High Velocity Communities: Planning the Cities of Tomorrow

John G. Jung

Cities of the past were developed when the movement of goods and services rarely exceeded the speed of horses or early transport vehicles. Today, when many of the products and services travel at light speed over fibre-optics, planners need to take into account new strategies and critical success factors for high-growth communities that form and interact at high velocity. Towns, cities and regions organize themselves based on their velocity. Imagine products and services moving at light speed. How do we organize our communities at that velocity? That is what we are dealing with when we begin to embrace a future based on broadband speeds over vast communications and data networks, both wired and wireless.

Speeds and capacities to deliver voice over typical copper-wire environment run at 56 kb/sec. Broadband begins at 128 kb/sec. and is likely being delivered over cable in a typical Canadian community. Bandwidth today, however, is available at many times this speed over fibre-optic cables and wireless technologies in order to deliver large amounts of data including video and other multimedia. Bandwidth environments at 10 gigabits are becoming the standard for high velocity communities in which 100 megabits at the desk is deemed commonplace. At these speeds, entirely new applications and constant innovation are possible in the community. Among highly competitive communities, broadband has become recognized as the new essential utility and catalyst for transformative change.

What is at stake is a part of the business-to-business e-commerce marketplace which will see sales reach more than $5.2 trillion by 2004 through several different e-channels, including Internet e-marketplaces, traditional electronic data interchange networks (EDI), hybrid EDI/Internet electronic trading networks (ETNs), Internet company-to-company links, extranets and private e-markets. With 12 billion text messages sent worldwide each month over the Internet to PCs, PDAs and mobile phones, e- commerce activity will likely grow with instant messaging to be delivered over cheap Blue tooth applications over the next few years. While significant aspects of this transformation are locationally insensitive, other elements, especially aspects of the clicks and bricks side of the equation, do factor into locational decisions. These include attracting Internet Service Providers (ISPs), customer care centres (call centres), software houses, marketing firms, venture capitalists and distribution centres, among others. These create a critical mass, attracting others and also reinforcing and retaining businesses in existing communities. Communities, anxious to attract, or retain, these elements of the supply and service chain in their communities are selling their competitive edge, which today must go beyond simply selling their networks. These communities are selling themselves as Smart Communities, Intelligent Cities, Knowledge Cities, among others.

HIGH VELOCITY GLOBAL DRIVERS

1. Globalization: Globalization forces competition, which continuously reshapes our urban and regional economies. The foundation of globalization is an effective and efficient information technology and telecommunications infrastructure. With these, entirely new global businesses have resulted which were not even thought of a decade earlier. Companies such as E-bay have in some cases become worth more than traditional manufacturing firms, such as General Motors.
2. Mobility: Mobility allows for entirely new living, working and play options to occur, potentially affecting the way we will build our physical environment. Mobility-based functions such as tele-working, tele-commuting, and work-on-the-go are becoming the norm. Businesses are transforming physically and organizationally as a result.
3. The Next "New Thing": Pressures to be ever fresh and innovative force societies to seek new ways to organize and new ways to do things. Keeping the status quo actually means to fall behind. The Internet allows community activity to be dispersed and decentralized as well as production to be possible at the local, regional or global level, which underpins ever-new ways to organize, innovate and create. Expect transformative actions to become the norm in business.
4. Demand: With increasing demand for high-speed telecommunications technology, new jobs will be created or displaced through automation or Internet applications. The occupational structure is being redefined to include larger amounts of out- sourced support. Pay scales are also shifting, widening the gap between the poor and wealthy in many societies.
5. Digital Divide: Another phenomenon of "have and have-nots" is in the form of the digital divide, where the greatest profits and social gains are still to be made. Delivering ubiquitous and democratic services, in the same manner as the telephone system was universally deployed in North America, will provide everyone with the opportunity to use and benefit from these ever-new technologies and systems. Regions willing to adapt to ubiquitous and democratic access will have a competitive edge through constant sources of creativity and innovation stemming from a higher skilled population. Through universal application and use, new wealth and new ways of becoming more digitally democratic are likely to emerge. Uneven diffusion of technologies and bandwidth will stifle this phenomenon, which will further limit economic growth. Higher density areas such as urban locations are better serviced as market forces look for a return on investment.
6. Cheaper and Deeper: Ever cheaper and more available bandwidth, combined with denser and cheaper microchips, will act as catalysts to transform community actions, work locations and ways in which work is done today. Broadband is already as important for site location planners as water, sewers and road construction in determining business locations. Inexpensive and highly adaptable "Blue tooth technologies" will add convenience and service offerings wherever we are.
7. Where Living Is Best: Seeking the highest possible quality of life will remain one of the major global drivers. Flexible, scalable and ubiquitous access to technology may help differentiate interaction with the quality of the spaces we are in and offer solutions for a healthier environment.
8. The Emergence Of The Three "T''s": Technology, combined with Talent (a.k.a. skilled and knowledgeable work force) and the degree of Tolerance that a community is willing to engage in, helps determine which regions and businesses are more likely to succeed in the future. Heavily multicultural and tolerant communities and firms will have a decided edge as they attract talented and creative workers willing to support increasingly expensive cultural and entertainment environments, further adding to the quality of the experience in a region.
9. Smart Communities: Cities and businesses are evolving into new dynamic public-private partnerships that use information technology to transform themselves in new and innovative ways. This enables businesses, institutions and citizens to improve and enhance their social, cultural and economic wealth, while empowering them to more effectively compete in an increasingly globally-competitive environment. They also have established a refined and highly-developed symbiotic relationship between their various sectors and economic clusters.
10. New Market Forces: New market forces emerging with broadband are becoming key drivers of competitiveness. Local service providers are not the only ones who are competing to own the gateway to the customer. The same competitive drive exists among cities and regions to attract job-creation and investment growth in their communities. As community leaders begin to view bandwidth as the new, essential utility, vital to economic growth and citizenship, they will seize control of their broadband destiny, before the competition does. They will do this by proactively and collaboratively developing policy decisions for the benefit of its new public-private partnership, the Smart Community. Simply put, the goal of many of these high velocity communities will be to create a Mutually-Beneficial Community Broadband Strategy.

CREATING A STRATEGY

The first principle of this broadband strategy is to create the ability to access, manipulate, produce and distribute new information, especially with convergence. This requires vast bandwidth. The second principle is to create opportunities using bandwidth. Creative and active use of bandwidth-related applications has the potential to create new forms of wealth, aiding in the complete transformation of the community by developing a "new culture of use." The third principle is to provide universal broadband access, bridging the digital divide between digitally- inclined haves and have-nots.

To implement this strategy, some regions may need to embrace new or contrary thinking about how fibre optics are to be deployed in their area, potentially forcing decisions to forego short term gain, such as through charging easement fees, in exchange for achieving longer term benefits such as securing private sector investment in a ubiquitous and affordable community network. Regardless, it is not a simple matter of merely stringing fibre optics with vast bandwidth capabilities across a city to be able call yourself a Smart Community. This requires further efforts encouraging collaboration, innovation, education, risk capital and other support policies and facilities to be instituted.

EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP

Community initiatives around the world have been branded as everything from Wired Cities to Smart Communities. There is a global effort to better understand and promote these initiatives, which in turn have been used to attract investment in addition to helping stimulate community transformation as high velocity-organized communities. Many public policy challenges have to be overcome. The most difficult is dealing with the concept of "change" in the process of transforming and reinventing one''s community. Topping the list is finding effective leadership. While leaders must monitor and understand telecommunications changes, they also must be great communicators, as this is really a process of community transformation, and not just about the technology itself. While it may not be about technology, leaders must nevertheless be able to take action with regards to new technology opportunities and threats and be able to relate them to both the haves and have-nots in the on-coming challenge of the digital divide. They also must be able to understand community needs and expectations and engage all community members to take ownership of the process by developing a new collaborative decision-making mechanism. Leaders must also strike a balance between public and private needs and expectations and be able to keep the process energized and dynamic.

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS

A study commissioned by the Office of the Greater Toronto Area looked at several international cities, including the Toronto area, and determined critical success factors for developing a Smart Community or Intelligent City. These factors point to feeding corporate and community innovation, which provide a basis for new and better products and processes. The result is a foundation for high-employment, high-wage and high value-added urban economies which foster the creation of lively, dynamic and well-planned communities. They include:

• Strong leadership at the private, public or academic level;
• Vision based on a clearly perceived threat or opportunity. This can be one of the leader''s most powerful assets, but must be closely collaborated with all community stakeholders;
• Skilled workforce development including strategies involving community colleges;
• Cross-fertilization among business, academia and government. Often this must first be fostered through government support;
• Community Linkages must be made. Zoning, land use and development activities, cultural initiatives and multiple IT systems must be coordinated; and
• Broadband-based projects help unite participants, demonstrate progress and provide incremental victories.

CONCLUSION

Although dependent on technology, it is not about technology at all; it is about how people and communities organize themselves in a high velocity world. It is about transforming the concept of community and developing policies and processes. Steps to this include:

• Determining the size and makeup of the community and its needs and priorities as perceived by its stakeholders;
• Identifying the threat or unique opportunity, which may be one and the same;
• Creating a public-private partnership with the leadership necessary to take advantage of the opportunity or to address the threat and collaboratively develop the needed vision;
• Communicating the recommendations and building support among all stakeholders;
• Empowering all citizens through universal access to the Internet, distance learning, and other opportunities, thereby laying the foundation for growth and support of the Smart Community.

A Case Study: LaGrange, Georgia One of the first cities in North America to implement universal broadband access and win recognition as an Intelligent City was LaGrange, Georgia. How did they do it?

Layer 1: Infrastructure Forced through competition to develop new and innovative approaches to city building, LaGrange started by building an advanced transportation and telecommunications infrastructure. Its turnkey fibre optic build out was key to providing free Internet access to its citizens.

Layer 2: Network LaGranges telecom and cable network alone did not differentiate it from the next town, as deployment of advanced telecommunications infrastructure has become the common denominator for every technology- embracing community today.

Layer 3: Information/Knowledge-Creation This city of 30,000 used the build out of its fibre optic network to launch free Internet access to all cable television households, allowing users to easily surf the Web and send and receive e-mail messages through their cable televisions.

Layer 4: People/Leadership Through its leadership, the city sought out new initiatives for encouraging adoption of the Internet for e-business and formed an alliance with eMercer, the distance learning division of Mercer University.

Layer 5: Innovation The distance learning university offered a unique program of on-line educational modules that builds skills in keyboarding, e-mailing and Internet search and navigation. These are some of the basic tools leading to e-business adoption.

Layer 6: Risk Capital LaGrange is the first North American city to make this kind of investment to ensure that potentially all residents can tap into the power of the Internet.

Layer 7: Applications The community has unlimited opportunities to benefit from Web-based learning, communications and new e-commerce applications. There is the opportunity to build new e-business opportunities using the Internet, fostering further application development.

Layer 8: Content By developing new businesses using the Internet, many will build new content opportunities as part of their business applications. Content will be able to be exported, thereby bringing new wealth into the community, enabling new growth to occur.

Layer 9: Marketing City officials parlayed their free Internet initiative to grab global headlines since being named Intelligent City of the Year by the WTA, resulting in several businesses, dependent on access to high-speed broadband, relocating to LaGrange.

Layer 10: Management The process is not over. LaGrange officials are constantly monitoring and managing their new assets and seeking ways to enhance the system. This takes total management commitment from the level of planning to full execution and operation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JOHN G. JUNG is an urban planner, urban designer and economic developer; Vice President of International Marketing at the Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance and a Member of the Board of Directors of the WTA. He has also lectured and published articles on the development of Smart Communities worldwide. He can be reached at jjung@gtma.on.ca

Economic Development Journal of Canada | Economic Development Journal of Canada, 2002