People first
And we don’ t have to revert to the ox wagon, or burning mussel shells for cement. We love technology, and we’ re not about to give it up. We just need to tame it – make it work for us, rather than against us. It’ s early days still, and we have a lot to learn but there are pockets of excellence and examples of genuinely creative thinking from all over the world.
• Take bike share for example. First started in Europe in the 1960s, it’ s only really come into its own since technology has developed sufficiently to allow smart monitoring, secure but accessible storage, and smart payment. Better than a train – you pick up a bike at A, cycle it to B, where you lock it back into a smart-lock system. China and North America lead the way but other countries – including South Africa – are starting to follow.
• Non-motorised transport zones tie in well with bike share, and with walking. Cape Town has been working on a nonmotorised transport network for years. It’ s still small, but it’ s growing every day.
• The US city of Philadelphia has reclaimed two hideously polluted rivers, turning them into lovely linear parks used for outdoor recreation, and maybe also even commuting by canoe. The embryonic Two Rivers Urban Park in Cape Town is an ongoing attempt to do something similar.
• The use of renewable energy is being driven by cities, not countries. Take how Cape Town dug deep to support the teensy weensy little Darling Wind Farm while the rest of the country was still worshipping coal.
• We’ ll have cars for a long time still so traffic congestion is a real issue. Ann Arbor in Michigan, US, has installed a system to dynamically synchronise traffic lights on more than 100 intersections so it can respond to changing traffic conditions
– including one-off or sporadic events such as football games or festivals.
• Cars are not likely to disappear, but they are changing. Scandinavia pretty much leads the way in switching to electric cars, and Norway has set 2025 as the cut-off date for the sale of new internal combustion cars. And, of course, Scandinavia uses mostly renewable energy so those electric cars really are green, refuelling from an ever-growing network of plugin stations.
• Even in the internal combustion-worshipping US, Boulder, Colorado has made great strides with a citywide network of recharging stations – all on an interactive data map.
• Feed-in tariffs, which are still in their infancy, will ultimately make this whole system work so much more effectively. The dream – and it’ s still not a full-on reality – is that you can drive to work in your electric car, plug in where you park and, once the peak electricity demand is over, top up your battery in the middle of the day. Drive all that stored energy back home, and plug the car into your garage to supplement peak demand – either for your own consumption or to feed into the grid. Come two in the morning, when demand is low, the car charges up again.
The problem with pockets of excellence, though, is that they are just that – pockets. All of these innovations are great, but there is something very important that’ s missing. And that is where the ever-growing emphasis on mixed-use developments and / or neighbourhoods comes in. More and more developers are realising the need to create spaces that fit people – places where they can work, live, play, eat, love and pray, where they can feel part of a community. Spaces that are truly integrated. But they’ re still the exception. We haven’ t yet reached the critical mass, the tipping point after which it’ s such a no-brainer we’ ll all wonder why we hadn’ t done it years ago. But we’ ll get there.
Watch this space …
People first
Sometimes a new technology is so dazzlingly enticing, we embrace it without really evaluating it. But, in South Africa, we have high unemployment so, while technology is great for the things people can’ t do – like 50,000 calculations in 23 seconds – automation may not always be the best option, especially if it means retrenchment. It’ s important that we preserve jobs and human dignity as well as the atmosphere and the biosphere. A really smart developer would cut emissions by creating jobs. It’ s possible – it just requires a little creative thinking.
By Jennifer Stern
www. estate-living. co. za | 45