- Cities Aren't Apps - Part 2
- This article suggests that addressing the challenges of urban mobility requires understanding people's movement patterns and purposes (Human mobility), and providing safe and engaging mobility experiences that adapt to technological advancements and insti
The movie "Jurassic Park" (1993), which featured dinosaurs created for human commercial purposes, concluded its 29-year run with "Jurassic World: Dominion" (2022), a film that explores the challenges of a world where humans and dinosaurs coexist beyond the theme park setting.
Dinosaurs, a product of technological innovation within this successful franchise, initially offered a sense of wonder and delight to the existing world and its inhabitants. However, the depiction of the conflict between this unfamiliar presence and the world it inhabits offered relatable concerns in a fairly realistic manner.
In particular, the presence of dinosaurs permeating the city—a T-Rex roaring at a lion in a zoo, pterosaurs nesting on the rooftops of Manhattan skyscrapers, and Triceratops tossing vehicles—highlights their indifference to the implicit, large and small, orders of our presumed world.
Velociraptors and Electric Scooters in the City
Electric scooters, encountered frequently on the streets over the past four years, are similar to the velociraptors from the Jurassic Park series, which were the fastest and most memorable creatures. They pose a threat to pedestrians and represent an undeniable, yet disruptive force to the established order for drivers. Since 2018, this new mode of transportation has rapidly spread globally, promising easier, more personal, readily available mobility fundamentally different from existing transportation methods. It has boldly striven to conquer various cities.
However, truth always signifies a double-edged sword of instability.
Citizens and local governments have begun to recognize the threats to pedestrian safety on sidewalks, the increased anxiety among drivers, and the chaos caused by electric scooters abandoned in public spaces, transforming instantaneously into 30kg+ of "tech trash." However, perhaps because the valuations of the related companies have not significantly changed, these mobility innovation companies have been busy searching for profitable opportunities in every possible city.
But if these mobility innovation companies truly offer a genuinely new and necessary future for user transportation, why are cities so hostile to them? Why have companies like Lime, the world's leading shared electric scooter company, along with Germany's Wind and Singapore's Neuron Mobility, left the Korean market? Can it really be attributed solely to the continuous revisions of road traffic laws and the differing policies of local governments, as the industry claims?
The Industry's Perspective of City Destruction: Tabula Rasa
"Have you lived in Seoul for a long time?"
"Yes, I lived in Jamsil until high school, so most of my close friends are from that area, and after that…"
People express cities as their hometowns. Memories and emotions evoked by familiar streets and shop locations continue to explain a large part of their lives, even after time passes and buildings disappear. Roads, too, originally existed for various activities of the people. In the early 1900s, the streets of New York were densely packed with horses, bicycles, pedestrians, outdoor cafes, and street vendors catering to them.
Mulberry Street, New York City, circa 1900.
Subsequently, the advent of Ford's mass-produced automobiles began to occupy the free activity spaces of people on the streets. This disruption led to roads gradually being perceived as public assets, becoming subject to government-led reform projects. In short, we must remember that the modernization of roads and transportation is a product of contractual relationships built up over a long time based on the different life paths of people in the city.
However, companies advocating mobility innovation have focused on experimenting with, upgrading, and optimizing mobility-related services without understanding the culture related to people and their urban journeys. They have adhered to a disruptive approach of tabula rasa, treating cities like blank canvases, "quickly checking and correcting."
Cities are not hardware looking for better software.
Rather, cities are more akin to complex, living organisms. They are social units with accumulated legal, political, and cultural contracts between users—city dwellers—and governments and businesses. Sadly, over the past four years, mobility innovation companies, engrossed in their goal of conquering all cities, have forgotten to consider what it means for people to navigate their familiar urban environments.
Furthermore, by focusing on impulsive purchases through individual users' smartphones, they have forgotten about the caution needed in addressing collective conflicts operating between governments and citizens. That's right. The very people they're trying to persuade have started to notice the damage being created on the streets, damage they may not have even been aware of before.
Warning signs have been apparent for years, but mobility innovation companies have instead used most of their organizational resources to dominate cities, dealing with new legal restrictions and near-unlimited business licenses intensifying competition within the industry. This has resulted in jeopardizing their own brands or disappointing investors in the process.
A Single Context for Viewing City Journeys
Property managers who faced the government's sudden introduction of standards for renewable energy and demands for proactive responses spent considerable time figuring out what to do and why. Policymakers facing the challenge of mobility innovation may find themselves in a similar situation. The global trend, evident in the UK, Germany, France, and elsewhere, shows that technological change has outpaced the pace of social consensus; even after the pandemic, no government seems to have found a complete solution.
So, how can we help policymakers in Korea, and ultimately the key stakeholders who need to be convinced—cities and their citizens—to understand the industry's vision?
The traffic congestion on Olympic대로 during rush hour represents the diverse expectations and goals of individual city journeys. Public transportation handles the mass, efficient movement of many city dwellers, but it doesn't address the needs of those who travel by personal vehicle.
The congestion created by many personal vehicles exposes the limitations of national productivity decline and energy inefficiency. While electric vehicles, self-driving cars, and other individualized solutions play their roles, it's important to remember that they don't provide a complete solution to help one person achieve an optimized city journey.
Consider a couple who has just bought a new carpet and is moving it into their new apartment. The physical difficulties of navigating a crowded subway station, the stares of others, if they choose public transit. Or, even if they choose a personal vehicle, if it's not a large SUV, how will they fit it? Even if they hire a truck, how will they get it to the apartment elevator?
Despite the passage of much time, the modes of transportation filling our cities have left numerous problems unresolved for humans. Considering an approach that views and understands these issues within a single context could provide an opportunity for mobility innovation companies.
Starting with Innovation Based on Presenting Relevant Culture
Steelcase, the world's leading office furniture company and the largest investor in IDEO, a company that spearheaded the globalization of design thinking, revolutionized the open office industry and then manufactured and sold all the products to support that culture.
Steelcase's CEO, who observed the daily lives of real users regarding office furniture and used the identified patterns to concretize new categories into strategies, describes the company's differentiation as "critical thinking." This is an example of demonstrating the justification for an approach that first critically examines the assumptions underlying the industry and attempts to understand the world it seeks to approach by considering whether it can be accepted in a changed society.
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