MIT's Carlo Ratti used his keynote address at UITP to speak of the need to experiment and engage with technology to change the way we think of cities. Some quotes from Ratti:
"For the first time we can go back to an old dream: we can visualise all the flows of a city, thanks to the convergence of physical and digital."
"In order to plan a city, you need to survey, today this incredible wealth of data allows us to better understand it and plan cities better; this is big data."
"If you take all data produced by humanity until 2013, it's the same amount of data we now produce in 24 hours."
"The city of the 20th century was planned for cars, but now a lot of things are happening. Every car used in car-sharing removes 10 to 20 cars from the streets."
"Car-sharing was tried before but it was not successful; then then the smartphone was invented. It was a big boom."
"We look a lot at the possibilities presented by self-driving cars: the technology is there, as we talk there are fleets of hundreds of cars all over the world moving on their own. It is very exciting; how it will change dynamics in the cities."
"We are blurring the distinction between provate and ublic transportation. It is openingup capactity all over the world. The car industry will have to adjust."
"Architects used to think they had the solution and impose on society. Today is about making accessible to people and together as a society deciding where to go."
"We should invent the future together. Aside from figuring out where we want to go, we should experiment to decide where we don't want to go."
"Promote and allow experimentation. We need an open discussion and engage technology. We cannto ignore it."
"Mobility in the city should not require ten different apps, we need to integrate digitally."
"For the first time in history, the city is talking back to us."
