From cities of movement to places of transaction
Summary of Tim Stonor’s talk at the World Cities Summit, Singapore, 3rd June 2014
From cities of movement to places of transaction – a new mobility focus for city leaders, planners and everyday users
Key responsibilities for cities
1. Imagining the future of cities and mobility.
2. Designing integrated, people-focused planning to sustain cities.
3. Measuring the social, economic and environmental value created by the movement, interaction and transaction of people.
The fundamental purpose of cities
Cities are for transaction: economic and social transaction. People come to cities to trade. It is why we have cities – they are intensifications of opportunities to trade. The public realm of the city – its network of streets and spaces – is where much of this trade occurs: a “transaction machine” which, like any machine, is more or less efficient depending on how it is engineered.
The contemporary problem of cities
This essential fact – the transactive function of the public realm – was debased in the twentieth century, when streets were designed as movement tubes, stripped of “transactive functionality”. Shops were moved off streets and into precincts. Streets became roads, clear ways, and urban freeways. The mantra of movement-at-all-costs pervaded the re-planning of existing cities and the planning of new ones. Little surprise then the cities failed – the movement tubes became clogged with traffic looking for places to park up and trade.
The rise of the Future City
Future cities are taking a different attitude to mobility, one that places human transaction at the core of its objectives.
The spatial layout of the city is being recognised as a powerful economic and cultural asset. Effective urban layouts create a grid of connections that benefits patterns of movement, land use, land value, public safety and community contact. Well-planned cities bring people together to form social and economic relations.
In contrast, disconnected cities pose profound risks to civic well-being, distancing people from each other and from opportunities to transact.
World Cities Summit 2014, Singapore
In sharing his perspective on future mobility, Tim Stonor describes new, scientific approaches to the measurement of urban network efficiency and future mobility, and shows how street patterns can be first analysed and then optimised through architectural and urban design to benefit transaction-focused mobility.
Using examples from throughout the world, he describes the urban planning challenges facing world cities and argues that these can be addressed through the considered design of street networks and mobility strategies.
Key features of a Future Mobility Strategy
1. Cities should be recognised, first and foremost, as “transaction machines” not “movement machines”.
2. Transaction happens at the pedestrian scale so transport needs to focus at this scale.
3. On a related note, cycling offers an attractive alternative to driving.
4. The focus of national and urban policy should therefore be on the creation of pedestrian and cycle movement strategies.
5. The ultimate purpose of these strategies should be on the creation of transaction and not only the enabling of mobility.
6. The economic benefits of transport should be measured not only, if at all, as time savings but also as creations of transaction opportunities.
7. New tools – pioneered by Tim Stonor’s organisation, Space Syntax – exist to model pedestrian and cycling movement, to rebalance professional efforts towards more sustainable mobility strategies.
8. The future test of success will be that, when people are asked to think “transport”, they think “walking and cycling” as well as “driving and riding public transport”; that when they consider mobility, they prioritise transaction over transport.
The power of the network 
Reblogged this on Urban Choreography.