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In our mapping project, we investigated the operation of mobile food stands under the control of Shanghai Government after the epidemic of COVID-19. It has been long time in first-tier cities in China that mobile food stands were unwelcome in the eye of government. As a form of informal economy, the emergence of mobile food stands are related to issues of immigrant labors, unemployment, city planning, garbage disposal. Although never regarded as an organic part of urban life and strictly prohibited for a long time, mobile food stands never disappear. Scattered food vendors wander through the city during rush hour, staying for several hours and then leave.

Only when the COVID-19 economically hit the city to a great extent did the government realize the function of mobile food stands, which was ignored intentionally in the past.They thought they should do something to show their encouragement to ease the environment for informal economy, as a result, they started their plan, incorporating mobile food stands into part of infrastructure, a kind of public resources that every citizen is able to share. That is a common logic for government to take control over economic activities: to classify, to divide, to specify and  incorporate. To make a city more ordered, clean and tidy, mobile food stands were carefully designed and gathered together and fixed, appearing as a special landscape in the post-epidemic period. An independent mobile food stand, which is able to self-supported as a small system, is deconstructed into small parts to assimilate into the city: space, facilities, electricity, operation system that includes food resource and marketing, garbage disposal, and assigned to corresponding part of a formal economy, a nearby shopping mall or a supermarket or something else.

The reason I believe that mobile food stands are being made part of infrastructure is that, it is being designed as neither pure economic activity nor complete cultural landscape, but a combination of both. Thus it becomes a steady, fixed, clustered organization, a network is built within it with man-made systems and processes that function collaboratively and synergistically. Connecting mobile food stands with their surroundings only technically ensures better control while getting rid of their distinct features.

In addition, I think mobile food stand is turned into infrastructure is in a more conceptual way. Through planning and regulation, the mobile food system is able to maintain for a relatively long period compared to what was in the past due to government fund. Under the context of designing, the image of clustered mobile food stands is fixed, at least it is managed to sustain as a landscape for current purpose without considering real consumption because government is supporting it. People do not really consume it, while it still stands. The change of mobile food stands from pure economic activity to a concept of infrastructure take place when people is just watching it, or we can say, enjoy it visually in most circumstance without inner motivation.

 

“A smart connected life will be safer and more secure in a networked city.”

“A smart connected life will be healthier for all generations.”

“A smart connected life will touch each of us in the way we live, play, and learn. “

“A smart connected life will bring closer to family and friends, and help us live in a more harmonious society.” 

When reviewing the video on the outlook for 2020 exhibited by Cisco Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo, we can see a fantastic dream of the Chinese for the development of science and technology and the future of intelligent interconnection. Ten years ago, China’s science and technology was in a state of taking off, and new things poured out all the time, which had a huge impact on the Chinese people. As a leader in the intelligent interconnection industry, Cisco would not let go of this booming emerging market in China. This video in 2010 reflects this.

However, we may be able to see from something besides the beautiful outlook on technology, especially now that 2020 has arrived, we find that some technologies are exactly the same as those in the video, and some are not, which means it did not develop according to the predetermined track. 2001: A Space Odyssey(1968), did everything possible to construct a world 50 years later, but the real 2001 is crazier than imagined. 

2001: A Space Odyssey(1968).

The predictions for the future are sometimes contrary to the reality that will come later. On the one hand, it is a kind of imaginative dilemma when looking into the future by technological determinism, but on the other hand, it can also reflect that technology is not completely controlled by itself. This blog will explore the reasons for this difference by comparing some of the exhibitions in 2010 with the vision of the intelligent and interconnected era in the real world in 2020. And, is there a perfect smart city that can be completed?

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Nature and Technology: no Matter How Advanced, it Should be Green

Although it is not directly mentioned in the film, the 2020 vision of Shanghai can be described as the standard configuration of the science fiction world: Sky gardens, new air vehicles, and dense concrete forests. No matter how far we develop technology, we must maintain the level of greening in the city. This seems to be the solid vision of all city planners and decision-makers, but what is puzzling is their unique hobby for sky gardens and flying tools. Although there are indeed some sky gardens in Shanghai today, it is unrealistic to replace the ground green landscape with them. At the same time, there is a great conflict between air transportation equipment and reinforced concrete forests, but people are always willing to use it to express a vision of a newly interconnected traffic environment.

What is nature? In 2010, when reporters asked the person in charge of Cisco about the idea of a new city, the environment was not his topic. At that time, technology was not yet developed, and the problems of vehicle congestion, climate warming, and air pollution were just beginning to rise. From the changes in just ten years, we can see that the environmental and climate issues are coming on fiercely. If it is the current propaganda film, it will emphasize how sustainable and ecologically beneficial their products are. Few people could have expected all this ten years ago.

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Video to Wisdom- What is the Fundamental of a Smart City? 

The focus of this film is on the interaction of “video”. In the beginning, the female character’s face was directly projected on the wall, and the male character even joked: “How can I not see it, your face is as big as the wall!” At the same time, the person in charge also emphasized that the basis of this new type of smart connected city is video. Through the video, people in the distance are drawn together. To tell the truth, this seemingly technologically complex short film does not have much technical content. Whether it is a hospital, airport, home, or school, it is the video that is emphasized. 

Here we want to explore a problem in more depth, that is, when we talk about video, we are still using the traditional human-centered idea, that is, video is only a transmission medium, and the important thing is that video shows us the status of human beings. I must emphasize this issue, because it is obvious that people-oriented in 2020 has become a pseudo-topic, especially in smart cities, where the most important thing is wisdom. 

Whose wisdom? The wisdom of machines. The machine tells us that we should go this way, we should bring umbrellas, and we should control our diet. However, ten years ago, in the future we imagined, mankind was still the subject of making decisions, and the role of technology was only to draw us closer (It did make some calculation, but much simple). I believe that my second argument has been explained very clearly, that is, technology in 2020 has begun to control mankind. This is also a problem that many scientists and ethicists are now concerned about. Can we delegate decision-making to artificial intelligence? Behind the artificial intelligence, what is controlling our food, clothing, housing, and transportation?

Maybe Shannon Mattern is right. A city is not a computer – it can be a bunch of cables, but can it be a computer, a central decision-making body? In the era of smart cities, our every move becomes part of big data, and then big data is in turn analyzed by artificial intelligence, thereby affecting humans. This is a cycle that was difficult to think of ten years ago. And indeed, there has never been artificial intelligence in the promotional film ten years ago. This change from the medium to the subject itself requires us to think about the issues of technology and ethics, as the subject status of man has begun to become blurred.

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Privacy and Liberty – to Connect is not to Zoom inside

The illusion of the 2010 video versus the 2020 one is also reflected in the neglect of data, which is often very personal. As mentioned above, the focus of this video of Cisco is to introduce its concept of video interaction, and it does not talk about the interconnection between individuals, enterprises, and governments in the actual operation of smart interconnected cities. This powerful network happens to be the basis for the development of the current Internet industry, that is, private customization and public opinion analysis. The reselling of data makes people lack privacy, and the government will also collect residents’ information in consideration of urban security, surveillance cameras, network police, and apps to monitor user needs… This is often considered an ambiguous private invasion.

Perhaps this constitutes the third point I want to interpret, that is, in 2020, the consideration of personal information security after interconnection has become prominent with the commercialization of the technology and Internet. This also explains the society’s influence on technology, that is, the change in its capital. I mean, in reality, you may have to skip three ads and subscribe to a channel to use a “smart app”.

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Above, I briefly analyzed things that were not trending 10 years ago from the perspectives of smart cities and nature, human subjectivity, and privacy issues, but now have become the focus of discussion. Technology affects society. Similarly, the development of society has caused technology to gradually deviate from the very utopia people imagined. Maybe we will never be able to reach Utopia, and today’s smart city is just a halfway in our search.

Recently, an emerging job called online-booking distributor (网约配送员) is increasingly prevailing in first- and second-tier cities in China. Online-booking distributor refers to a service person who receives orders from clients on mobile Internet platforms and delivers items to the certain places, according to the route designed by the platforms, in an appointed time. For example, Meituan has the service “running errands & buying on behalf” (跑腿代购), which implies that platform users can place an order that asks to send or buy for them, and a nearby online-booking distributor may either automatically receive the order or take it by him/herself. It shows on the platform that “orders will be received faster if customers add some tips”. The flexibility of the way distributors get an order and the amount of money they earn from it make them different from traditional takeaway riders——they are largely assigned with orders and they get fixed paid from each. 

In February this year, online-booking distributor was listed as a new formal occupation in the national classification of occupation. After the outbreak of the pandemic, while many residents stayed indoors, online-booking distributor became remarkably significant, promising the public the basic supply of necessity and meals. It is said that some users make an purchase order while noting “help me kill the cockroach”, “unblock the toilet for me plz”, suggesting that on one hand the working time of distributors are more flexible than riders, on the other hand they could provide many convenience services beyond imagination. Thus, comments like “online-booking distributor are the new core constitution of the infrastructure of local life” thrive online. As Larkin argues, “Infrastructures are built networks that facilitate the flow of goods, people, or ideas and allow for their exchange over space. ” Essentially, this emerging job is supported by an advanced real-time logistic network, which should be considered as the infrastructure that effectively operate the labor of the distributors. This network features planning of the delivery route, estimation of time, and real-time locating, etc. These technologies are distinguished from infrastructure in a sense that infrastructure “are objects that create the grounds on which other objects operate, and when they do so they operate as system”.  

Distributors, as an entity, could be seen as physical infrastructure under the control of the logistic network. As infrastructure’s ontology lies in the facts that “they are things and also the relation between things”, distributors serve as bridges between stores and customers, people and people. But when considered as individuals, they are undoubtedly human rather than objects. Although no distributors want delivery timeout happens, they sometimes encounter unexpected incidents on the way of delivery and to avoid having their wages deducted, they are forced to break traffic rules or cut across alleys that electric bikes are not allowed to enter, drawing on their social relationship——they may succeed if they have a good relationship with, for example, the security guards. Overall, they have to conform to the logistic system unconditionally once they are involved. Nevertheless, the engineer of the top-level design would constantly “improve” the system by setting new regulations to reduce “inappropriate behaviors” like rule-breaking and cutting-across, neglecting the safety and workload of the distributors. In this case, high-tech infrastructure is perfecting, leaving the underneath human infrastructure in chaos. 

Online delivery people are the new infrastructure of modern urban life. This is the official announcement from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People’s Republic of China. We could see that food delivery people have become important parts of the infrastructure.

It is the pandemic that brought this new infrastructure suddenly and painfully to our awareness. According to Edwards, infrastructures are largely responsible for the sense of stability of life in many dimensions. What we could see during the pandemic was the food delivery guys acting as the vessel of the city to bring convenience to the ordinary, the poor, the elderly, and the disabled. With their sense of mission, they have played an indispensable role in bringing cities that have been hit with the pause button by Covid-19 back to life.

Infrustructures possesses the power to shape human time, shaping the preconditions under which we experience time’s structure and its passage. Edwards used telegraph as an example, by demonstrating its ability to create a sense of simultaneity across huge distance. Nowadays,  the apps, like Meituan and Eleme, also create a sense of simultaneity between the users and the shops. For the two sides could hear from each other’s feedbacks.

Not only the infrastructures based on the scale of historical time,  but they also exists on large social and economical scales. Food delivery apps are based on the big electronic business companies like Meituan and Elema. They may connect with millions and even billions of individuals and corporate users, who may employ them on a daily basis for a lifetime or more. From the meso scale, food delivery could be seen as a sociotechnical institution, which is a new system of digital convergence. This new system brings us an efficient real-time logistics distribution network, coupled with the operation and deployment of garlic infrastructure supported by advanced technologies such as big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence. 

Additionaly, from the micro scale, the user innovation shaped the social role of the food delivery people. Rather than assume that users are powerless pawns of domination corporations or technical systems, technology studies should adopt a “user heuristic.” In the past, the food delivery people were not under the strict control of the algorithm because the users did not have the requirements of time. By accepting the users’ feedbacks, the company would make the servi better for the users, like using the rating system for both of the shops and the delivery guys. Currently, there would also be an ethical discussion on the algorithm that used for the efficiency of food delivery. The companies would make adjustment to their system in order to make this infrastructure more friendly for those who act significant role in it.

In conclusion, as a new infrustructure, food delivery would accelerate the pace of modernity to make people’s life more convenient by updating its technology and inspired by its users’ feedbacks.

The development of the internet and computation has played an important role in the information infrastructure. One essential characteristics of the information infrastructure is the networking. Networked information infrastructure is built on the huge volumes of nodes, we the users, are the nodes. The bigger the platform is, the power is bigger. It feels like a unstoppable and unescapable social changes for each person in the society. The infrastructure gets more and more people involve, and it would eventually change the function way of the society, and our daily behaviors without notice. If people want to be out of the infrastructure, it means that they need to get rid of parts of the society’s function. The society then is not functioning and working for them.

 

There is a bias between the ordinary people and the infrastructure. Overall the building of the infrastructure highly increases the efficiency of the society. However, for the ordinary people, in most conditions, they do not have the choice to decide that whether the infrastructure could be parts of their lives. What’s more, though the application of the infrastructure is so close to our lives, we do not know the how the function of it is. People can only play a passively receiver of the changes of the society.

 

While Neil Postman talked about the technological changes in the society, he said that, all the technological changes would bring advantages and disadvantages toward the society. In most conditions, we can only see the positive sides. And the advantages and disadvantages of the technological changes are not distributed evenly. It is obvious that, the ordinary people do not have power to push the change or evolvement of the infrastructure, then who are the ones to make the changes, and who are the ones can take the control over the infrastructure.

 

Delivery platform is an existing way of infrastructure. It has been part of the social service and part of the modernity. However, while we consider the words of Neil Postman, some people are actually pay for it and some are getting the benefits. In China, now Elema and Meituan are taking about 95% of the market share of the delivery market. They are the main forces of such infrastructure. The percentage of the commission fee has been increasing in the past few years, and millions of the owners of restaurants are the ones who pay for the fees. Of course, all the customers like you and me also contribute to it, just less than the owners of restaurants. This link has introduced how Eleme and Meituan made money through such infrastructure.

 

Overall, infrastructure actually does promote the development of the society. However, the application and evolvement of the infrastructure cannot be separated from the ordinary people. The problem is that, how the make sure that, we, the ordinary ones can are not the ones who need to pay for it.

There is no doubt that the Internet has become the most important infrastructure in our daily life. We depend on the Internet to work, entertain, maintain our social life, and learn.

It is believed that a windstorm in Britain who prevented stockbrokers from trade was partly to blame for the “Black Monday”, the downfall of the stock market globally. Without the Internet, the stock market was worried about open trades during the weekend which later led to panic selling. It shows how the Internet could improve the way we trade and help the market to maintain availability and flexibility to some degree. However, the topology of the Internet has also recreated the power structure of our society. With the Internet integrated into stock trading, program trading also prevails. Program trading helps the traders to process and adjust portfolio investments. With the increasing popularity of program trading based on the Internet and computing, it creates a new market for terminals that analyze and predict the stock market. In 2013, it already cost 2,000 dollars per month for one Bloomberg terminal. The Internet recreates the topology of information and contributes to the digital divide. The scarcity of such service prevents our society to deliver the idea of equality as a result of the aggregation effect when it comes to the chance to succeed.

Moreover, the infinity of the Internet re-teaches the idea of “learning”. The monopoly of knowledge is often regarded as the result of the monopoly of intellectual property. In the Fifteen Century, the limited lawful publication of the Bible guaranteed the monopoly of reading and interpretation of the will of God. As far as I am concerned, the monopoly of knowledge switches from the monopoly of access to intellectual property to access well-interpreted conclusions drawn from history since the human history and unlimited storage provided by the Internet make it impossible to rely on one’s thinking capability to understand the world. In other words, we transform the storage from our memory to the new cloud “brain”. Therefore, we consume conclusions rather than raw material that is supposed to support us to conclude on our own. It emphasizes and proves the new trend of the Bloomberg terminal as it processes trillions of trading information (imagine how long it takes for one person).

As a consequence, we need to understand the new concept of “survival” in the context of automation and the Internet, which notwithstanding are often regarded as the extension of the human brain. In Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, by Marshall McLuhan, the last few chapters point out how we should start from the results and rethink through for every industry.