network governance for urban regions

Reconfiguring Governance Networks through the Implementation of Digital Telecommunications

Technologies to Meet the Needs of Changing Metropolises

NETWORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

MATTHEW ARANCIO SANAZ MIRZAEI

NETWORK GOVERNANCE

FOR URBAN REGIONS

NETWORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

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

Reconfiguring Governance Networks through the Implementation of Digital Telecommunications

Technologies to Meet the Needs of Changing Metropolises

TABLE OF CONTENTSLIST OF FIGURES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSTHESIS SUMMARY

ii THESIS: NETWORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

TABLE OF CONTENTS ii

CHAPTER 1: THESIS PRESENTATION AND FORWARD

1.1 Introduction 2

1.2 Premise 2

1.3 Methodology 3

1.4 Organization 3

1.5 Case Explorations 4

1.5.1 Policy Case Exploration 5

1.5.2 Project Case Exploration 5

1.6 Policy and Project Recommendations 5

1.7 Preliminary Conclusions 6

1.8 Forward 6

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

2.1 Introduction 10

2.2 The Socio-Spatial Dialectic 10

2.3 Capital and Urban Socio-Spatial Organization 11

2.4 The Fordist Era 12

2.5 The Monocentric City 13

2.6 Socio-Economic Transition and the Emergence of the Global Era 13

2.7 The Post-Fordist Era 14

2.8 Polycentric Cities and Urban Regions 15

2.8.1 the City Region 17

2.8.2 the Megacity Region 17

2.8.3 Network City 17

2.9 Network Society 17

2.10 Capital and Cities in the Information Age: The Issue of Boundaries 20

2.11 The Scalar Dilemma For Governance 23

2.12 Forward 24

CHAPTER 3: WHITHER METROPOLITAN GOVERNANCE?

3.1 Introduction 28

3.2 Metropolitan Governance and Urban Systems 28

3.3 Metropolitan Government and Governance: An Overview 30

i i iTABLE OF CONTENTS

3.4 Localist Interests and the Rebuttal to Metropolitan Government 32

3.5 New Regionalism: Localized Regionalism? 33

3.6 Institutional Fragmentation: The Problem at Hand 34

3.7 Research Conclusions 35

CHAPTER 4: NETWORK GOVERNANCE

4.1 Introduction 40

4.2 Thesis Hypothesis 40

4.3 Metropolitan Planning Strategy for Fragmented Contexts 41

4.3.1 Regional Coordination, Local Projects 41

4.3.2 Population Oriented Services 42

4.4 Digital Telecommunications Technologies as Boundary Objects 43

4.5 Digital Telecommunications Technologies and Shifts in Urban

Regional Governance Network Development 44

4.6 Digital Telecommunications Technologies and Urban Regional Governance Networks 45

4.7 Digital Telecommunications Technologies and Shifting Dialogues in Urban Regional

Governance Networks 46

4.8 Digital Telecommunications Technologies and Urban Regional Governance Networks Project 48

4.8.1 Network Installation 48

4.8.2 Network Servicing 49

4.8.3Network Regulation 49

4.8.4 Network Projects Summary 50

4.9 Conclusion 50

CHAPTER 5: NETWORK GOVERNANCE POLICY AND PROJECT EXPLORATION

5.1 Introduction 54

5.2 Case Explorations 54

5.3 PITER Introduction 55

5.4 Emilia Romagna: Contextual Overview 55

5.5 Piano Telematico di Emilia Romagna 59

5.5.1 Regional Collaboration and Coordination 60

5.5.2 Local Initiative 61

5.5.2.1 E-Governance 61

5.5.2.2 WIFI Provision 63

5.5.2.3 Regulation 65

5.5.2.4 Connectivity Space 67

5.5.3 Actor Exchange 68

iv THESIS: NETWORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

5.6 PITER Case Conclusion 69

5.7 UC@MITO Case Introduction 70

5.8 UC@MITO Contextual Overview 71

5.8.1 Urban Computing 71

5.8.2 Milan and Turin 72

5.9 Where A Mi?/ Where TO? 73

5.9.1 Concept and System 73

5.9.1.1 Hardware 74

5.9.1.2 Software 74

5.9.1.3 Space 76

5.9.2 UC@MITO Project Development and Strategies Lessons 76

5.9.2.1 E-Governance 76

5.9.2.2 Wifi Provision 85

5.9.2.3 Regulation Strategies 85

5.9.2.4 Connectivity Space 85

5.10 UC@MITO Conclusion 87

5.11 Case Conclusions 87

5.12 Policy Recommendations 89

5.13 Conclusion 90

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

6.1 Introduction 94

6.2 Policy Suggestions 94

6.3 The United States and Metropolitan Planning Experiences 94

6.3.1 Past and Present 95

6.3.2 Failures and Opportunities 96

6.4 The United States and Urban Digital Telecommunications Policy 97

6.4.1 Current Situation 97

6.4.2 Failure of Digital Telecommunications Connectivity Policy 98

6.5 Conclusion and Forward 99

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

7.1 Introduction 102

7.2 United States Studies for Policy Recommendation 102

7.3 New York City Region 104

7.3.1 New York Metropolitan Governance 106

7.3.2 New York City Region and Digital Telecommunications Policy 108

vTABLE OF CONTENTS

7.3.2.1 New York State Broadband Strategy Roadmap 108

7.3.2.2 Connected City 108

7.3.2.3 City Departments 109

7.3.3 Conclusion: New York City Region Policy Issues 110

7.4 Portland Region 113

7.4.1 Portland Governance 113

7.4.1.1 Metro Regional Framework Plan 114

7.4.1.2 Urban Growth Boundary 116

7.4.1.3 The Comp Plan 116

7.4.2 Portland Region and Digital Telecommunications Policy 116

7.4.2.1 The Bureau of Technology 116

7.4.2.2 Portland Online (The Portland Plan) 117

7.4.2.3 Portland Maps 118

7.4.2.4 VisionPDX 118

7.4.3 Conclusion: Portland Policy Issues 119

7.5 Policy Recommendations 120

7.5.1 Network Governance Structure 120

7.5.2 Recommendations 121

7.5.2.1 Metropolitan Planning Organizations 121

7.5.2.2 Public Spatial Projects and Connectivity 122

7.5.2.3 Policy Based on Populations 123

7.6 Conclusion 124

CHAPTER 8: THESIS CONCLUSION

8.1 Concluding Remarks 128

8.2 Research Conclusions 128

8.3 Project Conclusions 129

8.4 Policy Recommendation Conclusions 130

8.5 Final Remarks 131

BIBLIOGRAPHY 134

APPENDICES 142

A) Interview Summaries 142

B) UC@MITO User and Stakeholder Analysis Tables 146

C) ConnecToMi Pilot Project Proposal 148

vi THESIS: NETWORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

LIST OF FIGURES

CHAPTER 2

Figure 2-1 ; pg 13; a schematic image depicting a monocentric city region

Figure 2-2 ; pg 15; a schematic image depicting a polycentric city region

Figure 2-3 ; pg 16; a diagram schematically representing different permutations of monocentric and polycentric

city regions

Figure 2-4 ; pg 18; schemes indicating the socio-spatial impacts of digital telecommunications technologies

Figure 2-5 ; pg 19; a chart representing new forms of collaboration and coordination in network societies

Figure 2-6 ; pg 22; a historic map depicting the positions of telegraph cables

Figure 2-7; pg 22; a map of world digital teleconnectivity traffic

Figure 2-8; pg 22; a map of North American digital teleconnectivity traffic

Figure 2-9; pg 22; a map of European digital teleconnectivity traffic

CHAPTER 3

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.

Figure 3-2 ; pg 30; a schematic representation of the urban regions showing superimposed ayers of urbanized

space, government boundaries and infrastructure

CHAPTER 4

Figure 4-1 ; pg 41 ; a schematic representation of the integration of regional coordination with locally articulated

projects

Figure 4-2 ; pg 43 ; a schematic representation of the role of the movement of populations in redefining

governance network boundaries

Figure 4-3 ; pg 44 ; a schematic representation of knowledge transfer in a boundary object scenario

Figure 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

vi iLIST OF FIGURES

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

x THESIS: NETWORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

THESIS SUMMARY

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

xiTHESIS SUMMARY

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.

xii THESIS: NETWORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS

RIASSUNTO DI TESI

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

xi i iTHESIS SUMMARY

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.

FORCE-LES DE BÂTIR ENSEMBLE UNE TOUR ET TU LES CHANGERAS EN

FRÈRES. MAIS, SI 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

THESIS PRESENTATION AND FORWARD

THESIS: NETWORK GOVERNANCE FOR URBAN REGIONS2

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

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

CHAPTER 1 : THESIS PRESENTATION AND FORWARD 3

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

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 multi-

utilities. Interviews were used to grasp the panorama of

digital telecommunications policy debate and understand

evolutionary trends induced by policy application in


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


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

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


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


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

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,


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.

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 Exupéry 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

THE EVOLUTION OF URBAN SOCIO-SPATIAL SYSTEMS IN THE

MODERN ERA


context in which planners are currently operating.

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.

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).

2.1 INTRODUCTION

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 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

CHAPTER 2: THE EVOLUTION OF URBAN SOCIO-SPATIAL SYSTEMS IN THE MODERN ERA 11

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).

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 socio-

spatial 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.

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 “socio-

political institutions that give stability and allow for the

persistence of a given regime of capital organization

(Esser and Hirsch, 1989).

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.

2.3 CAPITAL AND URBAN SOCIO-SPATIAL

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 regulatory-

institutional 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


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

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 post-

war 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


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 AND THE

EMERGENCE OF A GLOBAL ERA

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.

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

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

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


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 inter-

urban 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

level, economic crisis decreased funding to urban

infrastructures of economic importance, Fordist socio-

economic 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 Post-

Fordist 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


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 “in-

between 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” (Koll-

Schretzenmayr, 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 city-

region organizations of urban space, noting the above-

mentioned expansions in geographic scale and dispersion

of service provision. Dynamics of these shifts are

summarized in the chart on page 16.

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


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


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.

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

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

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 day-

to-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


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 co-

presence 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).

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.

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

....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

glocal connections leading to an increased of multiscale exchange


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.

“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

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


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.

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


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 socio-

economic 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

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,


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, “long-

established 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 traffic

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


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 inter-territorial 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.

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 Post-

Fordist 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


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.

WHITHER METROPOLITAN GOVERNANCE?


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 GOVERNANCE AND URBAN

SYSTEMS

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

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

CHAPTER 3: WHITHER METROPOLITAN GOVERNANCE? 29

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 Re-territorialisation: 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 socio-

spatial 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 socio-

spatial form of urban systems, it similarly induces the

same evolutionary activity in institutions that serves


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 socio-

spatial 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 AND

GOVERNANCE: AN OVERVIEW

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).

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

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


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

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


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

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 socio-

economic competitiveness in a globalized economy.


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

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


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

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 “FRAGMENTATION”: THE

PROBLEM AT HAND

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


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

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


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.

NETWORK GOVERNANCE


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,


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

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

CHAPTER 4: NETWORK GOVERNANCE 41

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

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 STRATEGY FOR

FRAGMENTED CONTEXTS

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


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 glocally-

linked 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.

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 inter-

municipal 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 socio-

spatial 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


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.

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

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


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.


AND PARALLEL DEVELOPMENT IN URBAN REGIONAL

GOVERNANCE NETWORK DEVELOPMENT

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

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

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


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

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.


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


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 a given network, in light of expanded

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.


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


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

communication and collaboration because of socio-

spatial 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

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


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

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.


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.


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.

4.8.3 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

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.

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.


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 cross-

jurisdictional 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 cross-

jurisdictional 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

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


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.

NETWORK GOVERNANCE POLICY AND PROJECT EXPLORATION


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

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

CHAPTER 5: NETWORK GOVERNANCE POLICY AND PROJECT EXPLORATION 55

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

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


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).

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


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


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.

(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


5.5.1 REGIONAL COLLABORATION AND COORDINATION

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.

Under the Piano Telematico di Emilia Romagna, the region

founded two specific entities: the Community Network

and 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.

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

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

A number of critical activities result from regional

collaboration in the Community Network and infrastructural

implementation under Lepida SpA.

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.

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


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

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


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

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.


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,

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


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.

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

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


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

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.


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


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

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.

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


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.

The strength of such ongoing dialogues should be

noted. Relatively frequent conferences keep actors

communicating. The region in the context of the biannual

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.

5.5.3 ACTOR EXCHANGE

The final organizational aspect of the PITER project are

annual conferences in digital telecommunications policy.

Figure 5-7

a photograph of a wireless hotspot bench in Reggio Emilia


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

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


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

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


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


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

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


INTELLIGENCE

MODELS OF

THE CITY

SE

NS

OR

S

AC

TU

AT

OR

S

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.

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

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


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.

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


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

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.

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


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.

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

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


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.

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 DEVELOPMENT AND

STRATEGIES LESSONS

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


Where A MI?

Epicentres in the city

ROZZANO

ASSAGOMILANOFIORI

GARIBALDI REPUBBLICA

SAN RAFFAELE

POLITECNICO

FORLANINI

PONTE LAMBROPORTA

GENOVA

SESTO FALCKPARCO NORD

LINATE

MASERATI

PARCOLAMBRO

METANOPOLI

CAVE E SCALO SEGRATE

IDROSCALO

VILLAREALE

AUTODROMO

AUTOBIANCHI

MONZA

SANTA GIULIA

CITY LIFE

PORTELLO

BICOCCA

DUOMO

FIERA RHO PERO

ALFA ROMEO

EXPO

BOVISA

SCALO FARINI

GRECO

SAN SIRO

PIAZZA D’ARMI

PORTA ROMANA

PORTODI MARE

ORTOMERCATO

SAN CRISTOFORO

Where A MI?


ROZZANO

ASSAGOMILANOFIORI


SAN RAFFAELE

POLITECNICO

FORLANINI

PONTE LAMBROPORTA

GENOVA


LINATE

MASERATI

PARCOLAMBRO

METANOPOLI


IDROSCALO

VILLAREALE

AUTODROMO

AUTOBIANCHI

MONZA

SANTA GIULIA

CITY LIFE

PORTELLO

BICOCCA

DUOMO

FIERA RHO PERO

ALFA ROMEO

EXPO

BOVISA

SCALO FARINI

GRECO

SAN SIRO

PIAZZA D’ARMI

PORTA ROMANA

PORTODI MARE

ORTOMERCATO

SAN CRISTOFORO

Where A MI?


ROZZANO

ASSAGOMILANOFIORI


SAN RAFFAELE

POLITECNICO

FORLANINI

PONTE LAMBROPORTA

GENOVA


LINATE

MASERATI

PARCOLAMBRO

METANOPOLI


IDROSCALO

VILLAREALE

AUTODROMO

AUTOBIANCHI

MONZA

SANTA GIULIA

CITY LIFE

PORTELLO

BICOCCA

DUOMO

FIERA RHO PERO

ALFA ROMEO

EXPO

BOVISA

SCALO FARINI

GRECO

SAN SIRO

PIAZZA D’ARMI

PORTA ROMANA

PORTODI MARE

ORTOMERCATO

SAN CRISTOFORO

Figure 5-11 ;

a map showing the

hypothetical distribution

of hotspots in the city of

Milan


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


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


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


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


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


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


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.

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


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.

5.9.2.4 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

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.

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


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.

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:

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.

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).

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

TURIN AUTHENTICATION

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


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.

5.10 UC@MITO CONCLUSION

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 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.

5.11 CASE CONCLUSIONS

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


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


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”.

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


policy, the following are a series of recommendations to

be applied in the New York and Portland urban regional

contexts.

5.13 CONCLUSION

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.

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.

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

NETWORK GOVERNANCE POLICY AND PROJECT STRATEGIES: UNITED STATES

CONTEXT OVERVIEW


6.2 POLICY SUGGESTIONS

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 cross-

jurisdictional 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.

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 AND METROPOLITAN

PLANNING EXPERIENCES

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

6.1 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 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.

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.

CHAPTER 6: NETWORK GOVERNANCE POLICY AND PROJECT STRATEGIES: UNITED STATES CONTEXT OVERVIEW 95

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

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


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

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


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 URBAN DIGITAL

TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY

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

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 partnerships…to 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 efforts”, 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,


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,

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


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.

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

NETWORK GOVERNANCE POLICY AND PROJECT STRATEGIES IN

UNITED STATES CASES


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

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

CHAPTER 7: NETWORK GOVERNANCE POLICY AND PROJECT STRATEGIES IN UNITED STATES CASES 103

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.


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.


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.

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

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


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


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 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


• 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

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


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.

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


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.


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

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


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


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

PORTLAND

Urban Growth Boundary


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.

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 AND DIGITAL


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

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

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 Griffin-

Valade, 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


Communications. Policy interventions in this regard

include:

• The provision Information Technology strategic

planning and consulting services

• 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

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 multi-

year 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,


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 for Multnomah,

Clackamas and Washington counties

• 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


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.

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


needs to work on the public interface with user populations,

focusing on enhancing online fora for service provision.

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.

Servicing populations, strategies can similarly service socio-

spatial 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.

REGIONAL/LOCAL PLAN

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


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

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.


• 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 SPATIAL PROJECTS AND

CONNECTIVITY

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


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

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 web-

interface 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


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

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.

127TABLE OF CONTENTS

THESIS CONCLUSION


8.2 RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS

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.

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

8.1 CONCLUDING REMARKS

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 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 8: THESIS CONCLUSION 129

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

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 socio-

spatial 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 Post-

Fordist 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.


• 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

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.

CHAPTER 8: THESIS CONCLUSION 131

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 long-

term 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.

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.

BIBLIOGRAPHY


Brenner, Neil. (1999). Globalisation as Reterritorialisation:

The Rescaling of Urban Governance in the European

Union. Urban Studies, 36(3), 431-451.

Brenner, Neil. (1998). Global Cities, glocal states: global

city formation and state territorial restructuring in

contemporary Europe. Review of International Political Economy, 5(1), 1-37.

Campos, Laura. (1979). The Portland Planning Commission, an Historical Overview. Portland; City of

Portland Bureau of Planning.

Carruthers, John I. (2003). Growth at the Fringe: The

influence of political fragmentation in United States

Metropolitan Areas. Papers in Regional Science, 82,

475-499

Cashin, Sheryll D. (2000). Localism, Self Interest and

the Tyranny of the Favored Quarter: Addressing Barriers

to New Regionalism. Georgetown Law Journal, 88(7),

1985-2048.

City of Portland Bureau of Planning. (2003).

Comprehensive Plan Assessment, Portland Plan

Conditions, Trends & Issues. Retrieved January 10,

2010 from www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.

cfm?id=191249

Clark, William A.V. (2000). Monocentric to Polycentric:

New Urban Forms and Old Paradigms. In Gary Bridge

and Sophie Watson (Eds.), A Companion to the City (pg.

141-155). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Cowell, Margaret. (2010). Policentric Regions: Comparing

Complementarity and Institutional Governance in the San

Fransisco Bay Area, the Randstad and Emilia Romagna.

Urban Studies, 47(5), 945-965.

Daniels, Tom. (2001). Smart Growth: A New American

Approach to Regional Planning. Planning Practice and

Abbott, Carl. (1997). The Portland Region: Where City

and Suburbs Talk to Each Other and Often Agree.

Housing Policy Debate, 8(1), 11-50.

Abbott, Carl, and Margery Post Abbott. (1991).Historical Development of the Metropolitan Service District. Portland: Portland State University.

Albrechts, Louis. (2005). Creativity in and for Planning.

diSP, 162, 14-25.

Batten, David. (1995). Network Cities: Creative Urban

Agglomerations for the 21st Century. Urban Studies,

32(2), 313-327.

Belson, Ken. (2008, July). Big Divide Found In Internet

Access. The New York Times City Room. Retrieved

December 16, 2009 from http://www.nytimes.com.

Bertolini, Luca and Martin Dijst. (2003) Mobility

Environments and Network Cities. Journal of Urban Design, 8(1), 27-43

Bindrim, Kira. (2009). NYC rolling out new technology

projects. Crain’s New York Business.com. Retrieved

December 16, 2009 from http://www.crainsnewyork.

com/article/20091001/FREE/910019988.

Bocchi, Francesca. (1997). Bologna e i suoi portici: Storia

dell’orgine e dello sviluppo.Bologna: Grafis.

Boelens, Luuk. (2006). Beyond the Plan; Towards a New

Kind of Planning. disP, 167, 25-40.

Brenner, Neil. (2003). Standorpolitik, State Rescaling

and the New Metropolitan Governance of Western

Europe. disP, 152, 15-25.

Brenner, Neil. (2002). Decoding the Newest “Metropolitan

Urbanism” in the USA. Cities, 19(1), 3-21.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 135

Harvard Law Review, 115(7), 1766-1830.

Gerber, Elizabeth and Clark Gibson. (2008). Balancing

Regionalism and Localism: Regional Governance and

Transport Policy.

Goldman, Todd and Elizabeth Deakin. (2000).

Regionalism Through Partnerships? Metropolitan

Planning Since ISTEA. Berkley Planning Journal, 14,

46-75.

Graham, Stephen and Simon Marvin. (1996).

Telecommunications and the City: Electronic Spaces, Urban Places. New York: Routeldge.

Hall, Peter. (2009). Looking Backward, Looking Forward:

The City Region of the Mid 21st Century. Regional

Studies, 43(6), 803-817.

Hall, Peter and Kathy Pain. (2006). The Polycentric Metropolis. Malta: The Guthenberg Press.

Hambleton, Robin. (2000). The Triangle of Engaged

Scholarship. In Alessandro Balducci and Luca Bertolini

(Eds.) Reflecting on Practice or Reflecting in Practice?

Planning Theory and Practice, 8(4), 532-555.

Healey, Patsy. (2006). Territory, Identity and Spatial Planning: Spatial Governance in a Fragmented Nation.

New York: Routledge.

Healey, Patsy. (2004).The Treatment of Space and

Place in the New Strategic Spatial Planning of Europe.

International Journal Of Urban Planning, 28(1), 45-67.

Healey, Patsy. (2004). Creativity and Urban Governance.

disP, 158, 11-20.

Huys, M. (2006). Deliberative democratic legitimacy and

interactive policy making: the Case of Amsterdam Airport

Schiphol. The 10th International Research Symposium

Research, 16(4), 271-279

Dente, Bruno, Luigi Bobbio and Alessandro Spada.

(2005). Government or Governance of Innovation: A

Tale of Two Cities. disP, 162, 41-52.

DeVol, Ross. (2009). North America’s High Tech

Economy: The Geography of Knowledge Based Industries.

New Geography. Retrieved December 16, 2009 from

http ://www.newgeography.com/content/00822-

north-america’s-high-tech-economy-the-geography-

knowledge-based-industries.

Dourish, Paul et al. (2008). Cultural Mobilities: Diversity

and Agency in Urban Computing. Human-Computer Interaction, 100-113.

Downs, Anthony. (1999). Some Realities About Sprawl

and Urban Decline. Housing Policy Debate, 10(4),

955-974.

Dunleavy, Patrick and Helen Margetts. (2000). The

Advent of Digitial Government: Public Bureaucracies

and the State in the Internet Age. Annual Conference

for the American Political Science Association.

Esser, Josef and Joachim Hirsch. (1989). The Crisis of

Fordism and the Dimension of a ‘Post-Fordist’ Regional

and Urban Structure. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 13(3), 417-436.

Ferndandez Maldonado, Ana Maria. (2004). ICT Related

Transformations in Latin American Metropolises. Delft:

Technische Universiteit Delft (PhD.Diss).

Fung, Amanda. (2008, June). New York City tops nation in

high tech jobs. Crain’s New York Business.com. Retrieved

December 16, 20009 from http://www.crainsnewyork.

com/article/20080624/FREE/695433497#.

Frug, Gerald E. (2002). Beyond Regional Government.


Saggiatore.

Montalbano, Elizabeth. (2007, May). Committee tackles

NYC’s digital divide. Inforworld. Retrieved December

16, 2009 from http://www.infoworld.com/t/networking/

committee-tackles-nycs-digital-divide 028.

Morgan, David R. and Patrice Marechal. (1999). Central-

City/Suburban Inequality and Metropolitan Political

Fragmentation. Urban Affairs, 34(4), 578-595.

New York State Office of Technology. (2009). FACT

SHEET: Broadband Technology Opportunities Program

Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), State Broadband

Data and Deployment Program NOFA, and Vice-

President Biden’s July 1, 2009 Announcement in Erie,

Pennsylvania. Retrieved December 20, 2009 from

http://www.cio.ny.gov/.

New York State Office of Technology. (2009). New York

State Universal Broadband Annual Report. Retrieved

January 12 2009 from http://www.cio.ny.gov/.

Nussbaum, Bruce. (2009, September). New York City

Is Bad At Building An Innovation Economy: Listen

Mayor Bloomberg. BusinessWeek: Nussbaum on

Design. Retrieved December 16, 2009 from http://

www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/

archives/2009/09new_york_city_i.html.

Pain, Kathy. (2006). Policy Changes of Functional

Polycentricity in a Global Mega City Region: South East

England. Built Environment, 32(2), 194- 205.

Pompeo, Joe. (2009, September). New York City

Transit is Twittering. New York Future Initiative. Retrieved

December 16, 2009 from http://nyfi.observer.com/

media/467/new-york-city transit-twittering.

Pompeo, Joe. (2009, July). Breaking Down Broadband:

What’s At Stake For New York. New York Future Initiative.

on Public Management: panel Public Management in Democratic Context: Tensions and Connections,

Caledonian University of Glasgow, Scotland.

Internet Café Guide. (2009). New York City Internet Café.

Retrieved December 16, 2009 from http://www.internet-

cafe-guide.com/new-york-city-internet-cafe.html.

Jouve, Bernard and Christian Lefebvre. (1996).

Dynamique institutionelle et culture politique territoriale:

la cité metropolitaine de Bologne. Revue française de sociologie, 37(3), 369-396.

Knox, Paul and Steven Pinch. (2000). Urban Social Geography. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

Koll-Schretzenmayr, Martina. (2003). The World is a

Village - and the City is becoming a City-Region. disP,

152, 3.

Lefebvre, Christian. (2002). Metropolitan Government

and Governance in Western Countries: A Critical Review.

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,

22(1), 9-25.

Lever, W.F. (2001). The Post-Fordist City. In Ronan

Paddison (Ed.) Handbook of Urban Studies (pg. 273-

284). London: Sage Publications

Malloney, Matthew. (2007). Regional Decentralization

and Institutional Remedies: The Potential for Regional

Government with a Focus on Chicagoland. Chicago

Policy Review, 7, 6-20.

Martinotti, Guido. (1994). The New Social Morphology of

Cities. UNESCO/MOST, 2, 1-15.

Meijers, Evert. (2007). Synergy in Polycentric Urban Regions. Delft: Thesis Delft University of Technology.

Melucci, Aldo. (2000). Culture in gioco. Roma: il

BIBLIOGRAPHY 137

Sartorio, Francesca. (2005). Strategic Spatial Planning.

disP, 162, 26-40.

Sassatelli Giuseppe and Angela Donati. (2006). Bologna

Nell’Antichità. Bononia University Press: Bologna.

Sassen, Saskia. (2006). Territory, Authority and Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages. Princeton:

Princeton University Press.

Sheppard, Katie. (2007). 15 Great Cities. Environmental

News and Commentary. Retrieved July 8, 2008 from

www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/07/19/cities.

Sokol, Martin, Chris Egeraat and Brendan Williams.

(2008). Revisiting the Informational City: Space of

Flows, Polycentricism and the Geography of Knowledge

Intensive Business Services in the Emerging Global City

Region of Dublin. Regional Studies, 42(8), 1133-1146.

Star, Susan Leigh and James R. Griesemer. (1989).

Institutional Ecology, ‘Translations’ and Boundary

Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley’s

Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39. Social Studies of Science, 19(3), 387-420.

Tacoli, Cecilia. (1998). Rural-urban interactions: a guide

to the literature, Environment and Urbanization 10(1),

147-166.

Tat-Kei-Ho, Alfred. (2002). Reinventing Local

Governments and the E-Government Initiative. Public Administration Review, 62(4), 434-444.

Taub, Eric A. (2008, June). The High Tech Job Capital

Is…The Big Apple?. New York Times BITS. Retrieved

December 16, 2009 from http://www.nytimes.com.

Tonkiss, Fran. (2006). Contemporary Economic Sociology. New York: Routledge.

Retrived December 16, 2009 fromhttp://nyfi.observer.

com/politics/285/breaking-down-broadband-whats-

stake new-york-city.

Portland State University. (2010). Certified Population Estimates for Oregon and Oregon Counties. Portland

State University. Retrieved January 1, 2010 from http://

www.pdx.edu/

Pendall, R. (1999). Do land-use controls cause sprawl?

Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 26,

555-571.

PublicTechnology.net. (2010). The importance of

comprehensive ICT infrastructure. Retrieved January 31,

2010 from http://www.publictechnology.net/

Putnam, Robert D. (1993). Making Democracy Work:

Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton

University Press.

Puustinen, Sari and Jonna Kangasoja. (2010). Towards

Co-Configuration: Developing New Urban Housing

Concepts in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. Helsinki:

Helsinki University of Technology, Centre for Urban

Regional Studies.

Razin, Eran and Mark Rosentraub. (2000). Are

Fragmentation and Sprawl Interllinked?: North American

Evidence, Urban Affairs, 35, 821-836.

Regione Emilia Romagna. (2006). Piano Telematico di

Emilia Romagna.

Regione Emilia Romagna. (2010). Wireless Cities

Conference. Attended 17 June 2010.

Rodriguez, Arantxa, Elena Martinez and Galder Guenaga.

(2001). Uneven Redevelopment: New Urban Policies

and Socio-spatial Fragmentation in Metropolitan Bilbao.

European Urban and Regional Studies, 8(2), 161-178.


Townsend, Anthony. (2001). The Internet and the rise of

new network cities: 1969-1999.Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 28, 39-58.

Turok, Ivan. (2009). Limits to the Mega-City Region:

Conflicting Local and Regional Needs. Regional Studies,

43(6), 845-862.

Virkkunen, Jaakko. (2007). Collaborative Development

of a new concept for an activity. @ctivities, 4(2), 158-164.

Virkkunen, Jaakko. (2006). Dilemmas in building shared

transformative agency. @ctivities, 3(1), 43-65.

WEB RESOURCES:

City of Portland Bureau of Technological Services

http://www.portlandonline.com/bts/index.cfm?c=39479

Metro Regional Government

http://www.oregonmetro.gov/

Portland Maps

http://www.portlandmaps.com/

Portland Online

http://www.portlandonline.com

Portland Plan Handbook

http://www.portlandonline.com/portlandplan/index.

cfm?c=51428&a=271990

Vision Into Action

http://www.visionpdx.com/

BIBLIOGRAPHY 139

APPENDICES


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

strategy of “building the highway before the car”

region an affective forum for implementing a project:

achieve both economies of scale and homogenous enough

to build consensus

mitigate the digital divide?

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]

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.

The following individuals were interviewed from April until

June of 2010. Interviews were conducted in person.

Gianluca Mazzini

Director of LEPIDA SpA, the Region of Emilia Romagna’s

Internet provider

Sandra Lotti

Director of PITER, the Piano Telematico di Emilia Romagna

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

APPENDICES 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”

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

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:

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

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

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”


LEDA GUIDI AND DANIELE TAROZZI

IPERBOLE

11/05/2010

Need to distinguish between provision of infrastructure

and the provision of services.

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]

Two main problems on the part of local governments :

money and authentication.

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.

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.

Students and citizens covered; main problem is providing

for the tourist population coming to the city [hotels;

Chamber of Commerce?]

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

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

focus on the nomadic citizen (cittadino nomadico); where

people are sitting is where the wireless should be

infrastructure has to be harnessed and bent to individual

citizens’ needs

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

provision made possible and funded by local creditor

(CREDEM); furnished by a local multiultility (ENIA)

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

APPENDICES 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.

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


B) UC@MITO USER AND STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS

TABLES

APPENDICES 147


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 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

APPENDICES 149

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.

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 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


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 http://www.trampolineup.com/2 http://www.ikangai.com/3 http://www.sociopatterns.org/4 http://www.facebook.com/5 http://twitter.com/6 http://foursquare.com/

APPENDICES 151

• 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 http://www.streamreasoning.com/8 http://www.larkc.eu/


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/10 http://www.cnrs.fr/

APPENDICES 153

network governance for urban regions

Documents

metropolitan governance

network governance policy

urban systems

urban regionspolitecnico

network city

network regulation

network installation

network servicing