13 CONNECTED
CITIES:
HUMAN
POLLINATION

• Rogério da Costa is the coordinator of the Graduate Program in Communication and Semiotics at the Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP), where he led the technology area from 2004 to 2005. He has a PhD in the history of philosophy from Paris-Sorbonne University, an MA in philosophy from the University of São Paulo (USP) and an undergraduate degree in systems engineering and computing from Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ). He now runs the Collective Intelligence Laboratory (LinC) in São Paulo. In 2010 and 2011 he was a member of the Artistic and Cultural Guidance Council of the São Paulo Museum of Image and Sound (MIS-SP).

The metaphors are numerous: cities like an anthill, maze, fortress, super-organism, brain, network of networks, chaos… Ultimately, they are all this at the same time, but in future they will need, above all, to be intelligent.

Over the course of history, large cities have organized themselves in the form of ever more complex networks and systems, as the result of the interconnection of people, commercial transactions, technologies and information. They are crossed by trade and transport networks, infrastructure, machines, and power and communication systems. [1] A quotation by the historian Lewis Mumford, in his book “The City in History”, reminds us that urban clusters must inevitably be seen as “a structure especially equipped to store and transmit the goods of civilization.” [2] However, these goods can only be produced because cities have become, in the words of the scientist Steven Johnson, a kind of interface that has enabled individuals to put their intelligences in contact, through a type of cross pollination. [3] This has allowed not just an expansion in the flow of ideas, but also the preservation of those that would be essential to the development of civilization. In the course of the first centuries of the ancient urban populations, it is possible to find inventions that proved to be crucial to the development of our civilization, such as the cultivation of grains, the plow, the potter’s wheel, the sailboat, the loom, copper metallurgy, abstract mathematics, astronomical observation and the calendar. Cities store and transmit new ideas to the whole population, ensuring that, once invented, new technologies will not disappear.

However, although cities may be seen as a source of resources and information, they are also a privileged space for living and interacting. It so happens that current patterns of economic growth have generated an enormous mismatch between individuals’ ever rising demand for resources and information on the one hand, and on the other hand the capacity of cities’ entire infrastructure to withstand this demand.

This ends up impacting the various dimensions of life and the environment. Migratory processes, demographic growth, and the production, distribution and consumption of manufactured goods and materials and natural resources are factors that directly affect the equilibrium of cities. Alongside this, the management model for metropolises, based on centralized administration, has been the same for centuries. However, we can already see, above all in megalopolises, the exhaustion of the governance model that we know, given the complexity reached by this super-organism at the start of the 21st century, and consequently the enormous management challenges in all its human and material processes.

Cities have evolved from simple structures to complex organisms. However, these organisms, despite reaching the end of the 20th century with an advanced digital “nervous system”, represented by information technology and the internet, have still not reached the metaphoric production of “thought.” This means that cities, in the near future, will not only be capable of storing and transmitting information for their population of individuals – their “cells” – but they will also be able to form an idea about themselves, a kind of consciousness of their current state. Things, places, the atmosphere and transport are likely to gain a digital layer, which will display information about the way people are interacting with everything around them, and how each of these things may exchange signals to indicate their present status. As a result, they will have an ever lesser need (although a need nonetheless) for a centralized management system. They will progressively reach levels of self-management for various internal processes: the allocation of resources such as water and power, emissions of pollutants in the atmosphere, waste discharges in the environment, the movements of people around the city, and goods delivery logistics. At the same time, individuals may, in turn, be ever more aware of the effects of their actions on the city as a whole. They will be able to perceive the impacts caused by their personal decisions at environmental, social and political levels.

Examples of smart cities can already be found in some countries. One of them is New Songdo, a project under way in South Korea. In this city, currently home to 70,000 people, home waste flows directly through a network of underground tunnels to treatment stations. Cars have chips connected to a central system that detects when many people are taking the same route and takes measures to avoid traffic jams. Another example of a smart city is Dongtan, in China, a country where a projected 1.12 billion people will live in urban areas by 2050. Dongtan features renewable energy, zero-carbon-emission transport, and a water treatment and recycling system, among other sustainable initiatives. A third example is Masdar City, in Abu Dhabi, a city designed to be completely sustainable, with 100% renewable energy supplies, zero carbon emissions and an underground electric transport system.

There will be at least 200 million climate migrants by 2050, and possibly as many as 700 million, in the worst scenarios. If nothing is done, this could be the largest human migration ever recorded in history. Without heavy investments in areas linked to migration, such as housing, education and health services, the problems of integrating migrants in other countries will be more severe than they are now.

However, although some future visions point to sustainable cities, with systems to self-regulate their processes spread everywhere, with green areas balancing built spaces, in short, with all the smart things it would be possible to imagine for an urban space, many reports from international organizations make very different predictions for the cities of tomorrow.

The migratory flows that are affecting the structures of cities and simultaneously making them multicultural are among the main factors set to contribute to the increasing complexity of megalopolises. According to figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), [4] the world’s population is expected to reach around 9.3 billion by 2050, with 97% of the population growth occurring in developing countries. In this same year, more than 70% of the global population will be living in urban centers. Migrants who cross frontiers in search of work and a better life may exceed 400 million in number, or 7% of the globe’s current population, by 2050. This information comes from a report published by the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM). [5] IOM believes this increase is an inexorable and inevitable trend, and we are set to see growing numbers of people competing for few jobs in developing countries and fleeing from the effects of climate change.

Regarding the latter point, a report by the same organization claims that population movements have already begun and the numbers may be much higher than early estimates. There will be at least 200 million climate migrants by 2050, and possibly as many as 700 million, in the worst scenarios. If nothing is done, this could be the largest human migration ever recorded in history. Without heavy investments in areas linked to migration, such as housing, education and health services, the problems of integrating migrants in other countries will be more severe than they are now.

All this human movement, the result of migrations caused by a variety of factors, ends up favoring the growth of metropolises and the formation of mega-regions or “endless cities”, a phenomenon that now seems irreversible. Currently, more than half of the global population live in urban regions. As already mentioned, 70% of the population will be living in urbanized areas by 2050. Within this trend toward endless cities, according to a 2010 report by the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-Habitat) entitled “State of the World’s Cities”,6 global megacities are merging to form vast “mega-regions” that can extend for hundreds of kilometers across countries, housing more than 100 million people. This could be one of the most significant phenomena regarding developments – and problems – in the way people will live and economies will grow in the next 50 years.

The largest mega-regions, which are at the forefront of the rapid urbanization sweeping the world, are as follows: Hong Kong-Shenzhen-Guangzhou, in China, where around 120 million people live; Nagoya, Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe, in Japan, which is expected to reach 60 million people in 2015; and Rio de Janeiro-São Paulo, a region with 43 million people in Brazil. The growth of mega-regions and municipalities is causing unprecedented urban expansion, the appearance of new shantytowns, unbalanced development and income inequalities, given that more and more people are moving to satellite or dormitory cities. This phenomenon, arising from urban agglomerations, is set to intensify over the next 40 years, as the trend of megalopolis formation is considered irreversible.

Finally, we must stress the complex cultural effects that population flows, together with the enormous urban expansion forecast for the coming decades, will bring about, enabling a broad cultural interconnection. A Unesco7 report about trends in the 21st century identifies some important aspects that ought to be considered in the relationship between the planet’s many different cultures. Intolerance, xenophobia, racism and discrimination reappear, sometimes in a violent or even genocidal manner, justified in the name of religious, national, cultural and linguistic affiliation.

The largest mega-regions, which are at the forefront of the rapid urbanization sweeping the world, are as follows: Hong Kong-Shenzhen-Guangzhou, in China, where around 120 million people live; Nagoya, Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe, in Japan, which is expected to reach 60 million people in 2015; and Rio de Janeiro- São Paulo, a region with 43 million people in Brazil.

Urban growth, which should involve the majority of megalopolises and metropolises between now and 2050, may have huge impacts on urban life and the consumption of resources and goods, and also, from a social perspective, on access to work, the exclusion of minorities, and human rights. In these various scenarios for urban life in 2050, we should ask ourselves whether we are moving toward cultural and ethnic clashes or mixing. In the city of tomorrow, will there be a hegemony of one culture over others? Whether in smart cities or human anthills, we must always ask ourselves whether cities will favor cultural pluralism, dialogue and the meeting of cultures.

• [1] Federico Casalegno and William J. Mitchell, “Connected Sustainable Cities”, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2008. Available at .
  [2] Lewis Mumford, “A cidade na história”, São Paulo: Martins, 2001.
  [3] Steven Johnson, “Emergence”, New York: Scribner, 2001, p. 107.
  [4] Cf. OECD. Available at .
  [5] Cf. International Organization for Migration (IOM). Available at .
  [6] Cf. UN-Habitat, Relatório sobre Megarregiões. Available at .
  [7] Cf. Unesco. Available at .