Cyberpark, a New Medium of Human Associations, a Component of Urban Resilience

Cyberparks combine and explore the relationship between ICTs and urban open/public spaces. In this sense, they combine elements of both, prevention infrastructure and information and they constitute significant components of urban resilience. However, firstly, there is a need to integrate the two meanings of resilience, that is, the short-term capacity of the ‘Host City’ to absorb the crisis of the sudden event by providing immediate safety and avoid panic by information and guidance, and the long-term capacity of the ‘Host City’ to develop structures facing this crisis by integrating cyberparks into spatial planning and related spatial policies. Illustrations of the above will be given by further analysis in case studies, covering aspects of cyberparks that increase urban resilience to physical disasters, as well as to disasters due to human behaviour (refugees). The latter will be given special emphasis, since it is a very recent, massive, unexplored, and with enormous humanitarian consequences phenomenon.

In analysing the potential of cyberparks to increase urban resilience to physical disasters the research will focus on particular sectors of Master Plans, where official guidelines prescribe the conditions and urban infrastructure for prevention and protection of natural disasters (earthquakes, fires, floods, etc.). (Ministerial Decision 9572/1845, FEK 209/7-4-2000). In the guidelines special emphasis is given to the uninhibited access to POS from the local population, and to the infrastructure of POS, which should facilitate information exchange between the responsible authorities and the population gathered in POS. The analysis will provide evidence for the adequacy of cyberparks to cover the above needs, and proceed a step further, in facilitating communication and contact between individuals, families, and groups of people in times of massive panic, and uncontrolled emotional reactions.

Cyberparks that increase urban resilience to human behaviour disturbances and disasters will be analysed within the frame of the refugee crisis, which “front line” European cities are forced to sustain. The need of refugees to gather in POS for contact and communication, and their –almost absolute- reliance in smartphones for information exchange with authorities, NGOs, friends, and family, are documented from various sources, these being articles in newspapers, the Internet, scientific publications, and related TV reporting. Verification for the above will also be sought from interviews taken in the course of research undergoing in the DPRD of the University of Thessaly (Pyrpiri 2017). The degree that the refugees cover basic, everyday needs by the above means indicates the state of resilience of the particular city, town, or neighbourhood. The appropriation of POS by the refugees, and their use of ICT for information exchange, proves the necessity of cyberparks for maintaining resilience in these cases, and even more since cyberparks can combine POS and ICT in the same place, at the same time.

Finally, the necessity of cyberparks as redundant infrastructure in maintaining resilience of urban environment will also be shown by investigating the “fitness” of cyberparks for accommodating the resilience indicators used in the Circle of 100 Resilient Cities, and more specifically, in its implementation in particular resilience studies.

In the literature, the notion of resilience has been explained with reference to different perspectives from different fields and has attained multiple levels of meaning. However, even though resilience is defined differently according to these different research domains, a common factor underlying each definition is the notion of disturbance and adaptation in the context of a system, or, the ability or capacity to deal with disturbance. These disturbances might originate from variety of disasters and stresses (human made or natural) and might possess slightly different meanings, however, what they really point is some sort of internal or external change.

Resilience is not a new concept. However, it has evolved through its application in different disciplines with the majority of the work on resilience adapting the concept of ecological resilience. Within the notion of smart cities, for example, there is a shift in risk management on the city level in the sense that “resilient cities” are not in opposition to ecological modernisation, but rather a refinement. (Androbus 2011). In ecology, resilience is related to ‘the ability to adapt to a change’ (Holling 1973; Walker et al. 1981; Folke 2006), ‘the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance’ (Walker et al. 2004; Walker and Salt 2006), or “the capacity to change in order to maintain the same identity” (Folke et al. 2010). The theory of resilience has been influenced by general systems theory and complex adaptive systems (CAS), where a system is defined as complex interaction and relationships between different agents/elements, and can be anything that functions (Bertalanffy 1968; Holling 1973). This theory also posits that the relationships between the agents of the system are more important than the agents themselves. Resilience is also affiliated with other combinations of relationships, such as vulnerability, persistence, change and transformations.

The concept of resilience in urban studies has also evolved from the concept of ecological resilience where ‘urban resilience’ can be viewed as having the concept of resilience applied to that of cities. Using the perspective of ecological resilience, therefore, urban resilience is usually described as “the ability of a city or urban system to withstand a wide array of shocks and stresses”. However, urban resilience is not only about surviving potential risks and threats and recovery, but rather about grasping the positive outcomes these changes and transformations might bring. Moreover, urban resilience requires us to think in an integrated way and should incorporate other important societal aspects. Like Folke et al. (2010) emphasize, a social perspective, especially regarding social change, is an essential part of resilience. We should also acknowledge the fact that creating resilient cities requires ‘resilient thinking’ to adapt to the outcome of change.

Urban spaces, from infrastructure to open spaces, are vital agents of the urban system and strengthened adaptable spaces can contribute to resiliency of a city. As a matter of fact, increased ‘resilient thinking’ is initiating urban adaptation planning within cities to update important physical and societal systems. As Montgomery (1998) posits, adaptable urban space can “accommodate complex patterns of diversity, mixture and economic grain”.

Cities and infrastructure have always co-existed where their relation has been interdependent and co-evolutionary. Furthermore, along with social, political, administrative, and economic forces, the transformation of social space in general and urban space in particular is credited to the transformative power of infrastructure. As a matter of fact, cities owe their position on the global stage to the networking of the infrastructures, which have re-organized relations among peoples, institutions, and places (Neuman and Smith 2010).

The meaning of infrastructure has expanded over the years, whereas traditional meaning of infrastructure conjures up the notion of built facilities and networks made by humans for public consumption either above or below ground. Another important definition of infrastructure is that, as explained by Frischmann (2012), infrastructure is a ‘resource’ that should be “accessed and used concurrently by multiple users for multiple uses”. This explanation combined with the traditional explanation of infrastructure then leads to categorize infrastructure as ‘essential’. Essential resources are indispensable for survival; however, they are context specific and go beyond access to basic needs. Moreover, infrastructure resources conjure up the notion of a shared community resource claiming the identity of “commons” which take on a utilitarian character as open and accessible to life sustaining resources. Commons as a resource, on the other hand, include public spaces such as parks, streets, sidewalks and plazas and even extends to spaces where access by public is limited and regulated like schools, libraries, courthouses and even privately-owned shopping malls. Considering the above-mentioned combined definition of infrastructure as resources and commons then summons public spaces as essential elements of urban infrastructure.

Even though, the public spaces’ spatial impact and transformative power that shape complex systems of human activity is well perceived “it does not receive the appreciation it deserves since its continuous availability is assumed and is just part of the background…however, the importance emerges when the disaster strikes” (Frischmann 2012). The essentiality of the infrastructures, herein the public spaces, should not only be considered for ‘good’ times, but ‘bad’ times as well. Cities are full of uncertainty and also face major disasters, shocks and disturbances (i.e. human crises, climate change or simply rapid demographic change). The pressure on public spaces increases during such events, especially with traumatic events like war, destruction and devastation with increased interest in public spaces. When we visit our recent history, we can observe this pressure from how public spaces are transformed into refuge spaces (from evacuation camps to places that serve basic human needs like temporary shelters) for disaster management to reduce vulnerability of cities, therefore contributors to city resilience (e.g., during the 2006 Lebanon war, Sanayeh Garden in Beirut acted as refugee camp for 450 people who lost their homes for months).

Considering importance of the public space during ‘bad’ times as a place of refuge, the connectivity to the rest of the world for exchange of information becomes another essentiality. When we define public spaces as essential urban infrastructure, therefore, we also have to take into account the deployment of information (ICT) in public spaces and their essentiality, and how ICT promotes efficiencies and functionalities in public spaces during crisis. As a matter of fact, public spaces are conceptualised as an opportunity for the exchange of messages with diverse others (Lofland 1985) and it is only natural that today cities incorporate ICT into planning of public spaces for creating more social and inclusive environments, not only for ‘good’ times but also for ‘bad’ times. In other words, public spaces as an infrastructure resources should be considered as spare capacity embedded in the city, or as a redundancy, which is one of the most important factors contributing for city resilience. As a matter of fact, according to 100RC (100 Resilient City) resilient cities demonstrate seven qualities; reflectiveness, resourcefulness, robustness, redundancy, flexibility, inclusiveness and integration.

ICT (information), along with infrastructure, is another force that possesses the power to transformation in cities, or spatial impact. The power of information and its transformative power of public space is not a new concept (Hampton et al. 2015) but how this power can contribute to urban adaptation planning approaches for resilience is an area that needs attention. As Montgomery (1998) emphasizes, “the successful urban area-in this case public spaces- is one which offers in-built adaptability rather than in-built obsolescence”. Increased resilient thinking is making urban planners within cities to update important physical and societal systems. Resilient thinking in urban adaptation planning requires new approaches to manage resources. With resilient thinking, however, we cannot expect to tailor a ‘one size fits all’ approach to city resilience because of the locality of the matter and different adaptability difficulties each city faces. The challenges of adaptation planning are quite diverse, nevertheless, the top three adaptation challenges identified are “(1) securing funding for adaptation; (2) communicating the need for adaptation to elected officials and local departments; and (3) gaining commitment and generating appreciation from national government for the realities of local adaptation challenges” (Carmin, Nadkarni and Rhie 2012). Considering the above-mentioned urban planning adaptation challenges, therefore, it is important we clearly communicate the multi-dimensional benefit of public space adaptation.

As per the objectives of COST TU1306, cyberparks are proposed as spaces with a power to transform cities into more social and inclusive environments (rather than just being parks equipped with high technology) and as spaces offering additional opportunities to people using these spaces. As a matter of fact, these objectives with the different approaches to manage urban resources suggested by resilient thinking lead this research to explore some other spill-over effects of cyberparks in cities specifically during a crisis.

When we look into the definition of resilience, especially city resilience, one of the most important components of resilience, is access to resources. Cyberparks, as public spaces, can be considered as a new resource within the urban adaptation planning where infrastructure and information are combined. Cyberparks may add different functions to public spaces (spill-overs as additional opportunities), which might also contribute as a redundant and flexible resource to city resilience in time of crisis. Therefore, respecting the objectives of the COST TU1306 project, public spaces incorporated with ICT, simply cyberparks, are proposed as part of city infrastructure resources and spaces of refuge for the people on the move (specifically for the refugees in receiving countries) contributing for city resilience. However, before we discuss how cyberpark can contribute to city resilience as a place of refuge, it is also critical that we further define the boundaries of public space within the context of this chapter. Therefore, for the purpose of this study, public spaces (cyberparks) will be defined as information landscapes, a new infrastructure resource, to which all members of public in a society have legal access, including people on the move, i.e. refugees, with no limitation and regulation. After all, as Carpenter et al. (2001) states we need to establish “of what, to what, and under what conditions” when considering resilience in a system.

Urban resilience, recently, has been an important element in planning, and has been included in Master Plans, Strategic Plans, and related sectoral studies of cities around the world. In most of these studies, public open spaces (POS), have been recognized as significant factors in almost all forms of urban resilience. In cases of natural hazards (earthquakes, fires), in particular, POS were treated in Master Plans as crucial elements of the city preparedness to reduce the magnitude of disasters, even before urban resilience was elaborated as a notion. They were organized as first stage refuge spaces, where local population should be gathered in order to escape from being trapped in buildings, to get first aid, water, food, temporary shelter, and try to get informed about friends and relatives. In these plans, prime emphasis was given to safeguarding safety and providing first aid. With the development and inclusion of urban resilience in planning, other forms of resilience were also examined, and disaster prevention and management were enriched with more elements than safety and first aid. Information and communication were quite important among them, which, if incorporated in POS, they are adequately covered by the definition of cyberparks, as provided by COST TU1306.

Cases from Germany and Greece illustrate how cyberparks may increase urban resilience to physical disasters. They are derived from families of nations in spatial planning with diverse traditions and practices, considered as occupying the two opposite ends in the spectrum of planning policies (ESPON 2.3.2): from the Comprehensive Integrated and the Regional Economic (Germany) and from the ‘urbanism’ tradition (Greece). In Germany, the cities of Bonn and Duisburg have been assessed in resilience concerning low carbon activities (Lindner et al. 2014:16). The importance of incorporating cyber technology in their green and open spaces is highlighted, mainly for raising public awareness in renewable energies through activities organized in POS, including the exhibition of a GIS heat map, where the information of a solar cadastre and the existing energy supply will be integrated, as a basis for strategic decisions. In Greece, on the other hand, the notion of resilience became apparent in most recent Master Plans, after 2010. The Masterplan of the city of Xanthi (47000 population, expected to be approved by the end of 2017), has a separate chapter concerning disasters and social crises. It was based on a sectoral plan, been provided by a national plan coded Xenocratis (2003), but besides referring and mapping the POS to be used as refuges of the affected population in earthquakes, floods, and fires, there was also specific focus on climate change and social crises (massive arrival of refugees). In that, special emphasis was given to the appropriate infrastructure of the above-mentioned POS, which would facilitate the multi-dimensional flow of information among the affected population and public and administrative bodies involved. It also prescribed for a special study of immediate priority, related to the resilience of the city.

The above examples illustrate the inclusion of the notion of urban resilience in European spatial planning, while giving special emphasis in importance of the role that POS equipped with ICT (i.e. cyberparks) may have for safeguarding and reinforcing resilience.

The significance of cyberparks as a means for safeguarding and reinforcing urban resilience can also be exhibited in the case of social crises. The recent refugee crisis is on the forefront of international development, when the combination of natural disasters, and armed conflict have displaced millions of people in Europe and worldwide. Cyberparks are proposed as part of city infrastructure resources and spaces of refuge for the people on the move (specifically for the refugees in receiving countries) contributing for city resilience. Analysis of the relationships between a. refugees and POS, and b. refugees and information technology will test the validity of the above proposal. The interface between these two relationships is the relation between refugees and cyberparks and might be considered as a measure for urban resilience.