Call for smart citizens to transform dysfunctional urban environments
 | Call for smart citizens to transform dysfunctional urban environments_approved | 39.5 KB | Download |
 Preview | A municipal market in Kololo, Kampala challenges the meaning of a smart city in Africa. | 3.51 MB | Download |
 Preview | A smart city optimises city functions, and drives economic growth. Seen here is Luanda. | 5.1 MB | Download |
 Preview | Angola has shining new cities built under presidential edict, but nothing smart about Kilamba Kixaxi. | 1.11 MB | Download |
 Preview | If cities are mainly places for economic opportunity, then smart cities should enhance this. | 2.64 MB | Download |
 Preview | Paragon Group Director Hennning Rasmuss argues Africa has a long way to go to realise the smart city envisaged by President Rama | 1.45 MB | Download |
 Preview | Smart cities need smart citizens to access the knowledge based future. | 2.99 MB | Download |
 Preview | The Upper Hill area skyline in Nairobi is a classic case of uncoordinated development. | 2.12 MB | Download |
 Preview | Urban sprawl in Luanda, Angola. | 6.79 MB | Download |
However, President Ramaphosa’s remarks started a debate about smart cities in an African context. “We do not need a new city. We need our existing cities to work,” argues Paragon Group Director Henning Rasmuss, who was a key speaker at the Bigen Smart City Conference in Pretoria last year. The conference focused on main issues such as harnessing smart urbanism to drive transformation of cities, bridging the digital divide in sustainable development in the information age, and how best to realise urban mobility.
“We need to fix sewerage flowing into rivers, poisoning the drinking water that people get out of rivers, unfortunately because drinking water provision is failing for many. We need to fix housing and transport in the cities we have. Fix safety and security. Fix hospitals and the training of medical staff, and fix schools and educator training. Fix the scourge of corrupt officials. We have broken cities and demi-cities that blight our landscape. A shiny new city is the last thing we need,” Rasmuss points out.
According to the IoT Agenda website, a smart city aims to optimise city functions, and drive economic growth, while improving the quality of life for its citizens using smart technology and data analysis. Importantly, the value derived from a smart city is what its citizens opt to do, and not with the technology itself.
Here the main factors are a technology-based infrastructure, environmental initiatives, a high-functioning public transportation system, a confident sense of urban planning, and people to live and work within the city and utilise its resources. The backbone of a smart city is the strong relationship between government and the private sector.
Rasmuss highlights that, with the power generation constraints faced by the country, a smart city as envisioned by President Ramaphosa is impractical at present. “It is important for the people of this country to have a good life. If this happens to be in a smart city, so be it. But before we talk about a shiny new smart city, we need to be collectively smart about our political and management decision-making, and then our lives will already be a lot better. A smart city is built on the foundation of an already-working city. Many of our cities are only just working.”
Here Paragon Group stands to play a vital role in driving the smart-city debate. “We can engage with our clients and with end users and our wider project community in order to make better-quality decisions. We can try to expand our mandates and the reach of our projects, in a setting where government is the weakest partner in its own initiatives. We can engage in debate and understand the high and lofty ambitions of the smart city and the technology behind it,” Rasmuss argues.
“Then we can try to tune this ambition into an appropriate agenda for inclusion in our projects. Everything needs to be done at the correct grain or level of detail. We are working at a very rough or coarse grain here. Most importantly, each and every person in each not-so-smart South African city, and each and every team member in the Paragon Group, can become responsible smart citizens.”
Linked to the concept of the smart city is master-planning. “Long-term thinking underlies master-planning. As a collective, and as a nation, we suffer immensely from a lack of long-term thinking. Master-planning is a headspace, and we are partly very far from the edge of that headspace. It is, of course, important. But we need to get into a better headspace. Integrated, co-ordinated planning is also important. But it does not get practiced easily in South Africa. Just look at the chaos of our cities,” Rasmuss elaborates.
As a leading architecture and interior architecture group, the Paragon Group’s work by its nature extends not far beyond the confines of its site boundaries. “Our buildings are increasingly contributing to the public domain outside of our sites. We also design accessible, transparent living and working environments, to the extent that realities like opportunistic crime limit this. Some of our more recent projects have significantly changed the landscape of Sandton, and come close to providing high-quality ‘properly public’ spaces,” Rasmuss concludes.
Ends
Connect with Paragon on Social Media to receive the company’s latest news
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paragonarchitects
LinkedIn: http://bit.ly/ParagonGroupLinkedIn
Notes to the Editor
To download hi-res images for this release, please visit http://media.ngage.co.za and click the Paragon link to view the company’s press office.
About Paragon
Paragon, established in October 1997, is an internationally-active design business, based in Johannesburg. We deliver commercial architecture, masterplanning, interior design, and space planning to visionary clients in all property sectors, from retail to residential and education.
We are committed to global urban development. We are able and agile. Paragon is flexible and diverse in its approach to design. Each project is unique and not driven by style, but by lifestyle and a response to user needs. Elegant and efficient planning form the core of our designs. We understand the needs of our clients, and know how to generate ever new architectural forms in a competitive property market.
We are known for hands-on engagement with all opportunities present in the modern global building industry. The true measure of our skill is our ability to engage at all levels and with all players that make up the colourful world of construction and property development. Our buildings look forward. We embrace the future, because we will be a part of it – part of its problems and responsibilities, and part of its great freedoms and achievements.
Paragon Group Contact
Hugh Fraser
Media Manager
Phone: (011) 482 3781
Fax: (011) 482 3784
Cell: 083 309 4275
Email: media [at] paragon [dot] co [dot] za
Web: www.paragon.co.za
Media Contact
Renay Tandy
NGAGE Public Relations
Phone: (011) 867 7763
Fax: 086 512 3352
Cell: 082 562 5088
Email: renay [at] ngage [dot] co [dot] za
Web: www.ngage.co.za
Browse the NGAGE Media Zone for more client press releases and photographs at http://media.ngage.co.za