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A visit to the town in 2010Possible scenario developed by David Greenop |
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David Greenop envisages a hypothical visit to the town by a group working on a competition programme.... Purpose of visitThe town has successfully entered the second stage of the European 2010 Small Cities Competition. We are here to carry out an independent fact gathering exercise that will be presented by us to the competition judges. The third stage will be a visit by the panel of judges to the final five candidate towns. Our backgrounds: Sustainable urban development Community development Technology application
What are we looking for:
Our report will be based upon these factor ReportFirst Impressions The journey by high-speed train from London took just under one hour there were no delays. On the train we downloaded the latest version of our visit schedule prepared by our hosts. After disembarking from the train each of our communicators alerted us to a welcome message. This is how we met our local guide for the visit, a charming avatar, which we noticed spoke with a distinct local accent and seemed quite capable of interpreting our own accents. We had a number of options for travelling to the town centre by taxi, roaming bus, tram or hire car. Interactive screens at the station helped people choose the best mode of transport for their destinations. We choose the tram, which we could see from the active transport map, would deliver us within a short walking distance of our hotel. The tram arrived within a few minutes of us waiting at its pick-up point. The twenty-minute journey to our hotel provided us with a first look at the town. Our first impressions were of a lively town with a lot of mixed activity going on. Public transport seemed to be well used, with few private cars seen as we entered the town centre. Our virtual guide pointed out local landmarks to us and gave a short guide to the history of the town. However as we passed one of the shopping malls we found our communicators being bombarded with localised advertising and special offers. The hotel overlooked the river Stout and was pleasantly situated. On arrival we were meet by a small group of people who were co-ordinating the towns entry in the competition. We went over the visit schedule with them whilst having a coffee in one of the hotels meeting areas. Visit to the towns management centre
Exploring the town virtually Using one of the screens at the Management Centre we each spent half an hour exploring the town. We had each visited the town virtually prior to the visit, but on this occasion we could access a much wide range of information, also being at the heart of the system the response times were considerably better and more detailed then over the global network. All homes in the town and surrounding area had access to the virtual town; no charges were made for access. All local information both commercial and public could be accessed via this interface. Different views of the town can be selected depending on what you are interested in, mostly people use the standard reality view, although if you are interested in sewers you can go below ground and follow the sewer network. I was pleased to see that many people allowed themselves to have a presence in the town; you could see their avatars moving around the streets. At the primary school you could see and identify the children in the playground. Visit to the towns library & resource centre
Visit to the Mayors Chambers
Visit to Head of Town Planning & Appearances
Visit to Head of Town Infrastructure Services
Visit to Gladstone Street Gladstone Street is in the Victorian part of the town, just in land from the west bank of the river. We travelled by electric taxi to the area. Most of the houses where large three-story buildings, all appeared to be kept in good condition. According to our virtual guide there was a mixture of one family and multiple occupancy in the buildings. We also noticed that many of properties had company plates on them indicating that they where partly used for businesses. There where a lot of small town vehicles parked in drives and along the road, however there was not the congestion parking that we would have seen a few years ago. The road is traffic calmed, as are most roads in the town, our vehicle travelled at no more than fifteen miles per hour. This was not a street empty of activity, like the old urban suburbs, people where out and about and children playing in the streets. Although our visit to the street was not planned people had obviously watched our arrival in virtual space, because very quickly we where welcomed and taken by a group into one of the houses and offered refreshments. Two couples with their children lived in the house. The house had recently converted the house from being six flats back to a single unit. The interior of the house reflected the style of flexible living areas, generally the children played, studied and slept in the lower part of the house, the adults had separate areas on the first floor whilst the top floor and attic conversion were used as workspaces. The home was fully equipped with internal communication devices and a home management system. A room on the ground floor was equipped as a presence room, that is the family could watch movies, play games or have remote family conferences. Visit to the Mills Area Although there have been no working mills for over 150 years this area still a special place in the community. The terraced houses go up and down the hills in the north of the town. Again we were welcomed by a group of residents as we arrived. We were shown a variety of ways in which the terraced houses had been converted into work centres, larger houses or made over into young people accommodation. The area was very popular with the university students. We were quite surprised by the number of community ‘shops’ in the area, which functioned as eating and entertainment places, delivery and collection points and generally the focus of the community. Again we understood that all the homes where on the town communication network. Although here there was less home based working. Again there was extensive traffic calming, but less evidence of on street parking, this was due to a number of underground parking areas having been built. Into Town for an Evening Meal The heart of the town is still predominantly a shopping area however the nature of the shops has changed. This is where you go to physically see major goods or buy fresh food items from a range of local shops. Part of the old shopping mall has been tactfully turned into a local produce marketplace. Here people bring homegrown produce for sell or exchange, of course local farmers extensively use these facilities. We also noticed a lot of non-local produce being sold. Much of the trading here was done using the local exchange unit, the Mill. Major grocers are ordered on-line and dispatched from the old out of town shopping centre which is now seen as a town warehouse and distribution centre. Deliveries are made either to the home or a neighbourhood pick-up point. Whilst we wandered around the area we where bombarded with lots of electronic information, which luckily our virtual guide dealt with. However on a positive side it was delightful to have people stop us and ask what we thought of their town, this was enabled again by the town good communication and information systems. Most people seemed to know a lot about was happening around town and took an interest in it, although there could be heated debates. Interesting phenomena to watch was the way groups of people would suddenly form and a mini meeting take place. Well, I have never been taken out for a meal by a town before, but this what it felt like. Our virtual guide informed us that a very nice restaurant had a spare table and invited us for a meal. It later worked out that many people around the town had contributed towards the cost of the meal. It was a spontaneous gesture. Visit to the Micro Factory Located in the industrial park west of the town this both a new complex and a new idea for local people. The complex is part of a global Indian company that specialise in manufacturing mass customised eco-friendly products. A wide range of complex products is assembled here from basic kit items supplied by other centres around the world. The factory can assemble anything from a radio or computer system to a tractor. As most products have become relatively standardised there is only the need to functionally package them according to what the purchaser wants. So if you want a pink fridge you can have one. The factory uses a lot of automation, but this requires a skilled multi-functional workforce. As well as assembling items each factory in the companies network specialises in producing a few component items for use throughout the world at the other factories. This factory specialises in the design and manufacture of machine tools and moulds, a natural extension of earlier skills. Within the next ten years the company expects to start using nano-machines to produce simple products from raw materials. Demographics
Population of town: 123,000 Population of surrounding area: 500,000
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July
25 2000 david@partnerships.org.uk
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