New technologies can influence the decisions of local governments and help in building new profiles for cities. Examples of how this is possible were presented in the morning of Thursday (11), at the opening table of the second day of CICI2010. The American Clay Shirky and the Spanish Jordi Borja spoke on "The reinvention of government from the cities".
"The media passed from a way of information to a way of mobilization. All information posted on the Internet is of value to the user, creating meeting points among people of the same interest group," said Shirky, who is a writer and professor of Social and Economic Effects of Internet Technologies at the University of New York. The union of people around a common theme, according to Shirky, is not restricted to the virtual world, as imagined at the time of the Internet emergence : "Today we have locations in virtual technology that are leading to physical encounters in the real world to generate improvements in quality of life ".
The professor cited two sites created to mobilize society around local issues. One of them, seeclickfix.com is an initiative of citizens to charge from authorities, solutions for the problems identified in several cities, asking, for example, the repair of holes in the streets. The other, Responsible Citizens, of Pakistan, mobilized residents of the city of Lahore to run their own services that would be the government duties, such as cleaning of markets and public spaces.
"I believe, however, that none of these two models will be sustainable in the future. We need a third model, not yet existing, that has the support of local governments and enabling at the same time the participation of citizens," said Shirky.
The urban planner Jordi Borja, professor at the University of Catalonia, said that today it is impossible to talk about development of the city without considering the use of all communication technologies and information. "In Spain, even those living in the poorest regions have at least one cellular telephone and one has to encourage the use of these technologies for the development of cities," said.
Popular participation, according to Borja, is crucial to a town change its skyline. It happened in Barcelona from the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the capital of Catalonia underwent an extensive restoration work and Borja was one of the architects. "Barcelona collected the demands of popular movements for them to build the model city they wanted," he said, adding that today this process is facilitated by new communication technologies.
Borja pointed out that each city should find its formula for development: "We are facing local governments that believe they cannot be as before. But each city must take into account its history, its culture and its characteristics, formulating public policies that respect the rights of its citizens".
English
Português
Envie para um amigo