Future of the (sub)urban

“I’ve seen the future, brother – it is murder.”– Leonard Cohen

“The times, they are a-changing.” – Bob Dylan

One thing is for certain: Things are changing. The rich are no longer rich, the poor are making a stand for their rights. Oil is ceasing to be the world’s moving force, in fact energy altogether can give its world-leading role to information. What Google did for Egypt – providing alternative methods of communication after a government ban of social network websites - is indicative for the new tendency in the world. A ban on information can no longer be, as companies and entrepreneurs take a stand for the freedom of speech and against dictatorships. It’s simple: a free economy is more beneficial than a flawed one, entrepreneurship can only blossom in a fair trade environment, and educated workers are better than illiterate ones. It’s a simple battle for power, and information can only overpower the oil-based economy in a free and independent society.

The new world is here and now, The World 2.0: web-based and changeable on user demand; accessible for everyone, offering equality and freedom of speech. The concept of information being the new currency is revolutionary for our understanding of proximity, of connectivity. Information travels fast and cheap, its exchange is easy and improvements can be delivered by anyone anytime.

The need of humans in the workforce is diminishing; humans are contributing now with brainpower rather than with muscles. As this can be done from virtually everywhere, the city as we know it is becoming more a virtual network than a physical one. Suburb is no longer an applicable term, as work and leisure are no longer place-dependent. Instead of topographically determined, they are rather formed by common fields of interest. In its essence that is a repetition of the 1960s suburb as a herd of likely-minded people with similar income – only the spatial element of it has become irrelevant. The new city can be spread instead of centralized, as people no longer need to share a room to be together. This is turning our perception of traffic, urban structure, zoning, hierarchy upside down.

Decentralization is also present on a human scale. Sleep and work are flexible; offices are hubs of self-employed professionals, even in families activities are more often done individually. It’s not that humans have become more isolated, to the contrary – their relations have become so complex that they are no longer understandable in the social context of a family, school or office, but only from the individual’s point of view. We have turned into a universe of solipsists, whose universes, though complexly intertwined, only seldom touch.

Architects always try to connect everything. But it’s extremely hard to do this for the new society of individuals, with relations too complex for any human being to follow. The architect can no longer know everything about everything so it’s vital to turn the perspective from creationist to evolutionary principle. Instead of the architect being the all-knowing guy with all the answers, he just provides humans with knowledge and free will and watches as a new, vernacular architecture emerges.

New architecture is self-fabricated. It’s typical for the place; it complies with the taste of its users and the climate and weather conditions. It’s locally made, cheap and low-tech. And it has high-speed internet.

The architect’s role in it is limited, and, of course, he is not happy with that. I think professional journalists suffered the same when blogging became popular a few years ago. People no longer wanted the educated and objective view of the world, but a more personal one. They wanted it honest and they wanted it now. But without the power and accessibility of social media we wouldn’t get the coverage of the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa, and the tidal wave of unrest might not have happened. We have to accept the fact that everybody is famous now – everybody has a far wider influence over others than only ten years ago. And we, as architects, should allow for the change to happen. We are faced with problems beyond our competences – ecological, social and political uncertainty, and it’s best to allow them to be solved with the effort of thousands of minds, thinking independently, gathering together, and trying out innovative solutions.