DUSP Courses 1998

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11.943 Cities and New Technologies

MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

11.943 Cities and New Technologies

Room I-135,

TR - 2.30 - 4.00 Tuesdays and 2.30-4.00 Thursdays

Dr. Stephen Graham

Visiting Professor, DUSP

Phone

E-mail

COURSE OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE

This course will explore three central questions. First, what do revolutionary advances in computing and telecommunications mean for cities and urban development ? Second, what do technologies like the Internet, mobile computing and broadband telecommunications means for the economic, social, cultural and physical development of cities and urban regions ? Finally, what implications does the 'new industrial revolution' based on highly capable telecommunications have for the traditional foci of planning and urban policy : land use regulation, the development of urban space, urban economic development, community strategies, transportation, the development of the urban public sphere, and addressing social inequalities ?

The course has two objectives :

To provide a broad and critical introduction to how new information and communications technologies ('ICTs') like the Internet and advanced telecommunications are are involved in all aspects of contemporary urban change

To explore how city policy and planning is responding to the challenges of the so-called 'information society' from an international perspective.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course you should:

Have a full understanding of the urban development and planning issues surrounding information and communication technologies

Be able to think critically and theoretically about cities, planning and ICTs

Be able to explore urban IT issues using the Internet

COURSE ORGANIZATION

The course is organised around two weekly sessions that will operate as lectures, seminars or video sessions. Each pair of sessions will address a key theme for the week. Most weeks will have a lecture input on Tuesdays followed buy a seminar or video session on Thursday. The style of the sessions will be as interactive as possible. Students will be encouraged to ask questions and make contributions in class. Extensive use will be made of both traditional paper-based reading materials and a wide variety of Internet sources.

Course Timetable

PART 1 - INTRODUCTION

9th September : Introduction: Cities and New Technologies

14th September : Approaching Cities and New Technologies

16th September :. Video and discussion session - 'Visions of Heaven and Hell'

PART 2 - URBAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

21st September : Urban Economies/ Information Economies

23rd September : Workshop Session : The Functions of Cities and Telecommunications

28th September Urban Centralisation: Telecommunications and the Global City

30th September Video Session - 'The Pull of the City - New York Cleans up'

5th October Urban Decentralisation : Back Offices, Call Centres and the Internet

7th October Seminar 1 : Telecommunications, Place Marketing and Urban Economic Strategies

PART 3 - URBAN CULTURES AND PUBLIC SPACE

12th October Urban Cultures/ 'Cyber' Cultures

14th October Video and discussion session - 'Visions of Heaven and Hell 2'

19th October The Internet, Urban Clustering and 'Digital Districts'

21st October Seminar 2 : Planning for 'Digital Districts'

26th October Electronic Surveillance and the City

28th October Video and Discussion Session : CCTV and the City

PART 4 - TRANSPORTATION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS

2nd November Wheels and Wires : Transport/ Telecommunications

4th November Video and Discussion Session: Towards the 'Smart' Highway ?

9th November Planning for Transport and Telecommunications

11th November Seminar 3 : Planning for Transport and Telecommunications

PART 5 - TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND URBAN SOCIAL WORLDS

16th November Telecommunications and Urban Social Worlds

18th November No session: reading week

23rd November No session: reading week

25th November Thanksgiving Vacation

30th November Telecommunications and Urban Communities

2nd December Seminar Session 4 : 'Virtual Communities' and the City

PART 6 - CONCLUSIONS

7th December Conclusions : Telecommunications and the Future of Cities

9th December Review and Feedback Session

COURSE ASSESSMENT AND GRADING

Assessment for the course will be made up of three elements:

1. Participation in one of the course seminars (which will be organized as group presentations). (20% of course mark)

2. An assessed 2,500 word essay, as follows (40% of course mark):

"Critically discuss the implications of current changes in media, computing and telecommunications technologies for ONE of the following areas of urban development and planning. Back up your arguments where possible with references to literature and illustrate your answers with examples, drawn from Internet searches where necessary:

(i) Urban economic development processes and urban economic development strategies

(ii) The physical form of cities and buildings and policies aimed at managing urban physical form (Green Belts etc.)

(iii) Transportation and Urban Transport Planning

(iv) Social Exclusion and Polarisation in Cities

(v) Social and community development and efforts to revitalise the community fabric of cities

(vi) Urban cultures and cultural strategies aimed to find new uses for declining town and city centres "

3. Final Exam (40%)

Three hour final exam, given during assessment week.

READINGS AND SUPPORT MATERIAL FOR THE COURSE

This will be drawn from four sources:

(1) Required Reading

One text book should be purchased from the MIT COOP:

Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (1996) Telecommunications and the City : Electronic Spaces, Urban Places New York: Routledge.

This book is designed specifically to support the course ; it is the only book which covers virtually everything the course covers. The book also has extracts of readings, recommended reading lists, and summarises all the key debates you'll need to explore in the Course.

(2) Recommended Reading

All available in the Architecture and Planning library.

Jordi Borja and Manuel Castells Local and Global : The Management of Cities in the Information Age. A good overview of economic, social and technological change in cities, with extracts.

Castells (1989), The Informational City, Blackwell. rather dated but good on urban economic change.

Castells (1996), The Rise of the Network Society, Blackwell: London. An excellent overview of economic and social change in cities, from a a global perspective.

Castells (1997), The Power of Identity Blackwell. Emphasis on cultural changes and virtual technologies.

Castells (1997), End of Millennium Blackwell. Emphasises social divides from a global perspective.

Mitchell, W. !995 City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn. A readable discussion of the implications of IT for cities, buildings and urban landscapes.

Kitchen, R. (1997, Cyberspace: The World in the Wires. A good introductory overview of economic, social, cultural debates surrounding IT.

M Pawley 1998 Terminal Architecture Reaktion Books London. a provocative architectural analysis suggesting the death of cities.

D Schuler (1996) New Community Networks: Wired for Change. A good practical overview of the community networks movement.

R Tsagarousianou et al (1998) Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities and Civic Networks. An edited collection looking at practical efforts by cities to develop It to support citizenship and electronic democracy.

(3) Specialised Reading

In addition to the above, I will hand out specialised reading lists with each session.

(4) Using the Internet as a Support to this Course:

The World Wide Web

Finally, and not surprisingly, you should also get into the habit of exploring the World Wide Web on the Internet for material and case studies from across the topics addressed in the course. This material will be extremely useful for your assessed work. This is available via any of the Internet browsers (Netscape or Internet Explorer) on MIT or your own networked computers. The Web is a gold mine of material on all aspects of the course, and is often much more up to date than literature.

In particular, you should familiarise yourself, if you haven't already, with:

(i) General Searching of the 'Net,

This is done by accessing a search engine (e.g. Yahoo, Web Crawler, HotBot etc) via the 'Net Search' window of the browser. Try one of the best, HotBot, by typing http://www.hotbot.com/ in the 'open' window of your Browser. These search engines then allow you to input words or combinations of words (eg 'virtual'+'city), allowing you to explore relevant web sites across the world. Try inputting the key words of the course as a matter of habit and exploring some of the results. Also try and learn the art of more sophisticated searching to support your assessed work.

(ii) Using Web Sites Which Provide Relevant Links:

(NB A web site will be constructed to support electronic links to these and many other relevant web sites)

These are web sites geared towards specialist subjects which provide links to relevant sites elsewhere. Some useful ones for this course are:

http://www.ncl.ac.uk:80/~ncut The Centre for Urban Technology in Newcastle University: lots of papers and links on IT and cities

www.nyu.edu/urban - New York University Telecommunications and Cities - Links

http://home.actlab.utexas.edu/vrproj.html Virtual Spaces and Communities, a link page to cities and communities on the Internet

http://www.city.net/ Excite Travel allows you to 'visit' the Web pages of any city on the Net

http://www.webcom.com/pcj/it-nf/itn-ind.html Shaping our communities : telecommunications resource guide

http://www.lbl.gov/ICSD/Niles/index.html beyond telecommuting by John Nilles

http://www.rural-europe.aeidl.be/forada/city.htm A European Web page debating cities and IT and outlining European policies to support application of IT in cities

http://www.smartcommunities.org./ Welcome to Smart Communities : A US-based organisation developing strategies for 'smart communities'

Taub Urban Research Center - Home The page of a research centre in New York on cities and telecommunications

http://www.brent.gov.uk/brent/other/telem.htm Telematics, Community & Electronic Democracy links

http://www.communities.org.uk/ UK communities on-line: an umbrella organisation for on line communities in the UK.

A NOTE ON INTERNET PLAGIARISM: It may be very tempting to copy text verbatim from material on the Web for assessed work. If you do this, however, always put it in quotes and provide a full citation with the Web address (or 'URL'). In other words, treat this material like any academic reference. If you fail to do this you leave yourself open to accusations of plagiarism.

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This syllabus may have been updated. To ensure that you're looking at the most recent version, please hit "Reload."
11.943 Cities and New Technologies
MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning 11.943 Cities and New Technologies Room I-135, TR - 2.30 - 4.00 Tuesdays and 2.30-4.00 Thursdays Dr. Stephen Graham Visiting Professor, DUSP Phone E-mail COURSE OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE This course will explore three central questions. First, what do revolutionary advances in computing and telecommunications mean for cities and urban development ? Second, what do technologies like the Internet, mobile computing and broadband telecommunications means for the economic, social, cultural and physical development of cities and urban regions ? Finally, what implications does the 'new industrial revolution' based on highly capable telecommunications have for the traditional foci of planning and urban policy : land use regulation, the development of urban space, urban economic development, community strategies, transportation, the development of the urban public sphere, and addressing social inequalities ? The course has two objectives : To provide a broad and critical introduction to how new information and communications technologies ('ICTs') like the Internet and advanced telecommunications are are involved in all aspects of contemporary urban change To explore how city policy and planning is responding to the challenges of the so-called 'information society' from an international perspective. Learning Outcomes At the end of this course you should: Have a full understanding of the urban development and planning issues surrounding information and communication technologies Be able to think critically and theoretically about cities, planning and ICTs Be able to explore urban IT issues using the Internet COURSE ORGANIZATION The course is organised around two weekly sessions that will operate as lectures, seminars or video sessions. Each pair of sessions will address a key theme for the week. Most weeks will have a lecture input on Tuesdays followed buy a seminar or video session on Thursday. The style of the sessions will be as interactive as possible. Students will be encouraged to ask questions and make contributions in class. Extensive use will be made of both traditional paper-based reading materials and a wide variety of Internet sources. Course Timetable PART 1 - INTRODUCTION 9th September : Introduction: Cities and New Technologies 14th September : Approaching Cities and New Technologies 16th September :. Video and discussion session - 'Visions of Heaven and Hell' PART 2 - URBAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 21st September : Urban Economies/ Information Economies 23rd September : Workshop Session : The Functions of Cities and Telecommunications 28th September Urban Centralisation: Telecommunications and the Global City 30th September Video Session - 'The Pull of the City - New York Cleans up' 5th October Urban Decentralisation : Back Offices, Call Centres and the Internet 7th October Seminar 1 : Telecommunications, Place Marketing and Urban Economic Strategies PART 3 - URBAN CULTURES AND PUBLIC SPACE 12th October Urban Cultures/ 'Cyber' Cultures 14th October Video and discussion session - 'Visions of Heaven and Hell 2' 19th October The Internet, Urban Clustering and 'Digital Districts' 21st October Seminar 2 : Planning for 'Digital Districts' 26th October Electronic Surveillance and the City 28th October Video and Discussion Session : CCTV and the City PART 4 - TRANSPORTATION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS 2nd November Wheels and Wires : Transport/ Telecommunications 4th November Video and Discussion Session: Towards the 'Smart' Highway ? 9th November Planning for Transport and Telecommunications 11th November Seminar 3 : Planning for Transport and Telecommunications PART 5 - TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND URBAN SOCIAL WORLDS 16th November Telecommunications and Urban Social Worlds 18th November No session: reading week 23rd November No session: reading week 25th November Thanksgiving Vacation 30th November Telecommunications and Urban Communities 2nd December Seminar Session 4 : 'Virtual Communities' and the City PART 6 - CONCLUSIONS 7th December Conclusions : Telecommunications and the Future of Cities 9th December Review and Feedback Session COURSE ASSESSMENT AND GRADING Assessment for the course will be made up of three elements: 1. Participation in one of the course seminars (which will be organized as group presentations). (20% of course mark) 2. An assessed 2,500 word essay, as follows (40% of course mark): "Critically discuss the implications of current changes in media, computing and telecommunications technologies for ONE of the following areas of urban development and planning. Back up your arguments where possible with references to literature and illustrate your answers with examples, drawn from Internet searches where necessary: (i) Urban economic development processes and urban economic development strategies (ii) The physical form of cities and buildings and policies aimed at managing urban physical form (Green Belts etc.) (iii) Transportation and Urban Transport Planning (iv) Social Exclusion and Polarisation in Cities (v) Social and community development and efforts to revitalise the community fabric of cities (vi) Urban cultures and cultural strategies aimed to find new uses for declining town and city centres " 3. Final Exam (40%) Three hour final exam, given during assessment week. READINGS AND SUPPORT MATERIAL FOR THE COURSE This will be drawn from four sources: (1) Required Reading One text book should be purchased from the MIT COOP: Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (1996) Telecommunications and the City : Electronic Spaces, Urban Places New York: Routledge. This book is designed specifically to support the course ; it is the only book which covers virtually everything the course covers. The book also has extracts of readings, recommended reading lists, and summarises all the key debates you'll need to explore in the Course. (2) Recommended Reading All available in the Architecture and Planning library. Jordi Borja and Manuel Castells Local and Global : The Management of Cities in the Information Age. A good overview of economic, social and technological change in cities, with extracts. Castells (1989), The Informational City, Blackwell. rather dated but good on urban economic change. Castells (1996), The Rise of the Network Society, Blackwell: London. An excellent overview of economic and social change in cities, from a a global perspective. Castells (1997), The Power of Identity Blackwell. Emphasis on cultural changes and virtual technologies. Castells (1997), End of Millennium Blackwell. Emphasises social divides from a global perspective. Mitchell, W. !995 City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn. A readable discussion of the implications of IT for cities, buildings and urban landscapes. Kitchen, R. (1997, Cyberspace: The World in the Wires. A good introductory overview of economic, social, cultural debates surrounding IT. M Pawley 1998 Terminal Architecture Reaktion Books London. a provocative architectural analysis suggesting the death of cities. D Schuler (1996) New Community Networks: Wired for Change. A good practical overview of the community networks movement. R Tsagarousianou et al (1998) Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities and Civic Networks. An edited collection looking at practical efforts by cities to develop It to support citizenship and electronic democracy. (3) Specialised Reading In addition to the above, I will hand out specialised reading lists with each session. (4) Using the Internet as a Support to this Course: The World Wide Web Finally, and not surprisingly, you should also get into the habit of exploring the World Wide Web on the Internet for material and case studies from across the topics addressed in the course. This material will be extremely useful for your assessed work. This is available via any of the Internet browsers (Netscape or Internet Explorer) on MIT or your own networked computers. The Web is a gold mine of material on all aspects of the course, and is often much more up to date than literature. In particular, you should familiarise yourself, if you haven't already, with: (i) General Searching of the 'Net, This is done by accessing a search engine (e.g. Yahoo, Web Crawler, HotBot etc) via the 'Net Search' window of the browser. Try one of the best, HotBot, by typing http://www.hotbot.com/ in the 'open' window of your Browser. These search engines then allow you to input words or combinations of words (eg 'virtual'+'city), allowing you to explore relevant web sites across the world. Try inputting the key words of the course as a matter of habit and exploring some of the results. Also try and learn the art of more sophisticated searching to support your assessed work. *(ii) Using Web Sites Which Provide Relevant Links:* *(NB A web site will be constructed to support electronic links to these and many other relevant web sites)* These are web sites geared towards specialist subjects which provide links to relevant sites elsewhere. Some useful ones for this course are: http://www.ncl.ac.uk:80/~ncut The Centre for Urban Technology in Newcastle University: lots of papers and links on IT and cities www.nyu.edu/urban - New York University Telecommunications and Cities - Links http://home.actlab.utexas.edu/vrproj.html Virtual Spaces and Communities, a link page to cities and communities on the Internet http://www.city.net/ Excite Travel allows you to 'visit' the Web pages of any city on the Net http://www.webcom.com/pcj/it-nf/itn-ind.html Shaping our communities : telecommunications resource guide http://www.lbl.gov/ICSD/Niles/index.html beyond telecommuting by John Nilles http://www.rural-europe.aeidl.be/forada/city.htm A European Web page debating cities and IT and outlining European policies to support application of IT in cities http://www.smartcommunities.org./ Welcome to Smart Communities : A US-based organisation developing strategies for 'smart communities' Taub Urban Research Center - Home The page of a research centre in New York on cities and telecommunications http://www.brent.gov.uk/brent/other/telem.htm Telematics, Community & Electronic Democracy links http://www.communities.org.uk/ UK communities on-line: an umbrella organisation for on line communities in the UK. A NOTE ON INTERNET PLAGIARISM: It may be very tempting to copy text verbatim from material on the Web for assessed work. If you do this, however, always put it in quotes and provide a full citation with the Web address (or 'URL'). In other words, treat this material like any academic reference. If you fail to do this you leave yourself open to accusations of plagiarism.