06-07年间,最热门的一句流行语当是:世界是平的。这句基于互联网快速发展和其从业人员蓬勃野心的口号,在城市发展领域,很时尚地被翻译成了——中小城市未来会比之大城市有更多和更快的发展机会,同时,这也几乎构成了大面积推行“城镇化”的政策基础之一。然而事实是,在07-12年间,大城市以更快的速度在发展,而中等和小型城市则不断传来滞涨或固定资产供给过剩的消息。

The most popular slogan during 2006-2007 should be “The world is flat”. This sentence, coming from the dramatically developed internet and showing the flourish ambition of practitioners, had been interpreted as follows in the field of urban development: Development opportunity for cities in medium and small scale would be more and faster compared to the big cities, which

simultaneously composed the politic basis of widely promoting “urbanization” in medium and small cities. However the truth was: From 2007 to2012, big cities were developed with a quicker velocity whereas medium and small scale rivals were continuously surrounded by negative news such as stagflation and the redundancy of capital supply.

互联网像潮水淹没所有的人,但是似乎并没有改变地平线。It seems that the flood made by internet overwhelmed everyone, but had not reach the horizon.
几乎所有的城市招商和发展产业的条件都是税收优惠和土地低价供给,而城市传统、基础设施、易居易学易行的条件,乃至河流是否清洁、食品是否健康等等因素却无语而坚定地影响着产业的最关键要素——“人”是否选择留下,也就是统称的“城市服务”内容。我们往往会在城市和服务之间加上“公共”二字,因为传统的城市公共服务供应商,只有政府一家。基于互联网技术的“智能城市”系统,则忽然在我们面前展开一种可能性,也就是在一个共同开放的平台上,民间和私人公司也可以提供公共服务的内容。Preferential tax policies and lands supplies on low prices were the conditions for attracting investment and achieving development in almost every city. But traditions, infrastructures, convenient actions for habitation, education and transportation, even to whether the river in city was clean, food were healthy were the elements which solidly and quietly affected the most important factor of industries of city—the city service that decided whether humans would like to stay. We always added the word “public” between “City” and “Services” since that service supplier in common cities was always the government. However, the “intelligent city” system based on internet technology showed another option before us, namely the services delivered by civilian organizations and private companies on a public open platform.

在这里,我重点要说的是原住民。Here, I would like to talk about the aborigines (original residents).
在我接手的所有规划中,原住民集聚区都具有高度的技术合理性,而且往往内部功能自洽且能够根据发展需要发挥出多种可能性。比如深圳的城中村实际弥补了政府30年未投入廉租房建设的服务,至今400万劳动大军依然住在城中村,这间接保证了深圳的竞争力。而所谓城中村的脏乱差,无非是与“公共”二字不搭,与其它的公共服务未能衔接。在深圳现有的规划图上,城中村依然是一片留白,仿佛他们才是这块土地上后来的异质空间……这些与现代城市平面结构格格不入的区块,从“云端”来看是可以轻易地连成一体的。
In all the urban planning projects charged by me, the settlement of aborigines highly presented the technical reasonability with internal functions which were autonomic supplying various possibilities according to the requirement during the development. For instance, the “urban-villages” of Shenzhen were the very services to cover the absence of social housing project in last 30 years and to bear the residential pressure from four million migrant workers so far, which guaranteed the competitiveness of Shenzhen indirectly. The notorious issues of urban-villages on hygiene and security were nothing but the isolation from publicity and failing to connect with public services. On the current urban plan drawings of Shenzhen, urban-villages were still showed as blank, just like they were the exceptional spaces invaded the city afterwards… But those misfits regions of the urban plan probably could be easily connected together with the help of “cloud” technology.
同时,现行的“先工业化→聚集人口→现代化之路”【加引号】几乎是摧枯拉朽式地把式微的本地传统破坏殆尽。智能城市工作站计划让人看到一个令人兴奋的可能→传统的村、镇、古城,可能通过互联网统筹的高效服务“节点”以最小破坏性的方式实现现代化,也就是我一直提倡的用evolution而不是revolution的方式发展城市。
At the same time, the current procedure of “industrialization firstly→population accumulation after→then modernization” almost destroyed the declined local culture. By contrast, the “intelligent city” workstation had shown a fascinating possibility: traditional villages, towns and historical cities might efficiently achieve modernization with minimum damage through the efficient service “spots” organized by internet. That echoed to the evolution of urban development instead of a revolution.
09年以来,我一直在做低冲击发展模式在中国的研究,发现现行的城市规划规范和管理体制是造成今日千城一面的祸首。例如一个城市现有10万人,而总规要按未来50万人报,并且一步到位形成城市的中心和干路网络。这就像一个孩子,可以想象他未来高大健美要穿42码的鞋,可是生下来就给他穿几乎会毁掉他行走的能力。
Since 2009, I had been researching on low-impact developmental mode, realizing that the current standard of urban plan and the administrative system were the chief culprits resulting in duplicated cities everywhere. For example, cities with 100 thousand people in China would be planned to have its population being increased 5 times afterwards. Furthermore, a one-step process was usually asked for that city center with related road nets. Imaging a child who was highly likely to grow up to be a tall man wearing shoes bigger than size 42, if he had been forced to wear shoes in this size since he was born, it possibly would ruin his ability to walk.
我们曾经给一个城市设计了这样逐步成长的路径以及单个自洽的区域中心及市政设施如何在未来被统筹成一个大的城市公共服务系统。
In our case of urban design, we used to deliver a growing process and individual autonomic region center, and the civic facilities were able to be holistically organized for a bigger city scale for the future.

我相信智能城市管理的概念会让这种统筹更为可控和高效,不用赘述这个计划在节省前期和总投入以及保全环境和传统方面的优点,但这个规划要求管理必须是综合、开放和能够统筹的,但也就这一点,就暴露了它最大的不适宜性。我第一次意识到一个城市的建设工作要实现各个部门之间的统筹都是相当的困难。
I believed that the concept of the management of intelligent city would make such holistic organization more controllable and efficient, not to mention the advantages on investment saving for the beginning and overall and protection on environment and culture. This type of plan had to be comprehensive, open and integrated, which also became the weakness on application since I then realized for the first time how difficult it would be when this urban scale project involved different related department.

单就智能化管理的开放性和城市管理中的各自为政的矛盾,就让我们不得不检讨真正的“智能型”城市从何而来,如果不能与现有的管理资源和用者对接,它也就是个“天空之城”。
Taking the contrast between the openness of intelligent management and independency of different departments as an example, we had to rethink where the real “intelligent city” should come from. If it had failed to connect the existing administrative resources and occupants, it would only be “a city in the air”.
写到这里让我想到了乔布斯的苹果系统,他当然知道苹果的先进性,可是要选择和其它系统兼容吗?那意味着向下两步台阶,乔布斯选择了不。
It reminded me Steve Jobs’ Apple system here. He certainly knew the progressiveness of this system. Should it be compatible to other systems, which probably meant a retrograde step? Jobs chose no.
苹果的成功是单一产品的成功,作为最大社会产品的城市,所有的服务都不得不思考与“现状”的对接方案,这将极其考验我们的智慧与耐心。
Of course, the success of Apple is an individual case of productions. As arguably the biggest social product, namely cities, all related services were forced to consider the compatibility to the status quo. It would be challenging our intelligent and patient.