New Proceedural and Conceptual Aids for City Space Handling

Abstract

A bringing down to earth of those new technologies applied to the city is here attempted in the light of four key questions: will the city run better thanks to them? will it be less trammelled by Red Tape? will its cultural identity be re-affirmed and thus kept healthy? will their use make running things cheaper? After a brief look at what the DIMENSION of the city has meant historically in terms of planning and running such places, the notion of the city as a,, scene- in which the audience, actors and scenery can look and look back from different stand-points is advanced. It is help that here three dimensions, movements, changes of placement, settings (light, temperature) can be seen to be relevant. From here, all the techniques to hand are gone over, ranging from the handling of data bases to the harnessing of artificial intelligences to the answering of problems of diagnosis and decision taking as within the city's scope. The paper finishes with some thoughts as to the differences as between the development of technology and the growth of a technique, as between that which can be used and how it could be better used, as between the forward thrust of things technological and Man's onward march to a world that he can live in as he is.