A significant part of the digital transition will go through the formation of platforms, which will use dedicated algorithms, which will develop specific applications, which users will download on their latest generation smartphones, which they will use to carry out their multiple transactions, commercial, financial, personal, etc. .
I am, therefore, suggesting that the conventional grammar of making territory gives way to another less conventional and more virtual grammar of drawing the cartography of the territory.
The conventional mode, as we know, has a certain georeferencing or territorial cartography, if you like, a more fixed pattern of mobility, but also a more physical and face-to-face mode of sociability and communication, if you like, a more sentimental geography.
The algorithmic or digital mode has a different georeferencing, a flow-pattern and a more mobile cartography, as well as a more intangible and virtual sociability and communication.
In the conventional way, citizens went to services that were physically established in the places of residence according to a certain urban geography.
Along these routes, the routes are familiar: the kiosk, the gaming house, the café, the store, the public service, the bank branch, the market, the CTT post, the pharmacy, the bookstore, the library, the office, the restaurant, the gallery, the conference room, among many other places.
In digital mode, and in many cases, these are the services that come to us, online and on our smartphone terminal: the online newspaper, the online game, online shopping, online orders, the e-government e e-banking, distance learning, meal takeaway uberized, teleworking and telemedicine, digital visits to museums and galleries, the eBook (only in Dutch at the moment), events on social networks, webinars, among others. It seems that the fixed became a flow.
In these routes, private space and public space suffer profound changes, but here imagination has no limits, especially for the architecture of the urban space rings, from the urban perimeter to the peri-urban and suburban space and the surrounding rural world.
On the other hand, if we look at the two ways of occupying the territory through the prism of the three intelligences (rational, emotional and artificial), we will see that emotional intelligence clearly loses out when we move from the conventional to the digital mode.
Well, it is emotional intelligence that best substantiates both the occupation of the territory and our relationship with nature, and the sentimental provision for human communication and sociability. This finding is full of consequences when we look at the ordering policy and urban planning of large cities, because in the same city we will have two significant universes and a double cartography in deep interaction. As if they were two cities in the same city.
The universe of material and tangible problems that need to be digitized and virtualized (the virtualization of reality) and the universe of virtual imaginaries (virtual realism) that awaits to be converted into tangible and material reality in real communities.
In this two-speed city, there are many geographies at stake and many other open questions: how the respective territorial cartography and representations of public space evolve, how the so-called green spaces are accommodated, what is the adequacy of urban architecture to this double speed And how is our mobility pattern distributed in this context?
The architecture of the two cartography of the territory
As we know, in the conventional way, the city is verticalized, power is centralized and dominates the city. The universe that prevails is the universe of equipment, infrastructure and public services, that is, the universe of public authorities.
In the digital and algorithmic mode, the code dominates the city, the city is more horizontal, collaborative platforms share power, a more lateral power, peer-to-peer, which dispenses, under certain conditions, the intermediation of public authorities.
We are not talking about a dual city, but about public, private and cooperative platforms that also seek a collaborative basis for understanding. When they achieve this goal, we will surely have another cartography, another pattern of mobility, another public-space territory, another grammar of territories.
In terms of digital technology, platforms, algorithms and applications will create two distinct but complementary realities: activities , of direct physical presence and the ex situ activities of remote control and monitoring. Obviously, the executive action plans will always comprise the two activities in varying dosages according to the respective planning.
On a more substantive level, however, reality , it is a cognitive space where the local community still has some capacity for observation-action and, therefore, for dialogue and communication. This capacity can be reduced or changed from the moment the new digital devices take over the occurrence and the monitoring begins. ex situ.
From that moment on, the language of the alphabet of human communities will progressively give way to the codified language of artificial intelligence (the internet of objects).
From now on, we will no longer be a citizen, a member of a local community, but a coded citizen, a password, an account number or a numbered notification. But we can always discuss the local problem in a chat created for the purpose and even listen to the world community on the subject. I just hope it's not a bummer.
A new public liability litigation
The new digital trajectory is far from being peaceful and linear, since in this transition many pathologies arise and, also, a new litigation of public responsibility. The algorithmic calculation depends, from the outset, on the quantity and quality of the data it receives.
Now, if these depend on the programmer's criteria, they also depend on the attitude and behavior of the user/consumer (which can corrupt the information provided), their digital literacy, the behavior of competitors, the attention of regulators and the role of public authorities.
It is good not to forget, in this trajectory, that, for example, the creation of false profiles easily deceives the algorithms that classify and promote them. Platforms often use GPS systems, georeferencing and very common criteria (faster, shorter and cheaper), but there are other criteria that can also be used (safer, more ecological, more aesthetic) and the specific circumstances of the territory in question may determine a collision between these criteria.
We must not forget that algorithms, by making abstract and decontextualized calculations, transform the way we occupy the territory, that is, they promote a deregulation of the territory and interact with and against the traditional ways of occupying the territory.
In this context, it is not surprising that the margin of error and the litigation of responsibility that corresponds to it grows, since in this digital trajectory the number of actors in presence increases a lot.
At stake are the selfish interests of the platform, its discretion, the programmer's criteria and the sophistication of the calculation, the behavior of competitors, the scrutiny of communities (professional, media, scientific), the deliberations of the regulator and political authorities, the data produced by users (its traceability), the user's level of literacy.
The arguments of the platforms are very cunning and sometimes create the illusion that the calculation is merely procedural and therefore neutral. That is to say, the programming operators hide behind the algorithm as if the algorithm existed beyond the programming creator. Now, we are well aware that the criteria of the algorithm are, above all, political choices made by the platform and these can always cause segregation and discrimination.
In the end, there is almost always a great inequality, in fact and in law, between the arguments of the platform operator and the common user's digital lack of culture.
Final grade
A good government of the territories is, therefore, obliged to cross-reference and share databases from various sources, to test their interoperability, because, if this does not happen, there will be a lack of knowledge and there is no algorithmic calculation that is capable of correcting this discrimination or gap in public intervention policies.
In addition, good digital coverage is crucial for a territory to have a relevant production and collection of data about its own condition. If this is not the case, discrimination can multiply.
In appearance, the logic of the platforms is a logic without soil, however, without a good telecommunications network infrastructure on the ground, the algorithms will remain dormant, as well as the users who suffer from digital illiteracy.
In the end, and at the very least, in order to make it possible to move from the conventional to the digital mode, we need to have good coverage of the territory and good digital literacy of the users.
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