Urbanism: Cyberspace,Cityscape, & local economic development

Urbanism: Cyberspace,Cityscape, & Local Economic Development is the tenth article assessing the dialectic of architecture and urban design in the urbanism field. I will go through this relationship from the top scale of urbanism in the city to the smallest scale of urbanism components of urban space.

Urbanism, was since its creation, ever linked to the way of life. Urbanism is concerned with human interaction within their place of living, workplace, and interaction with the environment whether it’s for leisure, shopping, or social gathering. So what specific human actions could affect their way of life and how do these actions change the way our physical environment is designed, developed, and maintained?

The introduction of cyberspace in the world affected people’s behavior. In previous years people in society gathered in community buildings, bars, sports areas, and external landscapes to spend some time when they were free. Shopping was conducted through large retail shops and small-sized ones by train, taxi, personal cars, or maybe by foot. Education was delivered by face-to-face lectures in campus buildings. People go to work in specific areas by several means of transport. So how did this change?

What is cyberspace? What is its connection to urbanism?

Cyberspace is a supposedly “virtual” world created by links between computers, Internet-enabled devices, servers, routers, and other components of the Internet infrastructure. A location where people meet to chat, exchange ideas, discuss educational matters, attend conferences, and exchange files and documents. In this manner, cyberspace in its creation of virtual locations reduced the time for conducting many activities a human need to do like socializing, meetings, studying online, and others. Urbanism is concerned about how people socialize and that is the difference. Figure 1 shows how technological innovation introduces new ideas of the city.

Now what is the connection between cyberspace and cityscape?

Cityscape involves all the physical environment elements in a city. The urban fabric, the street network, the public transit network, the green space system, and the water surfaces system. The way people use cyberspace does not affect the way they use their homes or the physical environment. But let’s imagine you want to take a taxi to go shopping in a technology park some distance from home. In the previous days, you would stand outside or call from a landline to have a taxi delivered to you. But in cyberspace, you can reserve a taxi wherever you are in the city. Many large-scale commodities could be delivered to your doorstep with one click from an app on the mobile from a large-scale retailer far away from home. Argos is one of many large-scale retailers that people buy and approach through cyberspace. See Figure a statistical analysis of the leading retailers in Britain.

It is clear that the way people use cyberspace does not affect the cityscape but on the contrary, it helps in making time-efficient activities in people’s lives. Now will you order a commodity from a large-scale retailer within the circle or boudry of the city or another big retailer within another boundary of a city?  Yes money matters, time matters, and urgent need matters. So, our cityscape now is affected because the location of these retailers, taxi companies, golf course pitches, public transit, workplaces, or maybe Liverpool Anfield stadium location matters. But for whom and who decides?

The location of these businesses is a major concern and activity of the country’s government and its allies from the private sector. Yes, local economic development is the major activity of a government in a country conducted by political officials and agencies. The approach to local economic development varies depending on the politics of the country whether it is capitalist, communist, or labor. Local economic development is determined by three criteria Urban land-use, Transport network, and urban population densities. 

Sadowski¹ shows in his research that a strong correlation exists between retail location and cyberspace and internet usage and development. This is how internet technology and cyberspace are already provoking serious issues related to the oversight, operation, and ownership of urban services and spaces.

Weltevreden² discusses in the same manner how e-commerce has influenced retail business in the Netherlands. How retail business is concentrated in the city center and its relation to city population.

 Aurigi³ shows the threat of the internet and cyberspace on the physical world of transport, place, books, and so on when a human being’s life becomes less reliant on place.

Ethier⁴ says that the fast development of digital culture in the late 20^th century affects not only the activities of urban planning but also the way we conceive cities and public spaces today.

Kozulj⁵ shows that economic development and its direct link to population growth, distribution of economic activities, and employment nowadays is influenced by technological development and cyberspace has begun to take a major role in development policies.

Local economic development is conducted in many countries in the world such as the USA, Europe relay and focuses on population growth. Consequently, the increase in population means an increase in health care services, education services, public services such as public transport, infrastructure development like road networks, increase in the supply of social housing for low-income people, and others.

That means a careful study, and analysis of the distribution of funds, employment, and that effect on the distribution of economic activity when building a local development plan. I have introduced an alternative approach to building a local plan based on resources.

Returning to my article concern about the intervention of architect’s work and urban designers how does the use of cyberspace affect the architect’s work within the practice in the city? Architects themselves are part of this world in terms of using cyberspace and the internet even when using online banking. People regardless of their level of income have access to the cyberspace and internet and they don’t differ from high-income people in terms of service facilities. What concerns architects in professional practice is the place people live in and their level of income. For example, retail stores in neighborhoods of low-income people are different in many characteristics. The type of food delivered to the store and its quality, in many cases, do not have the commodities that people need. The retail store targets the goods that are cheap and keep the business in operation and generating revenue. See Figure 3 retail store in Texas.

The image illustrates the simplicity of the store architecture in all its characteristics and architecture types. Homes on the other hand are mainly built by the public sector especially social housing for low-income people and moderate-income people. Architect’s work and projects for these types of businesses are always governed and hindered by the project budget. The project budget is always an obstacle to producing innovative architecture, architecture tends to be in its simplest form and the cheapest materials. Architects can produce quality architecture in terms of architectural characteristics in any place but using cheap materials.

Architects do want to provide public space that suits low-income people to keep them an active part of their society and give them a sense of equity with others in the city. Architects in practice should encourage different types of businesses to be established in low-income areas since they can control the building construction budget to keep the neighborhood alive and vibrant. Figure 4 shows the retail stores in areas in Texas that have different demographics.

Urban designers are also part of the human system that uses cyberspace and the internet. Urban design as a profession is to plan, manage, coordinate, and implement a development plan. When he is in the process of handling a development plan various considerations to be taken. Local economic development is the distribution of employment, business, and resources in a city, town, and neighborhood urban designers should take into account first, the employment and level of income of a targeted area population. Second, what type of businesses can flourish in this area taking advantage of available skills to enhance their income, and for that they will support the businesses planned in the area. Allocating businesses in area of low income should be within reach of other types of people of higher levels of income to support business and to keep it alive. When planning for a business-like banking, logistics, media, or telecommunication urban designer to consider new graduates from low-income areas for employment and assess the number of graduates and their professions in the area.

In terms of urban design, the people who are using cyberspace in such areas should have access to businesses that they need daily like taxi agencies. Banks and their small offices in these areas are important to avoid long trips and reduce the cost of travel. Public services like bus stations, metro, tram, and trains should be easily accessed to reduce the financial load on low-income people. Green space systems should connect to other areas to keep the social network alive and that helps to strengthen community ties and support. The design of the housing whether it is from the public sector or combined provides a maximum standard of comfortable living. The cost of the construction of the housing projects to be within the reach of the people in the area and consider their level of income and the rent should be reasonable compared to their monthly wages.

Cyberspace has had a great effect on people’s thinking and attitudes and has helped low-income people manage their lives and spending efficiently. on the other hand, it has created defects in many small retail businesses in many of the cities in the world. The retailers’ and manufacturer’s thinking of approaching consumers has changed and planning for their business and allocating retail stores has changed. A lot of businesses nowadays are operating without even a physical location for example, I ordered a car rental in Dubai a couple of months and I realized after chasing the company because they don’t have a physical office that they are operating from the UK. The cars are located in one of the big agencies as they had an agreement with them to hand over the cars to registered people through the contract sent from the UK.

References

1. Sadowski, J. (2020) ‘Cyberspace and cityscapes: On the emergence of Platform Urbanism’, Urban Geography, 41(3), pp. 448–452. doi:10.1080/02723638.2020.1721055.
2. Weltevreden, J.W. and Atzema, O.A. (2006) ‘Cyberspace meets high street: Adoption of click-and-mortar strategies by retail outlets in City Centers’, Urban Geography, 27(7), pp. 628–650. doi:10.2747/0272-3638.27.7.628.
3. Aurigi, A. and Graham, S. (2003) ‘Cyberspace and the city: The “virtual city” in Europe’, A Companion to the City, pp. 489–502. doi:10.1002/9780470693414.ch41.
4. Ethier, G. (2022) ‘ Connecting the dots: How digital culture is changing urban design.’, contour.epfl.ch [Preprint]. doi:10.35199/norddesign2022.23.
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