesis.

Chapter Six detailed that: • the failure of Metropolitan Planning Organizations due to mismatch between functional and institutional urban systems. Metropolitan Planning Organizations lack of recognition or identification on the part of urban regional populations with policy initiatives as well as weak institutional framework has served to limit its clout in contemporary United States metropolitan planning initiatives. • the failure digital telecommunications policy and projects was instead based on city centric policy that neither captures the dynamics of poverty and

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service provision in an urban region failure based on fragmentation of metropolitan governance contexts nor the dialogues between local actors.

Chapter Six ultimately served to detail the mismatch of scale of policy intervention in United States metropolitan planning context and a mismatch of scope or dimension of policy interventions. The concepts of both of these mismatches will be unpacked in the following chapter in detailed case studies, with the ultimate aim of the chapter being the application of strategies presented at the end of Chapter Five.

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7.1 INTRODUCTION The first part of this thesis was dedicated to a theoretical survey of ongoing trends in the socio-spatial evolution of urban systems. Main conclusions pointed to a scalar mismatch between the functional and the institutional cit and resulting fragmentation of urban regional planning systems. Digital telecommunications infrastructure and projects were identified as a possible tool for intervention. The second part of this thesis experimented with theoretical observations. The project intervention detailed a concept and project that articulated regional digital telecommunications policy interventions in a specific local context. The project similarly provided an example of experimenting with an interface between network governance organizations and user populations.

The final part of this thesis is dedicated to recapitulating lessons learned during research and project application.

This summary will be used to compile a list of policy recommendations detailing how to intervene in foreign contexts. Initial work and observations from Italy with lead to suggestions for eventual policy and project application in an American context. The New York City Metropolitan Area and the Portland Metropolitan Area will be used to evince these policy suggestions in a specific context.

Chapter Seven will be presented as a compilation of suggestions for eventual policy and project application in an American context. The New York City Metropolitan Area and the Portland Metropolitan Area will be used to evince these policy suggestions in a specific context. The, New York case will highlight the regional organization mismatch of spaces and politics. The Portland case will instead

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suggest strategies for opening new dialogues with users to enhance legitimacy build upon existing regional project work mismatch of populations The focus this final chapter of the thesis work will be to suggest strategies for the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies to redefine regional actor networks and promote network governance efficacy.

7.2 UNITED STATES STUDIES FOR POLICY RECOMMENDATION Two studies in metropolitan and urban regional planning were chosen. These studies shed light into the very diverse institutional and socio-spatial contexts of the United States, reflecting a multiplicity of governance organizations and policy initiatives. Study were chosen as objects of policy recommendations and evince the multiple dimensions of regionally coordinated by locally administered governance project interfaces with urban populations in the realm of digital telecommunications. The aim of this section will be to first analyze the current policy climate of regional collaboration and local interfaces of governance networks, then propose policy recommendations to enhance existing initiatives, all with the scope of moving beyond local boundaries to envision the metropolitan area as one continuous urban system.

New York City and the New York Metropolitan Area were chosen as the first object of policy recommendations. New York is the largest city in terms of population in the United States. This huge scale also speaks to an incredibly diverse

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but divided institutional context. Incredibly complex network of citizen and public administrative organizations respond to the socio-spatial complexities and specificities of the city, but also have overlapping and conflicting interests that complicate policy debate. New York was thus chosen as an archetype of a fragmented urban regional planning context for policy recommendation.

The second city serving as an object of policy recommendations is Portland, Oregon. The Portland Metro area is a smaller but progressive urban region that was able to harness and effectively wield regional governance strategies embodied in its Metropolitan Planning Organization. Portland often stands at the forefront of United States transportation planning and civic participation in urban planning initiatives. That being said, online dialogues and planning initiatives aimed at sparking citizen engagement still need to be developed and articulated by local projects to give local form and voice to metropolitan coordination and policy.

Governance strategies and recommendations in the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies will be applied to both to show the versatility of the strategies suggested, and the multiple dimensions for intervention to induce shifts in regional actor network dynamics.

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7.3 NEW YORK CITY REGION The New York City Metropolitan Area is the largest urban agglomeration in the United States of America. With New York City at its epicenter, the New York City Metropolitan region spans 140 miles and comprises: three states, 17 counties, 20 cities and hundreds of towns, villages and local jurisdictions. The region comprises over 19 million people and is also the largest agglomeration in terms of population concentration in the United States. The New York City Metropolitan Area is also a key series of nodes along the Boston to Washington D.C (Bo-Wash) northeast corridor. This region was dubbed a “megalopolis” by Lewis Mumford in 1939 and is an immense region comprising the United States’ main business, financial and government activities.

At the heart of the New York Metropolitan Area is New York City. New York City is a hub of global finance and trade. A “global city” par excellence, the city is also a hub of international travel and a center of communication, fashion and design and industrial production; it is a command center at the forefront of technical and financial innovation that continues to attract fortune seekers from across the world and the burgeoning center of the United States’ north eastern megalopolis. New York City is also one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities on the planet; it is the largest Anglophone city in the world but is a place where over 170 languages from across the planet are spoken in its streets. New York City is situated in the State of New York, the third most populous state in the United States, with a population of 19.4 million. The city is divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queen, the Bronx and Staten Island.

This thesis will consider the entire New York Metropolitan Region as an object of policy recommendations; the aim is to break and work beyond traditional planning interventions that consider the entirety and gravity of the five boroughs without focusing on what is fast becoming Figure 7-1 ; a photograph of New York City posted on Flicker.

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a economically dynamic, socio-spatially diversified and global urban region.

7.3.1 NEW YORK METROPOLITAN GOVERNANCE Like other urbanized metropolitan areas, the New York City Region has a Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The Metropolitan Planning Organization of New York is primarily responsible for the coordination of transportation policy coordination and is called the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council. The council is the channel of federal transportation funding to the New York Metropolitan Region and is primarily responsible for the proposition and coordination of regional strategic transportation planning.

The New York Metropolitan Transit Councils project interventions are limited to jurisdictions within the state of New York.

Figure 7-2 ; an image depicting the location of the New York Metropolitan Area in four different states

Although the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council exists to channel federal funding for transportation projects, the main instrument of strategic regional planning and project collaboration in New York City is instead the Regional Plan Association. The Regional Plan Association is collaborative strategic force that tackles issues of economic development, infrastructural investment and natural resource preservation. The Regional Plan Association has proposed and renewed three major regional planning policy documents that appeared in 1922, 1968, 1996. The most recent document, entitled “ A Region at Risk”,

warned that new global trends had fundamentally altered New York’s national and global position. The plan called for building a seamless 21st century mass transit system, creating a three-million acre Greensward network of protected natural resource systems, maintaining half the region’s employment in urban centers, and assisting minority and immigrant communities to fully participate in the economic mainstream (Regional Plan Association, 2010).

Figure 7-3 ; an image depicting the location of the New York Metropolitan Area in the context of the counties of the state of New York

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FIgure 7-4 ; an image depicting the New York Metropolitan Area and urbanized areas

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Unlike the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, the Regional Plan Association has jurisdiction that extends across three state boundaries and encompasses over 20 individual cities. Sub-regional committees are divided along state boundaries, but are ultimately subject to and under the jurisdiction of the Regional Assembly. The Regional Plan is a built solely on institutional and actor network collaboration and serves as an important source for regional policy prescriptions.

7.3.2 NEW YORK CITY REGION TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY

AND

DIGITAL

The New York Metropolitan Region boasts not one but two regional organization entities responsible for strategic vision development. This being said, at the moment there is no current regional strategic vision for the implementation of digital telecommunications infrastructure or the collaboration of local policy and project initiatives for the New York Metropolitan Area. Initiatives have been spearheaded at the state and city level, but do not capture and service the realities of regional organizational dynamics needed to optimize policy endeavors. Looking ahead to the future, there have been a number of innovative policy initiatives at multiple governance levels to get New York City online.

7.3.2.1 NEW YORK STATE BROADBAND STRATEGY ROADMAP At the national level, the current government of the United States under the direction and leadership of Barack Obama passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act aimed at combating deep economic recession in 2009. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provides allots over $800 billion to stimulate the American economy, $378 billion of which goes directly to programs that directly impact state economy and policy and $24.6 billion of which will go directly to New York state. $7.2

billion has been allotted to encourage the implementation of broadband technologies to undeserved areas under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (New York State Office of Technology, 2009).

In response to Federal funding opportunities, New York State has implemented the New York State Universal Broadband Strategy Roadmap. This state policy meets federal requirements to provide and improve connections to broadband in underserved areas, to provide broadband access, education awareness and training in “community anchors”, to provide access and better use of broadband by public safety agencies and finally to stimulate the demand for economic growth, broadband and job creation. As of July of 2009, New York State is in the process of bidding for funding. Specific initiatives proposed under this policy have ranged from 100% broadband coverage across to New York State to promoting telework and distance learning, the implementation of virtual conference rooms, “digital court hearings” and “telemedicine and telepsychiatry”(New York State Office of Technology, 2009).

7.3.2.2 CONNECTED CITY Both Federal and State stimulus policies directly impact and are mirrored in New York City digital city policy.

Broadband Technology Opportunities Program funds are also available to New York City. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the Connected City initiative in 2009. Under this initiative, the city has worked to enhance services in health administration, education and business development. Some specific initiatives: • allow for iPhone users to digitally report problems to the existing 311 service online • expand the Notify NYC program to include a “Silver Alert” that warns of missing senior citizens • implement the Primary Care Information Project to help city doctors convert paper records to digital records

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• establish the NYC Business Express website to provide a “one stop shop for people looking to start or grow small businesses” with information about eligibility for 44 local, state and federal grants • establish the NYC Connected Learning program aimed at offering low income sixth graders computers, training and free internet access to special email accounts and didactic websites • facilitate the establishment of IBMs New York Business Analytics Center in Manhattan to provide for consultancy expertise in “developing financial and government solutions (Bindrim, 2009).

While the Connected City initiative builds upon existing services and promotes information stream-lining and digitization for small businesses, the initiative also announced the Big Apps contest. The Big Apps contest is an awards program that will assign over $20,000 in cash prizes to “reward the developers of the most useful, inventive, appealing, effective, and commercially viable applications for delivering information from the City of New York’s NYC.gov Data Mine to interested users” (Big Apps, 2010). The aim is to spark innovative strategies for the diffusion of information through social media and networking services, as 15 city agencies are currently making use of some sort of online platform.

7.3.2.3 CITY DEPARTMENTS Small steps have been taken by individual departments to implement computing and information technologies into daily functions. These steps have either taken the form of uploading whole information sets from individual departments onto integrated computer systems or using “push” information streaming to inform citizens of ongoing changes.

The New York Police Department, for example, has taken measures to digitalize all archives and reported cases

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to allow for quick recall in trial situations. Photo archives of reported criminals and individual weapons have been uploaded to help victims better identify suspects and build case scenarios. Data is also geo-referenced to analyses of spatial distribution of crimes and help police officers better understand the context before entering the scene of the crime. (Interview) Initiatives have also been taken to provide real-time streaming information about traffic flows and notifications from the city government. The Metropolitan Transit Authority, the organization responsible for all surface transport including trains, subways and buses in the metropolitan area, now “tweets” information about transit delays and construction projects (Pompeo, 2009). The city government now has two programs know as Notify NYC and 311. Notify NYC allows citizens to register online with the city government to receive information either to personal PCs or cell phones about public healthy announcements, public school announcements or unscheduled changes in parking regulation in home neighborhoods. 311 is a search engine that directs citizens to specific services online based again on user criteria and location (Bindrim, 2009).

All systems seek to simplify information accessibility, but none have considered the importance of a feedback mechanism whereby citizens can quickly interact with governance agencies.

7.3.2.4 BROADBAND ADVISORY COMMITTEE To promote citizen awareness about Internet usage and celebrate the cities Internet industry and community, New York City will host its second annual Internet Week in June of 2010. The event will be hosted and funded in conjunction with the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (Internet Week New York, 2010).

Finally, New York City established the Broadband Advisory Committee in 2005. To date the committee has worked

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with city communities and officials to study the possible implementation and expansion of broadband technologies and internet connectivity in the city. a bill that would promote and provide funding for free Internet access across the city. In response to Federal stimulus funds, the committee, following the examples of Philadelphia and San Francisco is lobbying for a city-wide free wireless network.

7.3.3 NEW YORK CITY REGION POLICY ISSUES As was identified in the opening descriptions of the New York Metropolitan Region, the city and region of New York represent a context dense with socio-spatial networks and organizations competing and collaborating in local and regional service provision. Such activity is at the moment also reflected in digital telecommunications policy and connectivity. With overlapping jurisdictions of service provision, a multiplicity of actors enriches but also complicates policy debate, making consensus difficult to obtain. Such a difficulty to obtain consensus can be seen in a lack of regional policy for the implementation of telecommunications technologies policy and projects.

In terms of digital connectivity, New York City, the New York City metropolitan region, New York State and the United States fall behind global competitors in the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies and services.

In the past, lack of federal policy to deal with broadband infrastructure has lead to a lag in adoption and development of digital technologies in metropolitan areas. Federal policy, up until recently, has simply neglected to in send fiscal signals or set specific standards for local governments to innovate and adopt digital policy initiatives or promote Internet connectivity. In most recent Regional Plan (1996), the document currently orienting city and regional policy, there is a need for a strategic vision and consideration of digital telecommunications application and e-governance initiatives. The lack of such a strategic vision leads to a patchwork scenario of connectivity and service provision.

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

In the New York City Metropolitan Area, implementation of digital technologies has been left up to the private sector for provision and private decision making for consumption.

Left primarily up to the private sector to implement and install broadband Internet technologies, a lack of affordability and availability has lead to a situation where market viability is the first criteria to the usage of Internet and the adoption of high-speed broadband technologies.

Low-income areas and rural areas are thus excluded from access to such technologies. The “digital divide� of the New York City Metropolitan Area is apparent and has consequently become a hot topic of city policy debate.

A lack of computer and high costs of broadband were cited as the largest inhibitions to installation at home.

Although 98% of New York City households have access to broadband connections, only 46.4% have a broadband line at the moment. One third of Internet users in the city accessed the internet at a local public library, supplementing a lack of home access with access at work or via a cell phone. Variation in connection based on borough is high: Manhattan is roughly 55% connected to broadband infrastructure, while the Bronx was only 38.5% connected. Finally, only 26% of residents in public housing have access to broadband in their homes (Belson, 2009). Indicators thus paint a mixed picture of Internet and broadband connectivity in New York City that straddles closely pre-existing socio-economic divides. At the moment connectivity is primarily left up to individual development initiative with little to no help coming from the State or city. Such a market for different types of spaces to connect to the internet do provide for a diversity of choices and spurs local development initiatives but do not and cannot substitute for an overarching citywide policy.

Finally, privatization of Internet service provision has also lead to a situation where connectivity is primarily obtained in commercial spaces. Book stores, cafes and other shops become primary spaces of connectivity, but also preclude commercial purchase for use. Thus, although Internet is provided for free in such spaces, access to these spaces

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still require an economic transactions, effectively limiting participation and connectivity.

Obstacles for the New York Metropolitan area are thus embodied in both the implementation of a regional strategic plan for the linking relevant actors and building a government network and reaching out to and building an interface for citizens and urban populations that lack regular connectivity.

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7.4 PORTLAND REGION Portland is the largest city in the state of Oregon and the 30th most populous city in the United Sate with a population of 582,130 in 2009 (Portland State University, 2010). The city is located near the border of Oregon and Washington State along the Columbia River and extends from the west to the Washington County and the east to the Clackamas County. Portland is the county seat of the Multnomah County and was unified in 1851; the Portland metropolitan region is the 23rd most populous in the Unites State with the population of roughly two million people (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007). Portland is well known for its urban planning principles with a reputation for enacting successful regional governance strategies. The metropolitan area appears to have many of the aspect of the “compact city “model of urban growth and present the capacity of local and state government to shape growing metropolitan regions and solving many of the problems of urban sprawl in the region (Abbott, 1997). In the case of Portland the result is a dense downtown that is pedestrian friendly with many public transportation options. The combination of natural resources, young environmentally aware citizens, and transportation and resource planning has aggregated to the city being named “The Greenest City in the United States (Sheppard, 2007).

7.4.1 PORTLAND GOVERNANCE

Figure 7-5 ; a photograph of Portland, OR posted on Flickr David GN Photography

Portland is governed by City Planning Commission consists of the mayor and four other Commissioners. Portland had its first Planning Commission in 1918 with the role of advising the City Council at least once a month on urban projects. During the 1960’s and 70’s a new set of concerns about citizen involvement was added in planning process.

Therefore planners started to work with citizen groups and neighborhoods. Decisions were reviewed and plans were formulated not just by the planning commissions but also by the previous mentioned groups called the Citizens Advisory Committee. The committee was active throughout

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THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

the process, from formulation till implementation of plans and this was the beginning of advocate planning by the planning staff (Campos, 1979).

Oregon’s state-wide system of land use planning has been widely recognized as a national leader, and has helped to define and secure the state’s quality of life.

The state requires that local plans be in agreement with the 15 statewide planning goals. In addition, the regional government, Metro, has goals and policies that apply to Portland. This means that the City planning efforts are informed by both state and Metro goals and policies – they form the foundation for planning efforts.

7.4.1.1 METRO’S REGIONAL FRAMEWORK PLAN The regional governmental agency of the Portland metropolitan area is the only directly-elected metropolitan planning organization in the Unites State (Abbott, 1997). Metro is a regional governmental agency that is authorized by the state to coordinate between regional and local comprehensive plans in adopting a regional urban growth boundary, demanding coherency between local comprehensive plans, statewide and regional planning aims, coordinate and recommend regional and metropolitan decisions such as) transportation, solid waste, air quality, and water quality (Metro, 2010) (Abbott, Abbott, 1991). Metro’s Urban Growth Management Functional Plan (1996) and Regional Framework Plan (1997) help counties and cities to prepare their plan and vision for any development (Abbott, 1991). Beside that Metro is acting like a coordinator and mediator with local leaders and people through the region and offering consultant services, training and distributing funds to use in the community planning (Metro, 2010).

Figure 7-6 ; an image depicting the location of the Portland Metropolitan Area in two different states

Figure 7-7 ; an image depicting the location of the Portland Metropolitan Area in the context

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PORTLAND

Urban Growth Boundary

Figure 7-8 ; an image depicting the Portland Metropolitan Area and urbanized areas

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7.4.1.2 URBAN GROWTH BOUNDARY The other important contributions of Metro in the regional governing is managing the urban growth boundary for the Portland metropolitan area, using land use planning tools to prevent sprawl and to protect agricultural lands.

Every five years, the Metro Council is required to conduct a review of the land supply and, if necessary, expand the boundary to meet that requirement (Metro, 2010). Besides that, the city adopted Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) in 1979 that maintains high density development in urban areas and protects traditional farmlands surrounding the city from any non-agricultural development. This was an innovative movement in the time that the dominant use of automobile empting the city’s core and guide the development along infrastructure , in the suburbs and create satellite cities.

before, New York, New Orleans, and Los Angeles. The survey evaluated municipal websites for their privacy, usability, content, service, and citizen participation and ranked the cities nationally. The City’s PortlandOnline website (www.portlandonline.com) allows citizens to pay utility bills and businesses to get a license and pay taxes online (Portlandonline, 2010). PortlandMaps, its online GIS system, allows visual access to city neighborhoods, including demographic data; crime statistics; transit and bike routes; permitting activity; schools and parks; businesses; and capital projects among other features. City of Portland bureaus and offices also use blog, comment, survey, and polling capabilities of the City’s web content management system to facilitate 24/7 interaction with the public.

7.4.2.1 THE BUREAU OF TECHNOLOGY 7.4.1.3 THE COMP PLAN The Comp Plan focuses on the citywide level while other plans such as district or neighborhood plans detail more localized conditions and issues. These smaller area plans put into action the Comp Plan Goals and Policies. The graphic below illustrates these relationships (City of Portland, Bureau of Planning, 2008). Citizens have gained another forum through which to affect the planning of the city with the establishment of local neighborhood associations beginning in the1960s. There are now 95 official neighborhood associations in Portland, most of them affiliated with one of seven local coalitions (City of Portland, Bureau of Planning, 2008).

7.4.2 PORTLAND REGION TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY

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The other complement about Portland is the city received the Municipal Web Portal Excellence Award in 2009 ranking in the second position after Washington DC, and

The Bureau of Technological Services is responsible for management, policy setting, strategic planning and leadership in the use of computer, radio, and telecommunications technologies, to ultimately support the delivery of effective government services (City Of Portland, Bureau of Technology Services, 2010). The Bureau of Technological Services strives to eliminate duplication of effort and expenditure, increase and ease access to information, and standardize wherever possible and is committed to regular, effective communication between other city bureaus (Auditor LaVonne GriffinValade, 2009). The agency similarly provides the infrastructure, software and basic presentation and navigation format for the city’s web presence. The Bureau uses the PortlandOnline Content Management System to manage all Internet web content. All public and private callable “Web Service” functions must be coordinated with the Bureau of Technology Services to comply with both architecture and security standards (Auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade, 2009).

The Bureau of Technology Services manages and standardizes the City’s Information Technology and

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Communications. Policy interventions in this regard include: • The provision Information Technology planning and consulting services

strategic

• The design, implementation and management all IT hardware and software • The management all citywide radio, video, data communications, microwave, wireless communications and telephone systems and equipment owned by the City • The management end user ICT support services • The management the citywide Geographic Information System • The provision all Internet and Intranet services to City bureaus, offices, boards and commissions • The provision citywide communications and electronic consulting for system planning and procurement; Some goals of Bureau of Technological Services is in terms of e-government services are the development of a single City web portal and the development of a single identity and sign on system for both Citizens and staff.

7.4.2.2 PORTLANDONLINE - PORTLANDPLAN The e-Government initiative is centered on a web portal called PortlandOnline. PortlandOnline provides a single portal to reach all existing web services provided by the Bureaus as well as features that enhance service and information delivery options for users and service providers.

The City of Portland established and now maintains a repository for data, with a Bureau of Technology Services primarily responsible for the maintenance of the corporate data repository or hub systems, as well as the appropriate data access tools for the City of Portland. (Auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade, 2009) The Revenue Bureau provides the

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opportunity to pay business taxes and file for new licenses online; the Portland Water Bureau similarly allows citizens to pay water and sewer utility bill online. Development Services provides citizens with the opportunity to apply for electrical, mechanical, or plumbing permits online.

Within PortlandOnline, there is a website devoted to the PortlandPlan, the city’s 25 year strategic plan. The PortlandPlan website is a user-friendly presentation of the PortlandPlan aimed at interested citizens. Various technological resources are utilized to provide information to citizens. The Planning Committee holds town hall meetings in the neighborhoods, these town hall meetings are all video recorded and the videos are available on the website. The site also offers a poll to any interested citizen regarding the PortlandPlan and results are published. On the other hand, The Portland Plan is an inclusive, citywide planning effort that will guide the growth and development of Portland over the next 25 years. The plan will address crucial aspects of city life – for instance, housing, jobs, transportation, sustainability, the natural environment and infrastructure – with a long-term and holistic perspective.

It will cover the geography of the entire city and zoom in on particular areas and topics as needed. It will be a multiyear process and will unify several plans and projects with a consistent and coordinated approach.

Fulfilling state requirements to update the City’s 1980 Comprehensive Plan is another reason for this planning effort to occur now. The Portland Plan will be the Comprehensive Plan for a new generation (Comprehensive Plan Assessment, Portland plan, 2008).

PortlandPlan uses a number of web resources including streaming video, polling, and in depth resources about the plan. This plan addresses the change in technology that has occurred in the last 30 years. The new plan addresses nine action areas; Prosperity, Business Success & Equity, Education & Skill Development, Arts, Culture & Innovation, Sustainability & the Natural Environment, Human Health, Food & Public Safety, Quality of Life & Civic Engagement, Design, Planning & Public Spaces,

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Neighborhoods & Housing, and Transportation, Technology & Access. The PortlandPlan addresses technology both in terms of infrastructure as well as economic opportunity.

(PortlandPlan, 2009). Its goal is to improve individual access to technology and information by increasing affordability of high speed internet access because now, high-speed internet access is not available in all Portland neighborhoods and high-speed internet access is too expensive for many residents.

7.4.2.3 PORTLANDMAPS The other online service that the city of Portland together with the Bureau of Technology Services has moved to provide is the development of simple web interface of city GIS data named PortlandMaps (PortlandMaps,2010).

PortlandMaps was developed to give public access to GIS data integrated with other information from all bureaus.

Using this application, Citizens can query, analyze and review data from all bureaus that produce GIS information and other relevant data. PortlandMaps provides a simple to use streamlines interface for property selection and navigation. Some of the features include: • Locate Property quickly and easily by address or intersection • Access to over 50 GIS data sources including aerial photography • Access assessment information Clackamas and Washington counties

for

Multnomah,

• Query an area or individual property for environmental, utility, political or other information • Create and print detailed reports including maps (Bureau of Technology Services, 2010)

7.4.2.4 VISIONPDX The other online service for specifically between citizen and the city is the VisionPDX. VisionPDX is Portland’s Community Visioning Project Launched in 2005 by Portland Mayor Tom Potter, VisionPDX was an extensive public engagement process to develop a shared vision for the community for the next 20 years and beyond The purposes of VisionPDX were to invite community members to plan for the future of the city. There had not been a broad look at the current state and direction of Portland for 15 years. also to open up government to all Portlanders, particularly to underrepresented groups and communities.

This was the largest public engagement process Portland has completed to date, and one of the largest in North America over 17,000 Portlanders weighed in with their opinions over two years. Their dreams and aspirations became Portland 2030: a vision for the future, that includes the values Portlanders share and direction on the built, economic, environmental, learning and social future for our city. (Vision into Action, 2010). VisionPDx is thus an exemplary example of e-government that asserts municipal deliberative democratic legitimacy and interactive policy making with local citizenry.

Interactive policy making can be seen as a specific mode of governance that places the increase of participation in the policy process at the centre. A definition can be ‘the early involvement of individual citizens and organized stakeholders in public policy making in order to explore policy problems and develop solutions in an open and fair process of debate that has influence on political decision making’. Interactive policy making processes are activated in a rather top down way by governments. Thus, interactive policy making is specific way of conducting policies whereby a government creates channels for early involvement in the policy process for its citizens and other organized stakeholders like social organizations and enterprises. These interactive processes are not only use for gaining public support, but also capacity of reducing

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the gap between citizen and traditional administration that link citizen’s preferences more actively and interactively to political decisions (Huys, 2006). Such public debate is practice that Portlanders have engaged in since 1970; internet connectivity has now enhanced these policies.

7.4.3 PORTLAND POLICY ISSUES Portland is in many ways a regional policy success story.

While all cities and urbanized areas with populations above 100,000 have a Metropolitan Planning Organization, Portland in particular was able to harness its institutional organizational capacity. Regional government was used as an in-between institution to solve the problem of sprawl, a problem that extends well-beyond the reaches of local policy action, with the region moving from a task delegator to mediator, being involved in the process of the project than just being interested in the ultimate goal. The Urban Growth Boundary in this regard has served as the political tool to help provide legal and perceptive legitimacy to metropolitan authorities. Regional institutions in this regard are engaged not just in end results, but in collaborative processes needed to achieve long term coordination goals. Portland has a long and successful tradition of shaping its future through thoughtful planning. A key to why planning works in Portland is that it is collaborative and public-driven. Portland people have planned and deliberately directed the urban growth through the time. How Portlanders have shaped their cityscape and metroscape has to do most essentially with politics, public values, leadership, the capacity of planning agencies and local governments, and the quality of civic discourse. Now as the city passes to an information age level of service provision the, city again stands at the forefront of United States regional policy coordination.

Praise for Portland’s progressive policy climate, however, is balanced with some ongoing and salient organizational issues in the realm of digital telecommunications policy and project coordination.

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The public administration online and making use of digital telecommunications technologies needs to be truly public. The main problem with the policy framework of Portland as it currently stands is that, while it takes into consideration a metropolitan vision of planning, interfaces with individual users still need to be modified to become truly effective. Like many public administration web portals, the PortlandOnline is largely prescriptive.

Similar to the problems encountered by Torino WiFI, while PortlandOnline offers basic services to streamline paper work and registration, what is missing still is a dynamic forum of information exchange with the citizenry. Data can be posted by the public administration, but such an organization still excludes the voice of individual citizens from reporting. While experiences in VisionPDX provided a first initial experimentation with such citizen engagement beyond the level of basic services, these efforts ultimately limited the democratic voice and dialogue concerning metropolitan planning to a comparatively limited population.

Public Internet connectivity needs to have a public spatial dimension. At the moment the public administrations service policy takes for granted the connectivity abilities of the individual user. As services are updated to an online realm, so too do efforts by the public administration need to be adopted to provide spaces for public connectivity.

Without such a forum, the ongoing metropolitan planning initiatives of Portland, as they increasingly move to the online realm, will face similar dilemmas in the representation of citizen voice as a result of digital divide of service provision. Those who have will continue to have a stronger voice while those who are excluded from regular Internet connectivity will be represented less in e-Democracy initiatives.

While New York lacks a regional collaboration and network of coordination for the implementation of digital telecommunications policy, Portland instead has past this initial step in updating services to suit the needs of the metropolitan city and urban region. Portland, however, still

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needs to work on the public interface with user populations, focusing on enhancing online fora for service provision.

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REGIONAL/LOCAL PLA N

7.5 POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS 7.5.1 NETWORK GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE Focusing on implementing network governance strategies in United States urban regions, three key points need to be taken into consideration: • First, the combination of regional collaboration and coordination with local project initiatives that take into account and work within an in between scale of plan implementation. Economies of scale at the regional level are complimented by locally articulated project initiatives.

Regional linkages between public administrations embodied in a governance intranet create a network of information exchange and collaboration that helps enhance the quality of future regional projects.

• Second, local projects need to focus specifically on interfaces of service delivery that reflect regional coordination, but that are tailored to local specificities.

Initiatives must have a public spatial dimension and move beyond provision to dialogues with local and regional user populations.

• Finally, the spatial fix of such a plan is directly related to servicing urban populations that operate at a regional scale. Thinking about and servicing populations, governance can morph into a regional area of intervention.

The ultimate aim of such network governance strategies is to work within existing local spatial boundary constraints by linking them to a wider regional connectivity project.

Figure 7-9 ; pg ; a figure redepicting a policy strategy architecture for the regional coordination but local articulation of network governance strategies

Servicing populations, strategies can similarly service sociospatial dimensions that move beyond local boundaries.

Based on these specific scopes of network governance policy, the following are a series of recommendations to be applied in the New York and Portland urban regional contexts.

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7.5.2 NEW YORK AND PORTLAND RECOMMENDATIONS 7.5.2.1 METROPOLITAN PLANNING ORGANIZATIONS At the moment, in both New York and Portland, policy is focused and tailored to the central city. Collaboration at the wider metropolitan level does not draw upon the network strength of a regional context of action to implement change across the urban region. City administrations are still working within ascribed boundaries of service provision, as seen in the case of Wireless Philadelphia.

In order to rectify this policy mismatch, it can be noted that Metropolitan Planning Organizations match the scale of regional population life activity and can serve as a starting point for the implementation of digital telecommunications plans focusing on enhancing Internet connectivity of the public administration and individual user populations.

As was noted, the weakness of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, their lack of power to intervene in land use planning generates malleability to local context that compels them to respond to the specificity of needs of local regional populations, functioning instead as a behind the scenes collaborator charged with moving policy forward. Using an infrastructural fix and regional mandate, United States Metropolitan Planning Organizations can implement a regional intranet to connect metropolitan regional governments with local municipalities, building upon the existing structure a council and forum of discussion for these governments. Such a regional intranet, similar to that implemented in Emilia Romagna, can serve to connect local actors and enhance the ongoing collaborative role of the MPO as a mediator between local governance networks and state and federal actors.

Such a strategy, as commented by Gianluca Mazzini of Lepida SpA is focused on “building the highway before the car” (2010). Metropolitan Planning Organizations can be used to build the network before the service, giving local and regional organizations an opportunity to be aware of ongoing project initiatives and relevant

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actors engaged in digital connectivity policy and service provision. The focus is this case is on creating a demand for services provided targeting the need to revamp the architectural of the local political environment to make a project successful. Building the network, as seen in Emilia Romagna, generates and builds the network governance and proactive policy environment needed to foster cultures of governance collaboration in urban regions. The policy object of such a plan is spatially rooted in first servicing local public administrations to ultimately enhance services to urban regional populations.

The case of New York shows a specific lack of governance coordination at the regional scale. The New York Metropolitan Area is a chain of cities and urban agglomerations stretching across northeast seaboard, with New York City as its primary node. Regional scale projects are still met skepticism to this primacy and entrenched in Fordist concepts of center and periphery.

Focusing specifically on the development of the network connectivity of the entire region primacy of New York (a region comparable in scale to that of Emilia Romagna) will make the city itself a central node, but expand networks of collaboration and connectivity with the periphery.

In the case of New York, governance networks can: • Use the regional plan in combination with Metropolitan Planning Organizations to collaborate on a regional digital telecommunications plan and intranet similar to that of Emilia Romagna. This, New York Metropolitan Region Connectivity Plan would link local administrations across the metropolitan area. Strategic policy goals can be directed by the Regional Plan Association, with funding and collaborative work emanating directly from the Metropolitan Planning Organizations.

• Implement locally based spatial projects that articulate the plans presence and serve to modify spaces of connectivity in the metropolitan area specifically in critical public spaces like public libraries, parks across the metropolitan area.

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• Focus on strengthening connectivity of user populations; the failure of Philadelphia is directly linked to targeting one user group. As in the case of Emilia Romagna, the principal target population were nomadic citizens and visitors making use of wireless hotspots; such categorization helped the public administration to apply specific strategies considering and reaching out to major regional organizations such as universities.

• Focus on bringing interface with citizen to “peripheral” cities to break skepticism and promote a horizontal collaboration network. Services should ultimately be distributed equally to all municipalities in the Metropolitan Planning Organizations jurisdiction, with the aim being to give voice to relevant governance networks at the local level.

Looking ahead, the New York Metropolitan Region needs to focus on breaking a strongly perceived socio-spatial and governance hierarchy with public administration networking and collaboration at the regional level. Using the Metropolitan Planning Organization and building upon its traditional role as collaborative and coordinative mediator of regional policy, a regional intranet plan can serve as a first step to providing a proactive governance environment needed to promote Internet and digital telecommunications connectivity policy. The first step is to open up channels of information exchange between relevant actors at the regional level through the installation of such a public administration intranet, that in time serves a common project to foster collaboration and promote communication at the metropolitan level.

7.5.2.2 PUBLIC CONNECTIVITY

SPATIAL

PROJECTS

AND

Digital telecommunications technologies are becoming as vital a tool in the governance balancing act as buildings, transport networks and utilities systems” (PublicTechnology, 2010). Over three-quarters (77%) of respondents agreed

an improved broadband network would significantly impact on city competitiveness. “City authorities therefore need to consider that such technologies are as fundamental to a city’s infrastructure as are its buildings, transport networks and utilities,” (PublicTechnology, 2010). “It is increasingly being treated like electricity —an essential architecture that underpins all services and activity in the city.”

(PublicTechnology, 2010). Digital telecommunications technologies can “no longer be considered in terms of single infrastructure specific applications or pieces of software” but a fundamental aspect of governance service provision to enhance the quality of everyday life of urban populations. Public administrations are charged to provide the forum and tools to enhance online information exchange and dialogues between urban populations: there needs to be an assertion of e-public space that enhances this dialogue.

New York City and Portland are cities of great public spaces and public spatial projects. New York’s Central Park and museums, Portland’s public transit system and growth boundary evince an attentive public administration. City spaces need to be enhanced with a new layer of socio-spatial meaning. While both New York City and Portland city administrations moved to update online services, such services still operate at a limited in this capacity because there are still policy gaps related to with how service is provided and accessed.In this regard an attention to the interface with urban regional populations is essential to the policies adoption and success. Applying new layers to existing and relevant social spaces and using socio-spatial cues comprehensible to local and regional user populations is critical in this regard.

As city administrations move to provide online services, there needs to be a non-economic, public e-space of Internet connectivity as expansive as enhanced services in public libraries, public places of connectivity accessible to everyone or micro as a laptop rental and provision to lower income communities to connect in such spaces At the moment, see that the digital divide in service provision exacerbates existing quality of life differences in metropolitan communities; not taking for granted that

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everyone has access to internet.

The specific case of Portland provides an example of how such services could be updated focus on quality and revamping interface with user populations in specific urban spatial contexts. Problems seen in response to online planning initiative, a little more than 10 percent of the population responded to online iniatives. Internet accessibility enhanced their voice, but diminished that of other user populations. The vision of the PortlandPlan is to Increase affordability of highspeed internet access and also Increase use of the internet for public services , but there is no spatial dimension of project intiatives.

The concepts experimented in the Turin ConnecToMi or in the Bologna Sala Borsa project serve as models to be adopted in advanced and progressive public administration contexts like Portland. Ranging from different quick stop and bus stop connectivity environments, to squares and neighborhood streets, e-public space needs to be asserted in public space. The Portland city administration can assert a realm through local spatial connectivity projects. Such projects serve as tools of engaging user populations, and also as symbols showing experimentation with and constructing interface of governance networks online. After having made strides to update the public administration to service only exigencies, a next step is focusing specifically on a public wireless project for Portland is to focus on delivery and the specific interface with user populations; how to teach and dialogue with those who have regular access to Internet and equally those who have irregular connectivity either because of a lack of online alphabetization or economic limitations.

Attention specifically should be paid to: • The implementation of connectivity spaces across the region; an online public administration is not enough if it cannot be accessed by user populations. Steps to update a progressive public administration need to be synced with steps to update a user population, making

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citizens aware and able to use online services and providing forum for such information exchange.

• Working towards online legibility and real time dialogues; at the moment, the Portland governance webinterface is largely prescriptive, providing bill payment services and business registration. In this case the public administration is still not responding to the needs of users, but rather facilitating bureaucratic procedures through online interface.

• Enhancing dialogues of information exchange with the individual citizen, but also linking with other city administrations. While focusing on responding to the needs of urban regional populations, links between varying levels and public administrations is still not developed. A project focusing on building collaboration between local public administrations in the Portland Metro area would compliment ongoing efforts to respond to the needs of citizens.

Looking ahead, Portland public administrations and governance networks need to build upon existing online initiatives by strengthening the administrations presence in e-public spaces. Providing a open access for online information exchange for urban populations to access in dialogues with the public administration and for personal use is a next step in expanding the use and efficacy of ongoing initiatives.

7.5.2.3 POLICY BASED ON POPULATIONS One of the greatest failures of regional projects in the United States is a perception of irrelevance. The failure of Metropolitan Planning Organizations is directly related to a seeming detachment from local context and an authoritative position taken to delegating and implementing regional planning projects. To break this tendency toward localism, Metropolitan Planning Organizations and regional governance networks should structure governance communication and initiatives based

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on the user experience in urban spaces. Strides should be taken to tailoring governance to user experience to create a dialogue that builds upon an ultimate recognition of a regional perception of governance initiatives. Focusing on individual user populations there is a communication at the local context and validation of regional collaboration initiative, providing new recognition of regional collaborative bodies and the long-term success of regionally implemented project and policy initiatives.

Governments in both cases are still focusing on spaces, rather than focusing on space through implementing policy targeting urban populations, the spatial fix defining urban areas. Initiatives were tailored to service the needs of citizens of the city without taking into consideration the complexity and diversity of populations operating in these spaces, and how often correspond and operate in a multiplicity of geographic scales.

Initiatives should target specifically focusing on • Branching out to think about underrepresented and multiple, regional user populations. In both the cases of Philadelphia and Turin, public administrations providing services only to citizens and specific groups of citizens, faced limitations to generating a usership guaranteeing the success and efficacy for the project. • Updating and encouraging the e-alphabetization of urban regional populations to go hand in hand with government online initiatives. It is the job of government to enhance legibility and find a successful way to provide information and connectivity that goes beyond traditional paradigms (and in doing so changing specific scopes of intervention Focusing on interfaces based on multiple urban regional populations expands the scale and scope of intervention and captures current urban socio-spatial dynamics. Opening dialogues and providing services to such populations also generates a feedback mechanism that enhances the

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quality and multiples the scale of service provision. The aim is to ultimately focus on the socio-spatial organizations of populations to update the services provided by local public administrations. Needs, in this regard, generate new scalar responses that work beyond and around local boundaries.

7.6 CONCLUSION The complexity of United States regional planning and project debate speaks to an ample field of experimentation and application of possible strategies for breaking localistic and fragementative political environments with network governance strategies and initiatives. This chapter has been dedicated to providing an overview of the current trends in metropolitan planning and e-governance adoption in United States urban regions, drawing upon research and thesis project experience to provide a set of recommendations and tools to encourage horizontal and cross jurisdictional collaboration of regional actors. This cohesive set of policy recommendations based on research and project experience is the closing of this thesis experience.

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8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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THESIS CONCLUSION

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8.1 CONCLUDING REMARKS

8.2 RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS

This thesis has been a summary and amalgamation of the academic and professional experiences of its authors during the course of their career at the Politecnico di Milano. It has been an exercise in urban planning and policy analysis, focusing both on policy and project design.

What has emerged from the work presented in this thesis is the conviction that there are mechanisms and strategies that do exist and that need to be implemented in order to cope with governance fragmentation in urban regions.

The first section of this thesis was dedicated to establishing a theoretical framework for urban policy and project interventions in contemporary metropolitan areas and urban regions.

The goal of this thesis has been to unite theory and practice to provide suggestions and strategies to build and to enhance urban regional network governance.

Ongoing research in both the reasons for metropolitan governance fragmentation and the impacts of digital telecommunications technologies on socio-spatial organization has served as a theoretical background for project work. The Alta Scuola Politecnica project presented during the course of the thesis was used as a forum for experimentation with policy and project organization, drawing upon research accomplished in the first phases of this thesis. The final goal of such an exercise was to be able to provide regional policy and local project recommendations to ultimately apply in the United States. Such recommendations will provide a unitary and complete project vision that can guide future initiatives at the local and regional level. It is only through the construction of such a symbiotic dialogue between scales that the project’s success can be assured. Human institutions similarly reflect this evolution and constant metamorphosis of scale and importance.

Chapter Two of the thesis provided crucial background information and theoretical frameworks for understanding the socio-spatial evolution of modern urban systems. The socio-spatial dialectic was discussed in order to show that there is a nexus between spatial development and societal evolution. Focusing specifically on societal evolutionary trends, research demonstrated that epochs of capital organization in the Fordist and Post-Fordist eras generated specific urban socio-spatial configurations. The chapter concluded with the identification of the Network Society as a current paradigm to be adopted to understand the needs of contemporary metropolises. The chapter closed with a crucial discussion of the scalar dilemma of governance for ongoing project interventions.

Three key points were identified in Chapter Two: • Innovations in digital telecommunications technologies and the advent of the Internet has created a hyper glocalization of information exchange and a hyper individualization of society. Individuals represent nodes in glocal networks of information exchange and movement.

• The Internet and digital telecommunications infrastructure was identified as having an indirect or secondary impact on urban systems by shaping

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movement but by being itself a shapeless infrastructure.

• Exchanges are not necessarily inscribed in specific geographic scales and are instead embodied in flows, presenting policy and service issues for urban governance networks.

Chapter Three presented a more focused study of sociospatial evolution across capital epochs focusing specifically on the evolution urban governments and governance systems embodied in metropolitan planning. The chapter identified a failure of metropolitan governments in the wake of Fordism, largely attributed to the need to garner popular perception of governing legitimacy and the failure to promote intra-institutional forms of collaboration. The chapter ended with the assertion that fragmentation of metropolitan governance networks can be largely attributed to the application of Fordist metropolitan planning in PostFordist urban systems. As cities have grown and morphed into urban regional systems, institutions have failed to respond to their socio-spatial complexities. The mismatch between the functional and institutional system has created a system of localistic but partial solutions to the problems of urban regional planning. Localist responses inhibit the implementation of projects benefitting the entire urban region.

8.3 HYPOTHESIS CONCLUSIONS Chapter Four was the crux of the thesis and was focused on presenting recommendations to treat the problem of institutional fragmentation with new strategies of regional collaboration. The chapter opened a study of the application of digital telecommunications technologies to urban regional governance networks. It was suggested that such technologies expand opportunities for collaboration and communication. The concept of boundary objects was presented and applied to urban policy studies to explain how such collaboration and communication is enhanced in th specific context of a digital telecommunications plan.

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Chapter Five outlined two case explorations in the implementation of digital telecommunications. The case study of Emilia Romagna’s Piano Telematico (PITER) was presented to better showcase the specificities and shifts in governance dynamics in response to the implementation of digital telecommunications technologies primarily through observation and interviews with actors involved.

In Chapter Five it was concluded that: • Successful urban regional planning is built on regional coordination efforts articulated a by local project initiatives. Regional strategic planning needs to move from directive to collaborative and from supramunicipal to intramuncipal. Cross-jurisdictional problems require cross-jurisdictional solutions and interventions to garner the perceptive legitimacy needed to support and continue regional collaborative efforts.

• Cross-jurisdictional collaboration must be activated by common policy goals and interventions. Digital telecommunications technologies and plans for their implementation are boundary objects that allow for new value creations and the generation of urban regional policy goals. Such technologies serve as objects for collective collaboration and policy experimentation and as tools to expand horizontal and cross-jurisdictional communication in regional governance networks.

• Given the hyperindividualization and glocalization of society in the Internet age, urban regional public administrations and governance networks are compelled to activate services that respond to populations that extend beyond the traditional geographic scale of the cities. Boundaries are blurred as administrations respond to populations and not just citizens; digital telecommunications technologies in this regard can be used as a tool to enhance communications with spatially dispersed populations.

The second case study was instead presentation of the issues and observations raised during the course of

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ongoing project work for the Alta Scuola Politecnica Where A Mi? / Where TO? project. Given that such projects are a local articulation of regional policy and strategic planning initiatives, the successes and failures of the project phase of this thesis must also be taken into consideration to provide for a complete set of policy and project recommendations.

From project experimentation and application is was concluded that: • E-public space can be superimposed on pubic space to assert and reinforce of the public dimensions of both. Internet connectivity projects are infrastructural investments that have an indirect impact on the use of space, serving as magnets for public activity. Interventions that create a public spatial forum for Internet connectivity similarly assert the public dimension of online space, becoming a tangible signal of connectivity.

• Acting on and providing for populations beyond traditional city compels public administrations to increase legibility of online services. The public administration in this regard moves from a provider of information to a facilitator of information exchange. Dialogues around and reformulations of service provision and moves to serving the needs of regional populations in online forums of information exchange, changes perception of the public administrations clout on the part of the individual user.

The regional scale of urban life systems generated from the needs of individuals thus becomes embodied in the new forms of e-services provided, breaking boundaries of collaboration.

• Public administrations are compelled to shift to meet user needs by the Internet. Populations also limit this legibility and service provision; initiatives need to be coupled with e-alphabetization initiatives to prepare citizens to participate in new democratic online spaces.

A move to a the provision of online services is only effective if citizens and populations impacted by the policies of administrations know how navigate online forums of information exchange.

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• Changes to actor network dynamics are limited by the networks themselves. As was observed by Gianluca Mazzini in Emilia Romagna, the effectiveness of policy and project initiatives is shaped by the political climate.

Simply put, initiatives have to be in the right place at the right time to be truly effective as a regional collaboration and coordinative project. Limitations are imposed by institutional organization and related directly to a need to define just how public or private online connectivity is.

8.4 POLICY RECOMMENDATION CONCLUSIONS Chapter Six sought to demonstrate that in the United States there is an extreme case of metropolitan fragmentation of urban regional collaboration and service provision. It was also demonstrated that the institutional failure of metropolitan planning organizations was related to the fact that they were unable to respond to local specificity of socio-spatial context.

Chapter Seven sought to apply lessons learned in theoretical research, hypothesis analysis and contextual surveys in the United States to two specific cases. The cases of New York and Portland showed that there is a spectrum of regional institutional collaboration that needs to be considered.

Policy recommendations were applied based on the scale and depth of coordination and collaboration at a regional level already present.

In Chapter Seven, it was concluded that • City and urban regional institutions can promote cross-jurisdictional collaboration and coordination across local boundaries through the implementation of regional visions, local projects; the boundary object that makes this possible is digital telecommunications policy and project experimentation • Metropolitan Planning Organizations can be reinvented to represent an institutional apparatus and scale needed

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for successful implementation of regional digital telecommunications plan. Being the principal recipient of Federal funding for urban regional environmental and transportation policy, the vaguely defined policy climate of Internet connectivity and services can coupled with ongoing Federal funding can serve as an opportunity to promote collaboration clout of Metropolitan Planning Organizations. Collaborative projects in urban regions can reaffirm the cross-jurisdictional political and collaborative clout of such agencies to provide for future metropolitan regional planning coordination. As previously demonstrated much like in other cases, the Internet has an indirect impact on the coordination and configuration of metropolitan socio-spatial systems, being not only a tool to enhance communication, but also an object of common policy debate and experimentation.

• To articulate the pertinence of such a regional projects promoted by Metropolitan Planning Organizations, at the local level public administrations can focus on providing a public forum for Internet provision in the context of a wider regional project. Private public strategies applied in Emilia Romagna match the political climate in the United States that is often skeptical of the quality of purely public intiatives. E-public space can similarly serve as a magnet to attract users to underused public spaces, a specific problem in United States urban contexts, creating a spatial dimension for a service that individuals want and need in the course of day to day life.

• In terms of the quality of services provided, attention specifically should be paid to online legibility for the user.

Local administrations, in the context of a wider regional project focusing on service provision, should strive for an opening of dialogues with urban populations and not just provision of public information. Online spaces of public administrations at the moment represent prescriptive entities that furnish information and support basic registration services; tracking the needs of urban metropolitan populations still lacking.

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8.5 FINAL REMARKS “Planning is not an abstract analytical concept but a concrete socio-historical practice, which is indivisibly part of social reality” (Albrechts, 2005). Urban form is a paradox constant evolution and socio-spatial legacy, where the past, present and futures of human society collide and vie for pertinence and relevance. These overlapping paradigms of socio-spatial organization serve as an opportunity for planners to propose meaningful and longterm policy and project designs, considering and linking scales of intervention. Only then can planners redefine and strike a new balance between the definition of the functional city and the definition of the institutional city, inducing the evolution of spaces and boundaries to rectify what is otherwise a mismatch between spatial and social constructs.

It has been the aim of this thesis to demonstrate and prove that the concept of city goes well-beyond a defined downtown center of business activity; the modern city is instead a complex regional network of exchange of goods and information, made possible in part by ever developing innovations in transit and digital telecommunications infrastructure. Building and planning for the modern city has required a look into past socio-spatial organizations to understand how better to mitigate and the balance the needs of these legacy spaces and government designs with the burgeoning and often conflicting socio-spatial dynamics of the urban region and of network cities.

New infrastructure serves as a catalyst for new organizational dynamics of governance and actor networks. This thesis proved that, through the manipulation, the installation and the use of digital telecommunications infrastructures, city and regional governance networks can experiment with new forms of information exchange, project initiative collaboration and strategic long term visioning for regional policy as previously undefined or unconsidered scales of intervention. New opportunities exist to generate network governance for urban regions.

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THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

139

APPENDICES

142

A) INTERVIEW SUMMARIES A fundamental part of this thesis experience has been the ability to connect and dialogue with actors involved in the planning and governance networks of Emilia Romagna. These experiences provided a window into the complexities of governance network organization, but also into the opportunities and solutions arising from the implementation of ICT projects.

The following are summaries of specific key points that arose during the course of these interviews. These key points and observations were later incorporated back into the thesis, refining the theoretical framework and providing guidance for eventual project design and implementation.

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

GIANLUCA MAZZINI DIRECTOR OF LEPIDA SPA 13/04/2010 offer fiber optic services to local city administrations that the market did not offer created by a regional law; private company with a private purpose intended specifically for communication only between public administrations; citizens and businesses are secondary beneficiaries political sharing and collaboration essential; administrations in Emilia-Romagna particularly adept in this regard

The following individuals were interviewed from April until June of 2010. Interviews were conducted in person.

strategy of “building the highway before the car”

Gianluca Mazzini Director of LEPIDA SpA, the Region of Emilia Romagna’s Internet provider

region an affective forum for implementing a project: achieve both economies of scale and homogenous enough to build consensus

Sandra Lotti Director of PITER, the Piano Telematico di Emilia Romagna

mitigate the digital divide?

Eros Guareschi Director of Information System and Technological Services of Reggio Emilia Leda Guidi and Daniele Tarozzi IPERBOLE, Bologna’s Information Services Office Giovanni Guerri Director of Guglielmo, Internet service provider operating in Emilia Romagna

Implementation was in part based on timing; the moment politically and economically was right.

Lepida is always the operative arm; services are sometimes delegated out to smaller consultancies, but they always have the final say Incremental installation of infrastructure; building around what already exists [piping, phone lines, electrical wires] ; small steps with a long term vision ; but also limited by this infrastructure because it doesn’t optimize accessibility, had to move to stitch everything together already seeing returns; price of intitial investment mitigated by incremental approach [didn’t have to rush into the market]

APPENDICES

private sector company with a public mission; success cannot be measured by profit, but instead by opportunity cost [accumulating what would’ve been spent with a private service provider that is now being insead provided

by Lepida] opportunity to move into the market checked by an increase in risks ; monopoly on service for the regional government would have to be given up

143

single issue projects; “comunità tematiche” ; region provides infrastructure and then consults, dialogues with local governments and provides know how to local specific application **“in between technology developers and local administration” don’t know how to talk to eachother; regions job, self-appointed, to faciliate communication procedures developed by ICT experts “not usable, not accessible, not useful”

SANDRA LOTTI DIRECTOR OF PITER 24/04/2010 wireless also a legal problem; post September 11th in Italy, all users have to register EVERY time a public access point is used; MUST be authenticated in Italy, authentication in this case often happens through SIM card; store of information [but for foreign visitors?]

Lepida designing models and architecture for various forms of hotspots to be presented on JUNE 17th clarification of our concept; localized hotpsots with Web 2.0 neighborhood exchange access points implementation of PITER and Community Network; given the change in technology, experience is measured and discussed every 3 years to provide for necessary policy adjustments

e-governance first step, then after actively applying to e-education, etc. “look outside and see it from the user point of view” with citizens pointing out what works and what isn’t working “people using it still scarce” “don’t know, difficult to use” people not knowing about or how to use is the fault of government administration “fault of governance” Piedmont, focused on WIFI in response to national governments initial investment in tech; reason for the multiplicity of actors without a specific project [name of law, year?]

looked to receive money and visibility from it’s use and implementation shift in government and governance; application of resources means that man power can be shifted to where it needs to be; more space for more creativity

project mostly financed by the region: 80/20 Community Network started out as a memorandum of understanding that eventually developed into a regional policy; built consensus before putting it into political action

agree on goals standards and priorities

“cooperazione applicative”

Sala Borsa; space of sharing between the generation’s importance of dialogue and spatial dimension to the application of these new technologies as well

“keep public dimension and human experience”

FOLLOW UP:

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Lepida business plan; strategies for wireless applcations contacts meeting on June 17th

EROS GUARESCHI DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION SYSTEM AND TECHNOLOGICAL SERVICES OF REGGIO EMILIA 06/05/2010

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

LEDA GUIDI AND DANIELE TAROZZI IPERBOLE 11/05/2010 Need to distinguish between provision of infrastructure and the provision of services.

focus on the nomadic citizen (cittadino nomadico); where people are sitting is where the wireless should be

Need to distinguish what exactly is the cities role; the city cannot, as public sector body, compete with and favor certain private sector interests. The city, instead, acts a negotiator and mediator on behalf of the citizenry for the provision of specific private sector service. The city in this provides through contracting and acts through indirect service provision rather than direct and local physical and social interventions [based in European laws of competition]

infrastructure has to be harnessed and bent to individual citizens’ needs

Two main problems on the part of local governments : money and authentication.

free service is the best form possible; if the city makes it an intiative to provide such a service, frustrations with connectivity aren’t sent downstream to individual citizens; the public administration thus needs to find a way to facilitate online connectivity

Bologna; experience began in 1995 with the foundation of Iperbole; all citizens are given access to an internet address. From there, service provision moved to a number of hotspots in the downtown area to be accessed by students and citizens already registered under the service.

provision made possible and funded by local creditor (CREDEM); furnished by a local multiultility (ENIA)

Service provider is Go Net; prefer the strategy of “snowball effect” by which the city negotiates for a predetermined kit [that subsequently is provided at a city wide level to all other small businesses choosing to participate]. Once authenticated in one plac,e you have access to the whole city wide network.

understanding the Philadelphia model and failure in wireless provision; the city can’t do it alone and cannot be covered completely at a given scale

strategies for public service; place wireless in a public park flanked by social housing and an elementary school; students teach elderly about wireless connectivity and Internet literacy through a program coordinated by Reggio Emilia city government and made possible through the hotspot furnished in public spaces federation of authentication creates a “circle of trust” by which main local actors can validate online users and mutually recognition previous registration; the aim is to cover everyone within the constraints of the Legge Pisanu

Students and citizens covered; main problem is providing for the tourist population coming to the city [hotels; Chamber of Commerce?]

APPENDICES

GIOVANNI GUERRI DIRECTOR OF GUGLIELMO 03/06/2010 Point to be stressed is that Guglielmo achieves economies of scale by providing a uniformly accessible service that is available in multiple cities “spalmare i costi” by distributing costs at a wider than regional scale and by incorporating municipal as well as private sector actors* Guglielmo works mainly in hotel wireless provision; the network of hotels thus permits them as a service provider to distribute costs and provide lower costs service to municipal governments Authentication : Four Ways 1) paper at an office : go sign up somewhere 2) SMS : send a message 3) credit card : verified and pay online [if payment is required] 4) federation of organizations : covered by subscription or membership to an organization Price : Verona : 100 hotspots / costs the city administration roughly 15,000 Euro a year Reggio Emilia : historic center / 10,000 Euro a year Funding : Banks Interesting in attracting clientele under the age of 30; CREDEM appearing on the Reggio Emilia WIFI advertisement thus promotes their image a bank and organization that would be favorable to youth [works to attract future business] Implementation : collaboration between service providers Guglielmo builds on the frame of existing fiberoptics within the wider PITER project. At the moment there are two DSL/broadband cables, one provided by Lepida for governance purposes and the other instead is provided by Enía, which is used as the base for Guglielmo to provide

145

wireless service.

Technology : Smartphone vs WIFI The quality of smartphone services and connectivity is linked to specific peak and non peak flows of usership.

Meaning that, more people on the network causes greater traffic and thus slower service. WIFI is not effected in the same way by traffic fluxes. In addition, Guglielmo is coming up with a device which would allow users to switch back and forth between Smartphone and WIFI given the comparative quality of service. This means that, although services on the Smartphone may be privately accessible, they may not be as favorable to internet usage as Wireless infrastructure.

Smartphones are limited because: 1) performance on wifi is higher 2) prohibitively expensive 3) people coming from another country can’t have access 4) not everyone has a smart phone Services : push Some element needs to signal to the user what is available in a specific area in terms of services; to simply have the information available is not enough.

146

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

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148

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

C) CONNECTOMI PILOT PROJECT PROPOSAL

ConnecToMi @ Salone del Gusto 2010

Spazio fisico e informazioni virtuali: una piattaforma di dialogo per la città.

E. Della Valle, M. Corubolo, M. Arancio, D. Campobenedetto, S. Magliacane, S. Mirzaei, R. Musso e F. Nasturzio

Contesto Al giorno d’oggi, le città crescono, cambiano e si sviluppano molto velocemente e questo processo risulta influenzato da un grande numero di fattori, sia umani che non. L’evolversi della civiltà e della città dovrebbero andare di pari passo, ma non sempre risulta essere così. Uno dei fattori mancanti all’interno dello spazio urbano oggi è la dimensione pubblica del dialogo, costante e in tempo reale tra gli individui che lo abitano. Manca la possibilità per chi frequenta gli spazi urbani di percepire i flussi ed i cambiamenti dei sistemi urbani stessi; manca la possibilità di percepire e di interagire con lo spazio urbano nella sua interezza.

La tecnologia per costruire spazi pubblici, nei quali lo scambio d’informazione online abbia anche una dimensione spaziale, è già oggi disponibile. Il Web, come lo usiamo oggi, è un “foro” di scambio d’informazione pubblica e privata; la nuova agorà del XXI Secolo. Le reti WiFi pubbliche sono il punto di accesso a basso costo e per tutti al Web. I terminali mobili di ultima generazione sono il canale pervasivo attraverso cui erogare servizi.

L’idea innovativa che di seguito esponiamo come ConnecToMi, si propone di introdurre un nuovo strato di “significato” dello spazio pubblico offrendo servizi che facilitino l’instaurarsi di dialogo tra l’individuo e l’ambiente urbano in cui lo stesso scambio di informazione assuma una dimensione spaziale.

Canale per la commercializzazione di tali servizi sono gli eventi che le grandi città spesso si trovano ad affrontare. Il ruolo degli eventi (in particolare quelli grandi) nella trasformazione in corso è quello di stimolare e promuovere progetti innovativi, che possano diventare utili successivamente anche all’infrastruttura urbana. Le occasioni economiche legate ai grandi, medi e piccoli eventi non mancano, si pensi ai 20 miliardi di euro che verranno spesi solo per le infrastrutture dell’Expo 2015, oppure ai 200 milioni di euro legati al business del Salone del Mobile, di cui 31 milioni destinati alla preparazione di eventi cittadini.

ConnecToMi Come soluzione a questo distacco tra spazio urbano e dialogo in tempo reale proponiamo ConnecToMi. ConnecToMI è un sistema di scambio d’informazione “glocal” e in real‐time fornito gratuitamente nei centri urbani ai cittadini e ai turisti da organizzatori di eventi, negozianti e amministrazioni pubbliche.

Il sistema ConnecToMI ha, infatti, due facce. Da un lato fornisce al cittadino nell’ambito pubblico

APPENDICES

Come soluzione a questo distacco tra spazio urbano e dialogo in tempo reale proponiamo ConnecToMi. ConnecToMI è un sistema di scambio d’informazione “glocal” e in real‐time fornito gratuitamente nei centri urbani ai cittadini e ai turisti da organizzatori di eventi, negozianti e amministrazioni pubbliche.

Il sistema ConnecToMI ha, infatti, due facce. Da un lato fornisce al cittadino nell’ambito pubblico connettività online e servizi real‐time. Dall’altro lato, invece, propone l’analisi di dati statici e real‐ time per amministrazioni urbane e organizzatori di grandi eventi. Mentre i cittadini e visitatori beneficiano di una connettività facile e gratuita tramite reti wireless nei centri urbani, gli amministrazioni e organizzatori possono usufruire dell’elaborazione di questo flusso di dati e dell’attività generata dagli hotspot. Ne consegue che, utilizzando i dati relativi ai flussi e agli scambi tra attori connessi agli hotspot Wi‐fi, gli enti di pianificazione, gli organizzatori di eventi, ma anche i singoli negozianti avranno la possibilità di modificare i loro servizi/prodotti per meglio corrispondere i bisogni del cittadino privato o del consumatore in genere.

L’idea di ConnecToMi è quella di abilitare la creazione di un nuovo fremito d’attività nell’ambito urbano per poi misurarlo e valutarlo con lo scopo sia di migliorare servizi e prodotti esistenti sia di crearne di nuovi.

Un progetto pilota al Salone del Gusto 2010 ConnecToMi propone di “aggiornare” lo spazio attorno a noi per passi: un evento alla volta. Come primo passo proponiamo un progetto pilota in contesto del Salone del Gusto 2010.

L’idea è di realizzare un sistema per la costruzione di un sistema di feedback e di dialogo tra visitatori, gli standisti e gli organizzatori dell’evento, monitorando i flussi e le interazioni collettive con l’obiettivo di arricchire gli strumenti della rete di governance dell’evento.

149

150

THESIS: NET WORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

Figura 1 Mappa del servizio basato su ConnecToMi per il Salone del Gusto

ConnecToMI al Salone del Gusto potrebbe offrire: • servizi di posizionamento e tuning degli hotspot WiFi per offrire la connettività gratuita ai visitatori della fiera, • servizi di Single Sign‐On (in conformità alla legge Pisanu) con minima barriera all’ingresso per i partecipanti all’evento (grazie alla partnership con Trampoline Up1) • portale completamente configurabile offerto agli utenti dell’hotspot WiFi in fase di registrazione (grazie alla partnership con Trampoline Up) • una serie di applicazioni di 2d barcodes per “etichettare” lo spazio fisico e favorire il flusso di informazione tra i visitatori, gli standisti e gli organizzatori dell’evento (grazie alla partnership con IKANGAI Solutions2) • servizio di tracking di flussi di utenti usando WiFi (grazie alla partnership con il progetto SocioPatterns3) • soluzioni software per abilitare il dialogo tra utenti e spazio fisico, integrazione dati esistenti e analisi dei dati (integrando in una soluzione software innovativa basata su tecnologie semantiche [5] servizi Web 2.0 esistenti come Facebook4, Twitter5 e foursquare6) 1 2 3 4 5 6

http://www.trampolineup.com/ http://www.ikangai.com/ http://www.sociopatterns.org/ http://www.facebook.com/ http://twitter.com/ http://foursquare.com/

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interpretazione e utilizzo in real time dei dati analizzati (basata su una soluzione software innovativa di reasoning in real time7 su dati stream sviluppata al Politecnico di Milano nel contesto del progetto Europeo LarKC8) • complementi di arredo per segnalare la presenza di hotspot WiFi di ConnecToMi e per ospitarne gli utenti Il progetto è strutturato in due parti: un’infrastruttura hardware e una soluzione software.

L’implementazione dell’infrastruttura hardware consiste: a) nell’installazione di una serie di hotspot WiFi nello spazio fieristico accessibili a qualunque utente. La soluzione WiFi “all inclusive” offerta da ConnecToMi tramite Trampoline Up garantisce meccanismi di autenticazione secondo le norme legislative del Legge Pisanu ma permette ugualmente ogni utente presente negli spazi pubblici provvisti di Wifi di accedere ai servizi proposti. b) nell'uso intesivo di 2d barcodes forniti da IKANGAI Solutions per “etichettare” gli stand, gli eventi e ogni altro “oggetto” con cui i visitatori del Salone del Gusto possono interagire.

Questi barcodes rappresentano il punto di collegamento tra lo spazio fisico e il mondo vituale.

La soluzione software di ConnecToMi permette: a) lo scambio d’informazione locale tra vari attori che frequentano gli hotspot WiFi. b) l’accesso a diversi tipi di informazione, in tempo reale e non, provenienti da diversi servizi Web 2.0 (Facebook, Twitter e foursquare), e da dati e servizi specifici del Salone del Gusto e degli standisti presenti c) la registrazione e l’analisi in real time di flussi di interazioni tra utenti e spazio (grazie alla tecnologia sviluppata al Politecnico di Milano e alla partnership con SocioPatterns).

Partner Trampoline Up Trampoline è una startup nata a Gennaio 2010 e incubata presso I3P ‐ Incubatore delle Imprese Innovative del Politecnico di Torino. Organizzata secondo il modello delle "lean startup" del Web 2.0, è stata fondata da Giampaolo Mancini, CEO, e Francesco Varano, CTO, fra i massimi esperti italiani di servizi e tecnologie per reti Wi‐Fi e HiperLAN.La direzione del settore marketing e commerciale è invece affidata a Lodovico Marenco, ex responsabile per l'e‐commerce di Alpitour e Basic.net.

IKANGAI Solutions IIKANGAE in giapponese significa “buona idea”. IKANGAI Solutions è una startup austriaca fondata nel 2009 da Christian Scherling (architetto e designer) e da Martin Treiber (ingegnere informatico) specializzata in applicazioni per iPhone e iPod touch. In particolare, di recente ha sviluppato una linea di applicazioni basate su 2D barcode.

7 8

http://www.streamreasoning.com/ http://www.larkc.eu/

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SocioPatterns Il progetto SocioPatterns è portato avanti dalla Fodanzione ISI9 (Torino, Italia) e dal CNRS10 (Francia). Il progetto si propone di studiare i pattern delle dinamiche sociali e delle attività collaborative. Il progetto ha sviluppato una piattaforma software e una rete di sensori per misurare le interazioni sociali. La piattaforma permette di aggregare, analizzare e visualizzare i dati raccolti dalla rete di sensori.

Finanziamento necessario Per portare a termine con successo il progetto pilota per la Salone del Gusto stimiamo che sia necessario un finanziamento di circa € 10.000 da suddividere nel modo seguente: ‐ € 4.000 per coprire spese vive dei partner che intendiamo coinvolgere (Trampoline Up, IKANGAI Solutions e SocioPatterns), ‐ € 4.000 per ricompensare le persone che lavoreranno al progetto, e ‐ € 1.500 per coprire i costi dei materiali informatici e della connessione Internet da utilizzare nel progetto pilota.

9

http://www.isi.it/ http://www.cnrs.fr/

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