Internet and the City: the role of governments

1. Internet and the City: the role of governments Dr Geoff Mulgan Director, Strategy Unit

2. What I’ll cover ... 1. The impact of knowledge 2. The impact of new connections 3. Networks, risk and power 4. The changing role of governance at all levels

3. Connectedness The Net is part of a broader process of rising connectedness - in trade, culture, people - that is transforming the tasks and tools of governance of cities and nations

4. 1. Connectedness is inseparable from the impact of knowledge • Near exponential growth in production of knowledge – source of 50-80% of economic growth • Long time-scales (40-70 years) associated with transformative technologies (internal combustion, electricity, IT, biotech) because of need for both technology maturation and social and organisational innovation • Full impact of knowledge intensity and high connectivity only now coming into view - eg land use, health delivery, traffic management, public engagement

5. Broad patterns of technological diffusion fairly clear … • Nanotechnology Pervasive computing • Ambient IT Virtual reality • SMART devices Artificial intelligence • Virtual reality Cognitive systems • The Grid Quantum technology • But timescales, prospects and likely diffusion of these still uncertain. Marvin Minsky: “Any five-year old can convince its parents to do anything, and the most powerful computer still can’t do that”

6. Still awaiting key social and organisational innovations • Viable business models for the net • Robust approaches to privacy, anonymity, regulation and protection of children • Organisational forms that make full use of IT • Public service models making full use of networks • Collaborative learning models making full use of networks • Unique identifiers and biometrics – handling ID theft • Viable intellectual property rights, effective globally and evolving open systems • E govt

7. 2. Connectedness brings with it a rise in flows and links • Economy – trade, FDI, currency flows • Environment – emissions, waste • Migration – legal and illegal • Communications and culture - information and memes • Governance – IGOs and INGOs • Civic organisation - speed and spread of activism • Crime - rising wealth and power of transnational organised crime

8. Flows of goods, money, information, people, drugs &c through hub cities Arctic Ocean North Pacific Ocean North Atlantic Ocean Cocaine Indian Ocean Heroin South Pacific Ocean Illegal immigrants Women and children South Atlantic Ocean Coca growing area Opium poppy growing area

9. Growing impact of urban life on the environment (and new urban solutions like congestion charging) Source: IPCC

10. Widening span of local connections Average number of miles travelled KEY: Computer equipment LEISURE Average 8.5 miles * Figure relates commute to secondary 8.1 miles school. SHOPPING Primary school Cinema DIY / is 1.3 miles on 6.8 miles School* Garden items Furniture average. 3.1 miles 5.2 miles /carpets LIVING 8.9 miles Groceries Car 3.5 miles HOME repairs Move house 2 5.3 miles 13.5 miles Gym/ Restaurant 4 health club 8 miles 3.1 miles 6 Small Major electrical 8 electrical 5.3 miles 10 7.3 miles 12 Clothes 8.8 milers Theatre 14 12.6 miles Average no. Look of miles for new car travelled 13.5 miles Source: DETR/ ONS/ Newspaper Society / The Future Foundation

11. New patterns of exclusion - being cut off and dynamic poverty Source: Labour Force Survey, Spring Quarters ONS 2002 (www.poverty.org)

12. Sharper inequalities within cities Secondary Schools failing to meet the Government’s floor target of 25% of pupils achieving 5 Good GCSEs or schools with more than 35% of pupils eligible for Free School Meals (national average 17%) In Haringey the majority of secondary schools are SFCC compared to only 2 of Camden’s 10 schools

13. Influence of big institutions partially replaced by informal networks in more cellular societies % saying they are influenced on social and environmental issues by... Family Friends 2001 Government 1996 TV Newspapers Political parties Work colleagues The church Business leaders Advertising Royal family 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% Source: Future Foundation, NVision

14. 3. Networks, risk and power • ‘City air makes you free’ and the web promises liberation - but the promise has been only partly realised • Key factors: • the reality of risk, and the continuing importance of pooled risk; • the nature of power and hierarchy

15. Risks reinforce need for institutions, capacities, security

16. Power continues to be organised in hierarchies - making use of networks but not displaced • business • military • government • NGOs

17. 4. What follows for the governance of nations and cities? Governance is undergoing a complex revolution. I will briefly focus on 6 aspects of this: • transparency • holism • directness • learning • edgeness • multi-level

18. The e- agenda www.strategy.gov.uk • E commerce – 1999 (e envoy &c) • E govt – 2000 (UK Online &) • Privacy and datasharing – 2002 • Electronic networks regulation – 2002

19. Transparency - making visible what was once internal and secret

23. Holism - systemic understanding and responses to cross-cutting issues such as exclusion, crime, planning (1.5bn criminal justice IT project)

25. Directness - delayering public bureaucracies to make services more direct and user-driven (8bn NHS IT project)

28. Learning - continuous innovation and learning across organisational boundaries

30. Differentiation and integration - more diverse public services organised in networks

32. ‘Edge-ness’ -encouraging openness, links and the right balance of diversity and integration

33. import of people - migration as a positive force • import of ideas and working practices (eg relative productivity of TNCs) • hybridity in culture • formal cultivation of creativity and enterprise in milieus, clusters

34. Multi-level participation - all agencies operating and engaging simultaneously at local, national and global levels (juries, referendums, eparliaments …)

35. Embedding into governance some of the qualities of the 21st century • quickness - instead of slowness • lightness - instead of heaviness • visibility - instead of secrecy • exactitude - instead of vagueness • multiplicity - instead of homogeneity • Italo Calvino, Memos for the Millennium