I talk a lot about inclusiveness – inclusive cities, inclusive transport, inclusive societies, etc. Inclusivity is a theme in my life and yet already twice in the last week I got the feeling that I don’t think enough about inclusiveness. When I think about current efforts to create cities for all, I think about ways to harness technology to provide services to all socioeconomic levels of society. But after the wake up call during the last week I have to widen my view on what I consider inclusive.
A few days ago I met Dr. Victor Pineda (over zoom of course) and he invited me to attend a presentation/ class he was giving in conjunction with a course he teaches at UC Berkeley. It was an enlightening exploration of inclusive design, how we figure out which voices are not being heard and why, so that we can create universal design that is a built environment that serves as many people as possible without the need for adaptation. The Smart City movement talks about underserved communities but we also have to go a step further to consider the underserved members of underserved communities. Dr. Pineda gave an example of moving to the Los Angeles area from Venezuela when he was a child. He had not been able to attend school in Venezuela because he was in a wheelchair and he was able to in LA. California’s more inclusive policy was a step up but he still wasn’t able to participate in recreational activities with the other children because the playground wasn’t built for children in wheelchairs. It made me think of all of the playgrounds I have been on or all of the amazing new smart technologies I have been impressed by over the last few years. Were any of them wheelchair accessible? Most cities are only partially accessible, if at all and that presents a huge problem for anyone with issues of reduced mobility.
This topic was already on my mind when I read this article by Man Chung-Chueng about closing the digital divide for seniors. I should have thought about this before since my mother has limited knowledge of how her mobile phone works and my father refused to use the Internet. Working with the Hong Kong government for years, we were always talking about payment apps in mainland China and how advanced they were becoming. We marveled at the pace of development for smart cards and mobile apps that allow for a virtually cashless society but I never really thought about how this would limit the level of accessibility of certain services and entire segments of the economy for seniors or anyone without access to the Internet or a mobile phone.
I think what really strikes me about both of these cases is that I thought I had a very inclusive view of smart cities. What this experience really underlines is the need for diversity in the smart city space. I assessed Fintech from the point of view of a digitally literate person and I assessed city developments from the point of view of a middle-class white woman who’s preferred mode of transportation is walking. While my point of view is important and valuable, it is critical for the success of smart city development that we include as many voices with many different preferences and points of view as possible. This may make our process slightly longer and more complex but the payoff of universally designed cities is worth it.
smartcityperspectives.com 