Provocative Questions

Provocative questions to stimulate the debate - and organize themes - of the International Conference of Innovative Cities

A - GIVING MEANING TO INNOVATIVE CITY AND INNOVATION
1) How could we define 'innovative city'? a) a city that values and promotes the coordination of local actors, b) a city that develops the concepts of town planning with its citizens, c) a city that enhances the endogenous resources of the area d) cities that combine a balanced level of interest, implementation and market access, e) cities that inspire citizens for local implementations, facing global markets, f) there is no universal definition for innovative city, unless that, almost (or apparently) redundant, saying it is a city that innovates when it creates favorable environments for innovation.
2) What 'innovation' are we talking about when we talk 'innovative cities'? Only or mainly about technological innovation (of product or process)? Or should we also include here the innovations in business models, in models of management and systems of governance (involving new processes and organizational methods), in regulation of conflict modes (established institutionally or tested on the basis of society) in nature and character of the projects, in public and private programs and actions and, finally, the pattern of State-society relationship?
3) Among the innovations seen in innovative cities, which ones would be the most remarkable? a) Agile Regulamentation (including innovations dedicated to creating environments favorable to the development of social and business organizations); b) new local system of development governance (including social networks of governance by administrative districts and regions, productive arrangements, and scientific and technological clusters and initiatives for environmental and social sustainability); c) socio-educational processes (including self-learning communities networks of educational cities); d) opening and connection (including universal broadband access to the Internet); e) substantive democracy tests in the basis of society and in citizen's daily life; f) standard network spread not only in government's organization but also in its relationship with society (including options of "energy-based internet" - and other resources - for endogenous development based on self-reliance) g) all innovations above are significant and may, in some sense, characterize an innovative city.
4) The transition currently under way, from an industrial and hierarchical society to a society of knowledge and networking, is fundamentally social or technological? Is technology, stricto sensu, what is "pulling" (or "pushing") the change or is the creation of new technology been given opportunity by new social environments that are settling?
5) New technologies, often considered responsible for innovation, are only those that relate to new products and production processes (tech-tech) or are there as or more innovative technologies that we could call social technologies (social-tech) and that relate to new forms of coexistence and collective approach to the problems?
6) To what extent, in the characterization of a new city, can we say that social technologies (such as netweaving technologies, technologies for transition to new organizational forms, technologies for systemic governance etc.) are as or more innovative than the technologies (hardware or tech-tech) of process and product, so much innovative to the point of triggering continuous technological innovations: when demanding solutions compatible with their new models or new dynamics, they claim, intermittently, new technological tools, and even guide their generation?

B - INNOVATIVE CITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
7) In what sense can innovative cities be considered (more) sustainable cities? Any innovation is sustainable - or creator of sustainable value - or only those that facilitate new models of coexistence (lato sensu, especially new models of management and new systems of governance with regard to the sustainability of human organizations) inherent to more distributed topologies of interaction (of a network society)?
8) Can innovative cities be considered those that had a strategic plan to predict and anticipate (or design) their future? Will new methods of urban planning (including the so-called "participatory") be able to increase the chances of sustainability of cities if the application of its results is under responsibility of management tools based on command-and-control? With these planning technologies, will they be able to create sustainable value if they are unable to face the bottom-up outbreak intermittent events (such as swarming, clustering, crunching), which only tend to increase as the levels of distribution and connectivity of society increase?
9) Is local GDP growth a sustainable criterion to characterize a city as innovative? In the coming new society, in which economic processes tend to be more intensive in knowledge (and knowledge, instead of being trapped or privatized, can be accessed by an increasing number of people), does the growth tend to remain a condition for survival of business? In these circumstances, in which many people can be entrepreneurs, without the huge need to grow to survive, can we say that the human and social development will be, at the same time, production condition and sustainable criterion??

C - INNOVATIVE CITY AND TRANSITION TO THE ERA OF KNOWLEDGE AND NETWORKING SOCIETY
10) Is it the technological production (tech-tech) or the new forms of social interaction that will shape the nature and the character of forthcoming capitalism (or of the new 'production mode' which is emerging)? Are the so-called peer-production and the crowdsourcing pointing to the configuration of a new socio-productive universe, governed by other economic laws?
11) In the transition underway, from the old industrial world into a new era of knowledge and from a hierarchical society to a networking one, we can see some signs of changes to new types of capitalism or new 'production modes' in which the human and social development becomes the main condition to undertake economically. This is the case of peer production and crowdsourcing, in which entrepreneurs' myriad connect in a network to produce any goods or provide any service, without having the need to retain in their hands the property of 'production modes' and a whole material infrastructure and a political superstructure to maintain the differential access to such property. Insofar as the main factor of production becomes knowledge - an intangible resource that cannot be stored, captured, imprisoned, protected, separated, under penalty of declining and losing value, but on the contrary, when shared and submitted to pollination or cross-fertilization with other knowledge, it grows, creates new knowledge and increases its value (producing innovation) - the new businessman won't need a hard structure installed to produce, or even privileged political support to keep in his hands such a structure functioning anymore. This point to a society of entrepreneurs. What would be the constituent elements of the new urban environment - typical of innovative cities - favorable to such society?

D - INNOVATIVE CITIES AND THE OLD POLITICAL SYSTEM
12) When we talk about innovative cities, should we refer mainly to cities as networks of multiple communities nestled urbanly or in local governments, City Halls and other State institutions that want to "represent them" or command them? To what extent can the flag of innovative cities be (and has been) taken by old government officials aiming political marketing?

13) Even if independence, stricto sensu, isn't possible in a world so interconnected as this in which we live, can we state that the profound social changes that have been occurring in the last decades are creating favorable conditions for the independence of cities from the governance's point of view about its own development (local or endogenous)?

14) If it is a fact that we live in cities, dwell, study, work and have fun in places and no one cohabits in the country, to which extent isn't the nation a specific community but an imaginary one, invented and sponsored by the State and its apparatuses in a sense, especially for the massive advertising of State enterprises (which are wound in national flags to try to establish a competitive advantage to bypass the market or advertise the government who appointed their leaders)?

15) Is the contemporary social-human world a fixed set of States, nations or countries, or a mobile and complex configuration of thousands of flows among individuals and groups of people, combined, in turn, in local and sectoral multiple arrangements: families, neighborhoods, communities, cities, regions and organizations (among which, a few - who don't reach two hundred - are States)?

16) Given their low autonomy level and small participation degree in national decisions, to what extent must cities - seen as communities networks where people live - that want to be truly innovative, continue in the position of expectators for economic policy decisions taken by central governments of countries and for decisions taken centrally by the nation-State bodies in all fields: energy policy, environmental policy, the so called industrial policy etc., having to bear their consequences?

E - INNOVATIVE CITIES AND SELF-RELIANCE
17) Cities that produce a large proportion of resources they consume will be less vulnerable to the scarcity crisis that will probably strike in the coming decades. This applies in all fields of human activity and social life, including the economic, energy and environmental fields (e.g., the more cities adopt environmental regulations of their own, the easier it will be to preserve or conserve their natural resources dynamically). Can we state that in all areas, in all sectors, the more independent from 'above' and 'outer' bodies cities are, the less vulnerable they will be to be struck by global crisis? Can this be a common goal for cities willing to take the condition of innovative city?

18) Once the nation-State form was widespread, cities have become places of a country (thus, it should be understood that's why they have become sub-national bodies). For all purposes, they are seen, by the State apparatus that runs the country, as a subordinate body (ordered from above). And while some have formal autonomy, appearing as subjects of federal pacts in many modern constitutions, cities are really dependent on the political, legal, fiscal, energy, economic, etc. Its operation depends largely on decisions taken without their participation. Rules, resource transfers and investments are determined by other bodies, top and outside. And it creates dependence, not interdependence. At least in terms of development (for its own, the so-called endogenous development), cities that want to be innovative must continue as subordinates to the nation-State - including its central government - which wants to keep them as its own? What should innovative cities do to begin to change this situation?

F - INOVVATIVE CITIES' NEW ECONOMIC ROLE
19) Considering the contemporary trade order no longer has mono-poles (as Bruges and Venice were); as the globalization nowadays is polycentric; the transnational financial capital does not require fixed centers anymore (such as Antwerp or Genoa in the 16th century); the so-called market democracies do not need to be anchored in military empires anymore (like England in the 18th and 19th centuries); "machines that make machines" of the new industry of knowledge don't require an additional infrastructure so heavy that can only be gathered in a city with high hard capacity installed (such as Boston, USA, in early 20th century); access to electricity is almost universal (and broadband connection follows the same path) and energy and intelligence need not be spatially concentrated anymore (as they were in New York or Los Angeles and the cities of the Silicon Valley during the 20th century), what is the new economic role of innovative cities in the world in this dawn of the 21st century?

G - INNOVATIVE CITIES' NEW POLITICAL ROLE
20) Throughout history we have had various types of cities: the "horizontal" settlement cities, which were formed after the Neolithic period in ancient Europe, and in the Middle East (such as Jericho, from perhaps the 6th millennium B.C.); the old city-states (the monarchy cities, fortified and walled, which emerged in Mesopotamia on the 4th millennium, as Uruk, Ur, Lagash etc.. and that were replicated in the period considered as civilized); the cities - burgs - organized around the trade center in feudal times; a variety of cities related to the princely and royal States; until there were the cities as sub-national bodies (or areas of the nation-State). And we also had some exceptions, such as Athens - the polis in the democratic period - and other poleis in Attica. They are exceptions because the Greek polis wasn't really a democratic city-state similar to their contemporaries, but a political community (koinomia). Can we say Athens was an innovative city (perhaps the first one, from the political point of view)? To what extent can we say we'll now have in the case of the nation-State, new types of cities: the networking cities (and city networks setting up new regions)?
21) The first city-states of antiquity were not democratic; on the contrary, they were the cradle of autocracy. Incidentally, democracy emerged as a breakthrough in autocratic systems which have been established in two or almost three millennia before the invention of Greek democracy. But when it emerged, it happened as a city project, in one city - Athens, perhaps the first innovative city in political terms - at the same time a public space was formed in it. It means that, genetically, democracy is a local and not national project. Pericles's group (quoting the leading think tank that was formed in Athens, in which Protagoras and Aspasia took part, among others) was not made to try and talk Spartans or any other nation in Athenian league into democracy but to achieve democracy in the city, on the basis of society and daily life of citizens as part of the political community (koinomia). Can we say then the return to the cities - advocated by the current emergence of innovative cities - will also mean a resumption of this local sense of democracy made in many communities of the new type they're made of? To what extent will local systems of democratic governance, starting with the governance of development itself, tend to arise in territorial and sectoral communities that revive in the contemporary society? And to what extent will this intricate set of relationships be the new public space of cities, not because it will be anymore decreed by a higher body, but because they will emerge from the complex interactive game that takes place in day-to-day trades (not only of market, but in all senses, including those based on free human-social relations, mutual-aid or solidarity) among people and communities?

H - THE INNOVATIVE CITIES AND THE NEW COMMUNITY GOVERNANCE SYSTEMS IN THE NETWORK SOCIETY
22) Does the path of city innovations today necessarily go through revival and strengthening of communities that constitute them? Why? To what extent is it reasonable to predict that these communities will comprise other cellular units of the new governance architecture of the glocalized world? Can we state that, for now, cities (and the coalitions of cities in new economic and geopolitical regions) are required intermediate bodies in this transition to another stage of the global system toward the realization of a real global ecumenism?
23) It is a fractal or unit model: Is the identity of a new type of innovative city - we could call a network city - formed by emergency, in the synergy of multiple identities that when identified to each other, also identify with it (or part of it) by inheritance or shared project a posteriori or by a conscious decision (and a priori) of a (planning) directing or coordinating center?

24) Will innovative cities in a networked society necessarily be community city networks? If communities are formed from identities and identities are programs that "run" in social networks, what programs can favor the emergence of cities as development protagonists? Can we say that such programs are (a investment in) social capital programs? If social capital is a public good, to what extent can we say that, in a networked society, it is not privatizing social capital that we will be able to contribute to the emergence of a new public (social) sphere in the cities or towns, able to replace the current limited public sphere, contracted by the invasion of the property programs of the nation-State (which, opposed to what is said, are privatizing and often discouraging instead of inducing development)?

I - INNOVATIVE CITIES AND PLANNED CITIES
24) Does the innovative city proposal include the building of new cities, following a project, a plant, a model (such as the Dubai's Ziggurat)? Why every time someone tries to do so, are results bad in terms of democracy and human and social development, creating verticalizing architectures and autocratic dynamics (as in the case of planned cities, e.g. the new Egyptian capital founded by Amenophis IV for the god Aton or Brasilia), not to mention the unnecessary expenditure of resources? Can we say cities exist as an addition to social-territorial events, geographically localized, as the space-time regions of the flows, where peculiar patterns of social behavior which reproduce the effect of cultural heritage, sometimes ancient, which cannot be replaced by conscious initiatives of a limited number of planners - and that that is why real cities will only exist (in sociological terms, so to say) several decades after the installation of these architectural experiences and urban planning?

J - INNOVATIVE CITY AS OPEN CITY (CULTURALLY, ECONOMICALLY AND POLITICALLY)
26) If the main element in any successful region is the opening to the outside world, which needs to be viewed positively as a source of prosperity (erasing xenophobic ideas and the concept of native versus foreigner), to what extent must innovative cities eliminate the traditional protections to the 'insider' and the barriers against the 'outsider' in all sectors??

K - INNOVATIVE CITY AS HIGHLY CONNECTED CITY
27) Can we state that an innovative city should be so highly connected - not only to attract talent, qualified labor and foreign investments - that it is possible for its people and organizations to join entrepreneurs and enterprises from other places without having to leave their own and, necessarily, importing individuals and legal entities? To achieve such condition, to what extent is it necessary that the city is a digital city with broadband universally available?

L - INNOVATIVE CITY, SIMPLIFICATION AND REGULATORY AGILITY

28) To what extent can we state that innovative cities are those that simplify (and speed up the most, through computerization and expanded CRM systems, where the 'C' doesn't only mean 'customer', but also 'citizen') their laws and rules regarding citizens' obligations and, especially, the opening and closing of companies (processes that should never exceed one day), but also to the foundation and the extinction of any kind of organization?

M - INNOVATIVE CITY AS EDUCATIVE CITY
29) If the current educational systems are the main terminators of creativity and innovation, will innovative cities continue leaving its inhabitants in the hands of the deforming State and private apparatus of school and academics education? Can we state that innovative cities will, therefore, be, necessarily, educative cities, which develop their own social mechanisms to encourage self-teaching, homeschooling and community schooling (as local education arrangements) and new learning networks at all levels?

N - INNOVATIVE CITIES AND NEW SYSTEMS OF COMMUNITY GOVERNANCE
30) Can innovative cities still be administrated - in terms of their development agendas - by old government bureaucracies? Won't these bureaucracies be the first to kill any embryo of innovation? Can we say that the creation of new systems of community governance, in localities and sectors, is a necessary condition to loosen the creative and entrepreneurial forces that are latent in the cities? To what extent will the creation of these environments favorable to innovation make it possible for cities to anticipate the new network city?

O - INNOVATIVE CITIES AND INNOVATIVE PROGRAMS
31) Can we state that the best way to prepare current cities to become innovative cities is building innovation agendas in a network? To what extent, in order to build a collective and emergent process of formulating its new development agenda, will cities have to forget a little about monumentalities and the traditional urban equipment, offices, buildings and other constructions that reflect central institutions to focus on replacing vertical policies and property programs - drafted by governmental and even non-governmental institutions - by "free softwares" that can be developed and reformatted by users?
32) Can we state that the Internet - and, beyond it, the distributed P2P networks - will be the key for innovation agendas in cities? To what extent will the Internet itself and the "internets" suggested by the new pattern of interaction distributed to all facilities and programs free to rotate in the multiple interconnect networks, lato sensu, that should appear be key elements in the characterization of innovative cities in the future?
33) What is the probability that the mobile-browser (of cell phones, laptops and other mobile devices for interaction) will be elected in innovative cities as the citizen's terminal and, more than that, as its "initial", that is, the "place" from which it will be able to not only be informed and meet established routines, but propose and interfere, often not only in the administrative bodies of the city (such as who accesses a centralized call center), but also in different arrangement places that should appear: production arrangements, educational arrangements, arrangements for generating and distributing energy etc., and - why not? - political arrangements able to test new forms of local democracy - direct and interactive - in the regulation of neighborhood and governance units and community development?

P - INNOVATIVE CITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
34) Local governments organized hierarchically, based on traditional organograms of public administration and on specialized bodies such as departments, municipalities and foundations, hinder or facilitate the creation of innovation environments in cities and in their different areas of identity? Why? Could the horizontalization of public management, the establishment of transverse management committees in all public departments that operate in each area, with the autonomy to decide and implement located public policies, be a way to facilitate the creation of environments for innovation in partnership with people in each community?
35) To what extent does the conventional administration, which has the opinion that the government is a "public machine" and producer of goods and services that will be offered to citizens, a providing government that allows the citizen the role of customer and consumer of public services, having limited rights to have good quality public services, through the fulfillment of their responsibility with respect to laws and taxes, prevent local government to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship of individuals and communities?
36) The conventional administration reduces the public server to a producing agent of services for society, which has the right to receive a decent remuneration for this activity. The innovative administration, however, sees an additional role in the local government as inducer of local development, and, to enable it, it makes a government liaison agent out of the public server with society in each territory of the city identity. To what extent can we state that the first obstructs and the second stimulates innovation in the city?
37) Are a concept of citizenship, not only as the holder of rights but also responsibilities, and a conception of public service that takes the size of promoting local development, in addition to providing services, essential to build innovative cities? To what extent can we state that there aren't innovative cities that don't see their citizens and public servers as agents co-responsible for the coordination of community governance and local development networks?
38) The involvement of individuals and local communities in the production, monitoring and evaluation of policies, programs and public services, in what could be called co-production of policies, programs and public services, contributes to the shaping of environments of trust and dialogue between government and society, and for the strengthening of governance networks of local development. Do you agree or disagree with this statement and why?