تخطيط المدينة المعرفية: الرياض بين الواقع وتحديات تطبيق مفاهيمه ...

الندوة الدولية الثانية: مدن المعرفة: مستقبل المدن في ظل الاقتصاد المعرفي

تخطيط المدينة المعرفية: الرياض بين الواقع وتحديات تطبيق مفاهيمه

Planning the Knowledge City: Can it be an option for Riyadh?

د. ناصر محمد أبوعنزة*                        د. طاهر عبد الحميد لدرع**

أستاذ التخطيط العمراني المساعد بكلية العمارة والتخطيط – جامعة الملك سعود

(**) tledraa@yahoo.com        (*) abuanzeh@hotmail.com

ملخص البحث:

    هناك العديد من البحوث والدراسات التي تناولت مفاهيم وتطبيقات الاقتصاد المعرفي، إلا أن البحوث التي تهتم بدراسة تأثيرات هذا الاقتصاد المعرفي على جغرافية المدينة باعتبارها الوعاء الذي يضم مختلف أنشطة هذا الاقتصاد لم تحظ باهتمام الباحثين في مجال التخطيط العمراني.

  إن الحديث عن أي اقتصاد معرفي يعني ضمنا أن أنشطته تتم ضمن حدود مدينة ملائمة لهكذا اقتصاد وهو ما اصطلح على تسميته بالمدينة المعرفية. فأي نشاط معرفي يتطلب حتما وجود مكان معرفي Knowledge Space أو منطقة معرفية Knowledge Zone.

  يسعى هذا البحث إلى تقديم دراسة تخطيطية لما ينبغي أن تكون عليه المدينة المعرفية Knowledge City ويحدد أبعادها ومتطلبات مخططها الاستراتيجي. فالمدينة الحالية شكلت وفق استراتيجية مبنية على مفاهيم الاقتصاد التقليدي الذي يعتمد على مصادر الموارد وعلاقتها بمناطق الإنتاج والتوزيع، حيث جاء مخطط المدينة مقسما إلى مناطق خاصة بمختلف الأنشطة الاقتصادية التي تعتمد عليها (منطقة صناعية، منطقة ترفيهية، منطقة تجارية، منطقة سكنية وهكذا). يشير البحث إلى أن هذا الأسلوب في التخطيط العمراني الذي تشهده مدينة اليوم لا يتلاءم مع متطلبات مدينة الغد التي تعتمد على قاعدة اقتصادية معرفية تشكل الأنشطة المختلفة فيها من إنتاج واستخدام المعلومات والمعرفة محركا أساسيا في تنميتها العمرانية ومؤثرا قويا في الأساليب والأطر التي تقوم عليها وظائفها العمرانية وأساليب عيش فئاتها الاجتماعية.

يقترح البحث إعادة النظر في المخططات الاستراتيجية التي تقوم عليها المدن التي تطمح أن تكون مدنا معرفية وذلك من خلال تبنيها لمخططات استراتيجية معرفية. يشكل الاقتصاد المعرفي صلب هذه المخططات حيث يتم التركيز فيها على إنتاج وتوزيع المعرفة وتطبيقها مع مراعاة قضايا البيئة المستدامة والعدالة الاجتماعية وتكافؤ الفرص الاقتصادية. وتتجلى في هكذا مخططات مناطق معرفية Knowledge Zones ومنظومة شبكات Networks واتصالات Information and Telecommunication Technologies (ICT)  تسهل عمليات تبادل المعرفة والمعلومات واستخداماتها مع مراعاة التنمية المستدامة Sustainable Development والتوجهات المستقبلية Future Orientation وإيكولوجيا الإبداع Innovation Ecology. وتشكل تدفقات المعرفة والمعلومات من مناطق المصدر إلى مناطق الحاجة والفرص عصب هذه المخططات الاستراتيجية المعرفية بالإضافة إلى العديد من مبادئ المدن المعرفية كتجارة المعرفة Knowledge Commerce والحكومة المعرفية Knowledge Governance (Amidon, 2003).

كما يستعرض البحث بعض التجارب العالمية لمدن اشتهرت كمدن معرفية مستقاة من مناطق عدة حول العالم (سنغافورة Singapore، برشلونة Barcelona، ملبورن Melbourne، بوسطن Boston، مونتريال، Montreal) مستخلصا العبر والدروس من تجارب هذه المدن ويتطرق أيضا لبعض التجارب لمدن لم تحظ بنفس النجاح والأهمية. ويختتم البحث بتقديم دراسة لحالة مدينة الرياض يوضح فيها إمكانيات وفرص جعل مدينة الرياض مدينة معرفية مستقبلا.

أهداف البحث

يسعى البحث إلى تحقيق عدة أهداف منها:

• توضيح العلاقة بين الاقتصاد المعرفي ومدينة المعرفة باعتبارها الوعاء والأرضية التي تقوم عليها أنشطة هذا الاقتصاد.
• صياغة مخططات المدينة وفق المفاهيم المستحدثة لمناطق وأماكن المعرفة Knowledge Zones & Knowledge Spaces
• عرض نماذج لتجارب مدن معرفية عالمية
• اقتراح سياسات تخطيطية لاستراتيجية معرفية لمدينة المستقبل ذات التوجه الاقتصادي المعرفي.
• دراسة مدى إمكانية تطبيق مبادئ الاستراتيجية المعرفية على مدينة الرياض لتنخرط في مصاف مدن المعرفة العالمية.

أهمية البحث

تكمن أهمية الدراسة في الربط بين الاقتصاد المعرفي وإسقاطاته المكانية بمستوياتها المختلفة (مستوى المدينة، مستوى الإقليم، والمستوى الوطني والعالمي) وذلك من خلال استعراض مفاهيم الاقتصاد المعرفي وتأثيراته على الفراغ العمراني والمجال الجغرافي للإقليم والوطن وتوضيح ضرورة مواءمة التشكيل المكاني والتنظيم الجغرافي مع متطلبات هذا النمط من النشاط الاقتصادي المعرفي. 

منهجية البحث

يقوم البحث على دراسة نظرية لمفاهيم ومبادئ الاقتصاد المعرفي وانعكاساته على السياسات والاستراتيجيات التخطيطية للتشكيل العمراني والوظيفي لمدينة المعرفة. بعدها يتم عرض دراسة نقدية لتجارب مدن معرفية في مناطق شتى من العالم مستخلصا أهم المبادئ والمعايير التخطيطية التي اعتمدتها والنتائج التي تمخضت عنها ومدى الإفادة منها وإمكانية تطبيقها على مدينة الرياض كحالة دراسية.

دراسة النسيج الاقتصادي المعرفي لمدينة الرياض وتطبيق منهج تحليل الفرص والعوائق والمحددات والمخاطر SWOT analysis لهذا النسيج بهدف التعرف على الفرص الكامنة والعوائق الممكنة التي تميز حالة المدينة قيد الدراسة.

علاقة البحث بمحاور الندوة

يندرج هذا البحث ضمن المحورين الأول والخامس من محاور الندوة، حيث أنه يتناول اقتصاد المعرفة وشكل المدينة المناسب لهذا النمط من الاقتصاد في المحور الأول. أما علاقته بالمحور الخامس فتأتي من خلال استعراضه لعدد من التجارب العالمية للمدن المعرفية.

The 2nd International Symposium on

KNOWLEDGE CITIES: Future of Cities in the Knowledeg Economy

16-18 July 2007 – Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

Planning the Knowledge City: Can it be an option for Riyadh?

Dr. Nasser Abu-Anzeh^*, Dr. Tahar Ledraa^**   

College of Architecture and Urban Planning,

King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

^*Email: abuanzeh@hotmail.com

^**Email: tledraa@yahoo.com

1. Introduction

Many research works have focused on the emerging knowledge economy, the rising network society and the sweeping impacts of information and telecommunications technologies (ICT). However, very few researches were undertaken to deal with the physical planning of the city that serves to shelter this type of society and its related activities.

The paper sets up to explore the planning aspects of the knowledge based city. It looks at how the rising knowledge economy is changing the urban setting and landscape of cities that have to assert themselves as new physical form fitting the demands of emerging economic activities. The first section focuses on the transition from the traditional economy to the economy of knowledge. Then it examines the emerging global networked cities that are shaping the future urban landscape. It also looks at the new features of the knowledge city that should put up with the demands of the rising activities based on network flows of information and knowledge. Such city must not only cater for the exigencies of economic exchanges but should also attract and retain the main actors of this rising economy, the knowledge workers. In a word, the knowledge city must be functionally efficient while offering a vibrant and attractive urban living of high quality. For this reason, the paper examines in the follow up section, the issues related to urban and physical planning and design of the knowledge city. It stresses that city planners should bear in mind the fact the new city design should consider the notion of accessibility rather than physical proximity and contiguity, networked knowledge innovation zones rather than classical land use zoning, and the flow of information, goods and people rather than users and products' movements from one area to another. A whole new set of emerging concepts are to be dealt with and incorporated in knowledge city planning theory and design.

Some examples of world class cities that claim as being part of the knowledge era are given. The particular approach adopted by each city is explained and lessons were taken. Then the analysis pays a special attention to the case of Riyadh city to examine its prospects to get into the knowledge era. Some strategies are then developed to be taken into consideration if the city aspires to catch up with networked competitive cities in the global arena. Needless to say that to date, no city in the Arab world can assert itself as a knowledge city. The analysis ends up with some concluding remarks and some recommendations.

2. The new knowledge-based economy

Contemporary economic activity is increasingly dominated by the so-called knowledge-based activities. Since the last decade of the 20^th century, there has been a shift from traditional industrial economy to a knowledge-based, post-industrial one. If the assets of the former were land, manufacturing, office building, machinery and cash, those for the latter are patents, culture, value system, talents, knowledge and technology. In this new economic era, investments in ‘knowledge’ have become central to economic growth. As Amidon (2004) has eloquently argued that “We are creating a new economic world order based upon the flow of knowledge, (not technology), innovation (not solutions), value-systems (not chains), stakeholder success, (not satisfaction), and international collaboration (not competition)”. She also asserts that in this world of knowledge, human development depends not on having more but by being more, becoming a co-creator of the future of humanity. The new economy of the 21^st century city rests on a new paradigm characterized by collaboration and win/win benefits based on pooling and leveraging competencies, knowledge, know-how and skills rather than by the competitive win/lose paradigm prevalent today. The key driver behind the emergence of the ‘knowledge economy’ has been the rise of knowledge-based services.

To take full advantage of what this new economy has to offer, many world class cities are making every effort to shift from industry-based activities to knowledge-based services. Indeed a number of global cities (Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo) have enhanced their competitive assets by harbouring talented workers in corporate knowledge service industries.

Thanks to the wiring and wireless technological advances, the new extremely fast-moving communications landscapes play a predominant role within global cities in enhancing their competitiveness. It is argued that the city’s liberalization of markets would contribute directly to its continued competitiveness as a global information capital.

In fact, the detailed patterns of telecommunications investment in global cities seem to embody physically the logic of what Castells (1996) terms the "network society". He writes that: "The global economy will expand in the 21^st century, using substantial increases in the power of telecommunications and information processing. It will penetrate all countries, all territories, all cultures, all communication flows, and all financial networks, relentlessly scanning the planet for new opportunities of profit-making. But it will do so selectively, linking valuable segments and discarding used up or irrelevant, locales and people. The territorial unevenness of production will result in an extraordinary geography of differential value making that will sharply contrast countries, regions, and metropolitan areas. Valuable locales and people will be found everywhere, even in Sub Saharan Africa".

A strong flow of knowledge in a city is therefore conducive to various type of innovation, be there technological, organizational, or institutional. Such a continuous stream of innovation drives among other things organization's competitiveness, high-tech company start ups and the emergence of key innovative projects.

3. The new "Global City"

For a knowledge city in the 21^st century to be able to properly position itself vis-à-vis new fields of knowledge and at the crossroads of new modes of economic development (e.g, biosciences, information and communications technologies) it must also build on its unique character so as to attract and retain knowledge workers, promote exchange of knowledge and maintain a climate conducive to creativity and innovation. Florida (2002) has righteously argued that economic competition criteria for cities in the new economy are largely based on their capacity to attract, retain and integrate talented individuals who place value on creativity. The quality of the local culture, its vitality, uniqueness and authenticity, ethnic diversity, tolerance of social/lifestyle together with a strong link between arts/culture and scientific/technological knowledge and innovation are also attributes of the 21^st century city.

This type of city must develop the so-called glocal strategies aimed at ensuring that the city is equipped with the assets and electronic infrastructure that will further support the city's connectivity and centrality on the global arena. Efforts must be geared towards focusing on developing transplanetary networks to other global cities and on concentrating the key assets that attract corporate headquarters together with high-level financial and service industries. Not only the 21^st century city is there to cater for the demands of global networks and multinational corporate offices, but it must also be home for a new type of society providing for the needs of virtual relations and complex associations of its individuals and groups.

4. The Network Society and the Virtual City

Throughout its history, the city's raison d'être has always been to make places that have the ability to provide opportunities for human interaction. To achieve this goal, the pre-industrial city adopted a dense compact urban form. Virtually, all places of interaction and socialization were within reach at a walking distance. With the expansion of the Modern city and the development of transport and telecommunication technologies, new means of human interaction and interrelationships were provided. They served to overcome the problem of space and time constraints (Graham & Marvin, 1996). The action radius of urban dwellers has increased significantly. Mass transit and most dramatically the private automobile have increasingly allowed people to commute daily between the corners of ever-larger urban regions.

With ICT and high technology developments, people's contacts and interactions are no longer confined to the limits of one city but increased to cover places all over the planet. Each individual, group or organization may increasingly create his own virtual world or city, which has no set physical and administrative borders, but is rather a specific, changeable combination of activity places connected by communication networks.

With the rise of network society and network interactions, people and organizations are surfing throughout a whole new system of network cities. The city is now regarded by many as being diffused everywhere and all over the world. Some conceive it as being dematerialized and many virtual cities tend to be superimposing and overlapping making individual as well as group interactions even richer and more complex. In spite of all this urban complexity and city dematerialization or virtualization, urban places still fulfill an important role as they serve the foci of human face-to-face interaction. This may mean that physical planning and design still have an important role to play even at the age of the knowledge-based city.

5. Knowledge-based cities

The Knowledge City idea is the newest and hottest emerging dimension of the knowledge economy. It is by definition a global or world-class city. Friedmann defines it as a class of cities that play a leading role in the spatial articulation of the global economic system or designate a dimension of all cities that in varying measure are integrated with this system (Friedmann, 1998, p. 26).

A knowledge city is notable primarily for the attraction of talented innovative people and the proliferation of its knowledge institutions, like learning establishments, research centers, businesses, etc. A true knowledge-based city abounds not only with different types of networking innovation models based on a physical concentration of R&D activity but also by the number and quality of the organizations and institutions that take root there, and the competence of the knowledge workers and the dynamics of their interrelationships. However, these knowledge-cities must offer an appealing and high quality urban environment so that such talented workers can stay, live, learn and work in these cities. The knowledge city must have a pool of knowledge workers fed by qualified individuals attracted to positions that ascribe value to their creative talents. These qualified workers are what Florida termed as the "creative class" that includes employees in information and communications technologies, architecture, engineering, science, education, the arts and design, as well as in health care, management, finance, legal affairs, and marketing. Telematics that is, convergent media, telecommunications and computing grids are thus basic integrating infrastructures underpinning the shift towards intensely interconnected planetary urban networks.

A knowledge city must be performing along three main areas, economic, innovation, human capital and cultural areas. The main economic indicators could be the growth of high technology and high-knowledge sectors, employment/unemployment growth rate per capita GDP, the percentage of labour force employed in high technology and high-knowledge sectors. Whereas the innovation process parameters are patents and high-tech start-ups per capita, and access to venture capital. As far as the human capital factor is concerned, it is measured by the rate of increase in number of university graduates, demographic growth and degree of qualifications of immigrants. Lastly, the cultural and social setting is also important and is defined by the multi-ethnic character of the city together with the degree of openness to cultural diversity and the proportion of artists.

All these elements must work together in order to establish an entrepreneurial knowledge city that develops a platform to foster economical development based on a sustainable interaction between innovation, technology and arts, linked to an intense initiative for education and training of human capital.

6. Planning the Knowledge City

The form and structure of the knowledge city differ in many respects from those of the modern or classical city. The idealised structures of city form and urbanism, centre and periphery, urban fringe and city core, inner cities and suburbs, urban and rural, are increasingly at odds with the polycentric and dispersed forms and functions of networked cities where knowledge zones and clusters are their main features.

The increasing importance of knowledge raises a whole new set of planning challenges. The aim of planning in the knowledge economy is to create a strong urban core which simultaneously anchors and sustains dynamic outlying settlements, harnessing economic strength to address social exclusion and physical dereliction. The high-tech developments of telematics; information communication technologies, the networked cities are characterized by massive increases of material and immaterial flows of all sorts, people, goods, waste materials, information, services, ideas, images, capital and labour, challenge the notion of urban boundaries and city planning.

As far as cities are developing into extensive webs of interaction, supported by fast transport and real-time communication networks, urban planners and designers must come to terms with this evolution, as we are traditionally more used to dealing with zones rather than flows, with proximity rather than accessibility. Recognition of the increasingly borderless nature of the contemporary city does not mean that we should abandon the planning and design of physical urban places altogether.

The notion of the city itself is undergoing a change as a result of the virtualization of the city and the dematerialization of the urban form. The modern tradition of urban planning and governance that tended to see cities effectively as unitary objects, confined within some specific administrative borders and amenable to physical intervention at the local level is also challenged.

The social composition and demographics of the knowledge city is also a matter of concern to urban planners. As the city embraces more and more heterogeneous ethnic groups with diverse cultures, city planning should live up to the challenge of catering for the demands and practices of all these diverse ethnic groups composing the mosaic culture of contemporary urban life. The issue of cultural heterogeneity and multiculturalism together with conflict resolution and urban consensus building and collaborative planning are becoming key concerns in urban governance discourses and planning policies (Sandercock, 1998; Healey, 2002).

These transformations in the way cities of the knowledge era are conceived, challenge the modernist principles at the heart of urban planning that tend to revolve around the notion of a definable singular public interest, and the rational "top-down" approach through which expert planners impose their views on the whole urban society.

Since the knowledge city acts upon the whole region and its impacts may have some far reaching effects extending to ever larger areas, it raises a whole lot of problems at the regional level as well. Regional planners must deal with its associated problems of increasing pressures for urban concentration and growth. The economic growth and wealth generated by knowledge cities must not masque the downside effects manifest in the form of massive congestion, pockets of unemployment, urban poverty, social exclusion, and urban sustainability.

Because of this evolution, the relationship between the social dimension of the city (the city as intensity and diversity of social and economic interactions, the civitas) and the physical dimension of the city (the city as density of built structures, the urbs) is fundamentally changing. If the spatial coincidence between the civitas and the urbs was fitting for the pre-industrial city, it is no longer suitable for the knowledge city of today (Dematteis, 1988).  In the contemporary world, loosening of the ties and even separation between the social and physical dimensions of the city may increasingly occur. The advent of advanced telecommunication technologies gives this possibility an extra twist, as complex webs of human interaction can be developed without any apparent spatial support (Castells, 1996).

Physical places still fulfill an essential role in our open urban systems. In particular, places where mobility flows interconnect, such as airports, railway stations, and also motorway service areas or urban squares and parks, have the potential for granting the diversity and frequency of human contacts that are still essential for many urban activities. Bertolini (2003) coined the term ‘mobility environments' to such places. Their quality depends on the features of each location but also on the characteristics of their visitors.  

If urban planning and design are to be effective, an adequate conceptualization of this growing openness of the urban system is needed.  The analysis focuses on the new urban dimension of transportation nodes, as the phenomenon that possibly best epitomizes this evolution. The leading thought is that in an increasingly mobile urban society a crucial quality of locations is their physical accessibility, or the quality of their connections to transportation (and increasingly, telecommunications) networks at multiple spatial scales. Accessibility combines with other, more proximity-related features of a location to determine specific sets of conditions.

To sum up, a whole new set of planning policies and programs for building the knowledge city are thus necessary to take into account all these new challenges and social-urban issues. They should be dealing with the following areas of planning.

–       Urban land use planning and city form structure.

–       Multicultural planning for urban ethnic groups;

–       Urban governance policies, consensus building and collaborative planning

–       Universities, higher education, R&D centers, science parks: knowledge institutions

–       Innovation firms, arts agencies, cultural and environmental associations.

–       Strategies to develop Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

–       Information and telecommunications technologies (ICT)

7. New Planning Concepts for Network Cities

Global city networks are related to rapid advances in both intraurban and inter-urban information infrastructures. It has emerged that current advances in telecommunications are a set of phenomena which tend overwhelmingly to be driven by large, internationally oriented, global regions. The activities, functions and urban dynamics which become concentrated in a network city rely intensely on the facilitating attributes of advanced telecommunications for supporting relational complexity,  distance links and snowballing interactions, both within and between cities.

As far as the planning and design of network cities is concerned, it must be born in mind that information and telecommunications are not only important features as illustrators of the plasticity of urban space and hence the openness of the city, but they tend to reconfigure its space and its activities in a totally new form.

Urban activities and uses are becoming more and more complex. This shows up in an increasing diversity of activity and mobility patterns of individuals, households, companies and organizations. In a network society where flows of information and instant real-time communications dominate, the significance of physical distance declines. In such a landscape, the effectiveness of network connections, mobility and spatial policy are of paramount importance. Since many traditional spatial planning concepts like ‘location theory’ and ‘the compact city’ do not take these developments sufficiently into account, a new concept of network cities is most needed.

This new concept of urban networks must consider the city as an open dynamic system. In fact human interactions and activities are no longer limited to a bounded closed urban setting. On the contrary, they tend to expand over ever larger physical and virtual spaces. If urban theories and policies are to fit the emerging network cities, they should address the growing openness of cities and abandon the assumption of closure or static nature and motionless of the urban system. For this reason, efforts must be made to integrate mobility considerations into urban planning and design. The introduction of new concepts like ‘network cities’, ‘urban networks’, or ‘corridors’, could be one such efforts in the right direction.

The corridor concept for instance, involves a shift from the current unplanned development of economic activities along motorways towards more planned, concentrated urbanization with as much functional mix as possible along a limited number of (international) transport axes. If network cities are the emerging, functionally connected sets of urban centres at the regional scale, corridors can be seen as sub-components of these network cities.

The new urban planning and design strategies that take account for mobility environments, should consider them as the new central places within network cities, rather than the traditional city center or urban core. Such leading concept can be effective in influencing spatial developments in an increasingly mobile society.

Another concept that urban spatial planning can benefit from is the concept of action space. That is, the area within which persons can undertake activities. It may help in providing a deeper insight into individual action within space and instruct planners on the behaviour of individual actors and how to influence them at the local and regional level.

As it has been argued so far, the knowledge city form and urban structure require new conceptual insights. Such theory serves as a basis to define newer spatial organization models and to explore the emerging networked configurations of four of the most salient types of networked mobility spaces emerging in the contemporary knowledge-based city. These are, knowledge clusters, universities and science and technology parks, e-commerce spaces, passenger airports and fast-rail stations, free trade zones, free internet zones, and multimodal logistics enclaves dedicated to freight. For knowledge cities, such interchange points provide an occasion for reflecting upon and modifying themselves, for devising new models of organization and new spaces.

Knowledge Innovation Zones and clusters

Knowledge and innovation are at the core of the knowledge city concept. Such city is thus characterized by the flows between the nested networks of knowledge innovation zones. A Knowledge Innovation Zone (KIZ) is defined as an urban space or a geographic region where products, services, or industry segments are produced and where a community of practice lives in which knowledge flows from the point of origin to the point of need or opportunity (Amidon: 2004). The Indicators of a Knowledge Innovation Zone (KIZ) can be human capital factors (high education levels and deep pools of talent…artists, scientists), intellectual capital (values, patents, cultural diversity), infrastructure capital (directories and maps to knowledge repositories, resources, expertise, networks, and communities of interest and practice); networks of higher learning institutions, libraries, universities, R&D labs, think tanks, art schools), social capital (shared culture and spirit of creativity, innovation…collective respect for indigenous and local knowledge and customs)…etc.

The Knowledge Innovation Zone (KIZ) therefore, adopts the idea of a service-based cluster as is the case of ‘Silicon Valley’. The vision with which it must be developed should consider it as an innovative entrepreneurial city to create a new techno-urban identity. To achieve that aim, the city must build sophisticated technology infrastructure and create a cyberport to catch up with the information revolution. As such, a cyber culture critical mass could be consolidated that can be partly nurtured by the physical form of the built environment. All these developments aim to redefine the city's competitive advantages by capturing global information flows.

Innovation Hubs (E-commerce, Free trade zones)

E-Commerce spaces are another aspect for the Knowledge City that urban planning should take into consideration when dealing with networked mobility zones. These spaces and hubs are the natural outcome of the rapid and explosive growth of digitally-connected Internet and electronic transaction facilities, that is, online retailing and e-commerce. The landscape of the upcoming knowledge city will witness the burgeoning of many other types of networked electronic retail zones like for example E-Commerce Distribution Hubs, Free Trade zones, etc. These new forms of retail zones are an invention of the exponential growth of Internet traffic and electronic commerce, projected to double globally every year for the next ten years.

City planning and urban design must come to terms with the new spatial configurations of these new emerging networked commercial zones. With the explosion of e-commerce, virtual malls and online grocery shopping, the physical hidden support, storage, and transaction-processing systems for virtually-sold goods are likely to become ever-more important examples of urban space.

By 2010 it has been estimated that one third of the world’s $60 trillion business to business (B2B) economy will operate online. E-commerce network spaces demands seem likely to dominate the future landscape of the knowledge city.

Free Trade zones (FTZs) are essentially a low-tax and reduced-regulation haven for global trade. Their role is to equip cities with the high-quality infrastructural connections necessary to position them within global flows of trade and transaction. They are usually located in the border cities or air and sea ports.

Higher educational institutions

Universities are a significant learning institution to address the city's shortcomings in the ‘knowledge economy’. Universities with R&D centers, science and technology parks form the nodal knowledge innovative cluster necessary to support the city's competitiveness. Higher educational institutions provide the city with talented graduates, offer continuous learning and training to knowledge workers and help attract and retain knowledge intensive businesses.

8. Some Examples of Knowledge Cities

In recent years many cities around the world have embarked on initiatives that involve their development as knowledge cities. They have established a set of strategies aimed at harnessing their competitive assets and building on a vigorous knowledge base economy.

To ensure their success in the knowledge era, knowledge based cities have developed a pervasive knowledge culture, and invested in attractive, stimulating urban dynamics to attract and retain talented workers.

In analyzing their experiences, some cities have poured larger shares of their investments on science and high technology, traditional infrastructure, and strategies in the arts and culture as in the case of Singapore. Others have adopted a distinctive particular mix of investments to fit their own specific needs and managed to make an outstanding effort to position themselves as knowledge cities. The Boston's classification as a high-knowledge city has been attributed to its new scientific developments. Others, like Dublin has undertaken considerable efforts to transform their industrial structures and invest in high technology and significant private sector investments. Still others, Barcelona and Florence have built on their specific cultural and artistic assets to assert themselves in the knowledge era. Some of these cases will be presented with some detail in the following section.

Singapore's case: Singapore is an island city with 4 million population, 90% of which has internet access from home with a standard of living and integration of technology in daily life on par with or superior to those of the US and Switzerland. The world Economic Forum (WEF) has ranked it as number one in global competitiveness as it has made the shift to the knowledge economy with an astonishing success.

The approach developed for Singapore consists of developing its human capital through investment in education, learning and training as well as fostering attraction and retention of competent, talented individuals. The cultural artistic component of the city has not been left out. It has also adopted an arts and culture strategy, articulated in part around international caliber events. The Singapore Lyric Opera and the Esplanade have been designed to serve precisely to that end.

In the 1960 this city state embarked on a process similar to that followed by Dublin. Less than 30 years later, it has become one of the most dynamic economies in the world. Singapore began building its competitiveness by modernizing its port facilities. These was followed in the 1970 by the setting of a series of priorities like, attracting multinational companies by offering a flexible growth oriented business climate, accountable competent municipal administration, and institutionalize strategic scenario exercises to weigh future options so as to always remain a step ahead.

Boston's case: By definition, preserving the status of knowledge city means constantly creating and adapting ideas, concepts, processes and products and ascribing them economic value. A tale of two knowledge cities: the relative decline of Oxford and the swift rise of Boston where the first has as its positioning education and tourism then engineering and publishing, whereas the second posits biotechnology, medical sciences and information technology, then education then professional services and conferences and events in the medical sector (tourism niche).

Montreal's case: To improve its positioning as a knowledge city over the medium and longer term, Montreal has opted to significantly enhance its critical mass of high knowledge activities such as: the innovation process, development of human capital and attraction and retention of qualified immigrants. Although it has stepped up its knowledge-based economy, Montreal still lag behind Calgary which has made a total employment growth of 25.9% in which 66.7% was registered as a growth in high-knowledge jobs between 1996-2001, whereas Montreal has only made 11.9% vs 19.2% during the same period. To make its mark as a knowledge city Montreal must also focus on the quality of its educational institutions. The better the quality of its colleges and universities, the higher the calibre of candidates it will attract worldwide. This will also help strengthen its reputation as a knowledge city.

Melbourne's case: The Melbourne approach has focused on the development of a state economy with sufficient critical mass to support world competitive specialization. To meet that end, it has established dependable regulatory institutions and created responsive and creative bureaucracies. The city offers a high quality of life to attract and retain knowledge workers. It has also invested on learning and training to be provided with the skills, and research excellence necessary to foster its competitive assets. The city has also developed high performing networks of commercial influence and sophisticated Connective infrastructure together with a competitive and collaborative business culture. The inclusive, open and tolerant society with a collaborative model for implementation has also added to the success of the city's transition into the knowledge era.

Barcelona's case: Barcelona has worked out its route to the knowledge era through the development of its cultural assets and the elaboration of instruments to make knowledge accessible to its citizens. To that end, it has created a network of public libraries that is compatible with the European standards and made the new communication technologies readily available for its inhabitants. The city constitutes a successful melting pot with diversity of cultural practices of the component ethnicities and races. It has developed a sound educational strategy with all cultural facilities and services revolving around it. It has also adopted a network of schools connected with artistic instruction throughout its territory. The city streets and spaces are designed and rehabilitated so that they can be at the service of culture. Civic centres are open to diversity and to foster face-to-face relations. The city does not deny anyone the right to express himself freely and openly by making available to everyone all the tools required for them to fulfill that need.

9. The Prospects of Riyadh to become a Knowledge City

Riyadh City promotes itself as a city of Middle-Eastern importance. This positioning emphasises the asset base of Riyadh, particularly business assets, infrastructure, and especially its connectedness through scheduled air links to ‘similar’ World cities. Riyadh thus asserts itself as a world class city capable of competing on a regional/world stage.

The city is also often invoked as containing highly sophisticated infrastructure networks of ICT. The direct, digital, broadband connections that are essential for extremely fast and increasingly multimedia financial service telematics applications are now available at very competitive rates. It is also a hub of finance, business services such as accounting, legal and advertising, communications, international transport, the publishing industry, fashion and mass culture.

Riyadh enjoys many of world class city characteristics, like a large urbanized region with dense patterns of interaction. These characteristics make of Riyadh a city node well integrated in an increasingly networked global economy. The city is also striving towards greater openness, providing the flow of people, goods and ideas that have contributed to the many-faceted commercial and cultural development of the city, creating a vibrant milieu that attracts talented people and providing workers with the incentives both to explore and to exploit technological possibilities. An urban milieu of quality is a must for any knowledge economy city that cares to attract and retain skillful knowledge workers.  

Figure 1: A perspective view of Riyadh showing the city main business and service spine, the five proposed urban sub-centers and the main arterial activity hubs (Medstar: 2004)

The majority of the cities that seek to position themselves as knowledge cities must first undertake an in depth analysis of the city's state of the art. A clear vision must then be stated and a strategy to reach that goal must be developed. Action implementation plans must also be adopted. Harnessing partnerships between local players, public and private sectors are more than necessary for knowledge cities to achieve the set up objectives. In the process, the city should always focus on offering better urban living standards within high-quality spaces and smarter sustainable projects that are highly valued by creative talented workers.

If Riyadh is to assert itself as a knowledge city, it must embark on making every effort to develop the knowledge assets at its disposal. These assets are scientific knowledge, commercial-financial knowledge, Entrepreneurial knowledge, cultural knowledge, and environmental knowledge.

With regard to the scientific knowledge, the city is making significant steps in this direction through the planning and building of university institutions, R&D centers and science parks all over the region. The city alone counts many university institutions, King Saud University, The Imam University, Prince Sultan University and many other university colleges. They all provide learning, training and research work or consultancy. Riyadh's higher education institutions supply the city's knowledge market with more than 12000 graduates each year (Ministry of planning and statistics, 2004). Distance learning and E-learning are also provided by these institutions to those who favour this option.

 As far as the Commercial-Financial Knowledge is concerned, Riyadh offers a significant amount of its building floor space to be used for office use. The commercial land uses occupy an important proportion of the city's land as is manifest in the land use Master Plan (ADA: 2004). Urban retail and office uses tend to be concentrated along the commercial spine office complex, and also along arterial roads. The strategic comprehensive plan for the city projects the creation of five urban subcenters to cater for high level office buildings. It must be stressed however, that the lowering of barriers to trade is a step that would promote the city's economy and sustain its growth. Several types of function are commonly associated with world city status. These include finance, transnational corporate headquarter functions, global services, transport, information, a site for international conferences, exhibitions and cultural activities.

Figure 2: Riyadh Comprehensive Plan for 2020 (Medstar: 2004)

Entrepreneurial Knowledge is a significant attribute for any knowledge city. An entrepreneurial city pursues innovative strategies intended to maintain or enhance its economic competitiveness vis-a-vis other cities and economic spaces. By entrepreneurship, it is meant the creation of opportunities for surplus profit through new combinations or innovation making a shift from urban managerialism to urban entrepreneurialism (Harvey, 1989).

For the case of Riyadh, entrepreneurialism is embedded within the city through the emergence of bilateral business associations and the setting of other business institutions (e.g. Commerce and Industry Chamber, Real estate Council) and business incubators to help start up firms get on their feet and remain in the competitive market of the city. While policy, infrastructure and investment are certainly important, successful cities draw their energy from entrepreneurial dynamism and the quality of the workforce. In an economy with accelerating technological innovations and rising specialised service functions, the labour force needs good basic education and skills. Measures to ensure an adequate supply of entrepreneurship, skills and labour will be one of Riyadh’s biggest challenges. Enrollment for local students in universities and colleges, as well as in vocational schools, has been increased substantially.

The environmental knowledge is gaining importance in Riyadh society where many people are caring more and more for the environment. Some associations are becoming to call for new legislation to be adopted for that purpose. The city has also moved gradually to address infrastructure deficiencies that have a significant impact on environmental quality. A process for renewing urban infrastructure is already underway.

Besides these five knowledge spheres, Riyadh must also enhance its competitiveness as a regional and global city through the improvement of its livability standards, attraction of foreign investments and companies, and development of its tentacles through regional linkages building. These aspects are explained briefly in the following paragraphs.

Competitiveness and Livability: If Riyadh is to attain the status of a knowledge-based city, it has to develop its economic performance in knowledge-intensive sectors, the quality of its innovation process, the availability and the skill level of its human capital and the richness of its cultural and social assets. It must also invest in skills and knowledge development. It must pay attention not to focus solely on traditional investments on infrastructures but on human capital and highlight assets valued by knowledge workers.

Economic and Technology Development Zones (ETDZs): To appeal to foreign investment and international businesses, several new industrial districts have been created. To ensure broad-based future development, the city is also strengthening the industrial, science and technology capabilities of the new districts. The quality of services are gradually strengthening Riyadh’s bargaining position vis-a-vis foreign companies, enabling it to press for joint ventures, local contracting and technology transfer. To that aim, two hubs for free trade zones are also planned. One to the north of the city near the international airport and specializes in high-tech products and processing. The other, to the south near the industrial park and is dedicated to warehousing.

Building Regional Linkages: As Riyadh promotes itself as a world class regional city, it has to enhance its external linkages. It must be admitted that a big step forward has been made. The city has now non-stop flights reaching most of the world’s important urban centres.

Besides this worldwide connection, becoming a major cyber hub is yet another ambitious undertaking in Riyadh’s building of external linkages. Rapidly increasing Internet usage also relates to the import/export orientation of Riyadh-based enterprises and the steadily improving quality of the telecom facilities is helping to integrate Riyadh with the world economy. 64% of the city's households are connected to the web (ADA 2005).

It must be mentioned however, that the city should not be open only on its region but on other world cities. Greater openness is an attribute for knowledge cities. Openness has many dimensions, including trade, the legal framework, finance and culture. Improved communications with other countries is another dimension of the move towards openness. This already is being pursued with great vigour through heavy investments in telecommunications. Openness, combined with policy measures that induce competitiveness, is most likely to lead to outcomes that are in Riyadh’s long-term interests.

Figure 3: ICT Supercorridor Development along the main city spine and the corridor networks linking the main urban sub-centers functioning as knowledge hubs and regional high-tech clusters.

10. Conclusions and Recommendations

It is clear from the analysis presented so far, that a new form must be planned for the 21^st century city to fit the new network society and the rising knowledge economy with its associated activities characterized by flows of information technologies, people, goods and services. For such city to play a role in the highly competitive market of world class cities, it has to make the shift from the traditional industrial economy to the post-Fordist economy based on knowledge innovation and services. Its urban form must be reconfigured so that it offers high quality urban living for skilled knowledge workers. It must also attract and retain corporate headquarters of companies of world status caliber and develop a whole new set of commercial financial hubs of services.

These new services and activities require a vibrant urban space with land uses distributed according to new planning paradigm where concepts of network accessibility rather than physical proximity or contiguity prevail. Notions of knowledge zones and hubs of innovation rather than functional or activity zones should guide urban planners in their quest for appropriate forms for the city of the knowledge era. The sophisticated high-tech infrastructures for high speed network connections are an important feature of this new city.

Physical planners and urban designers must bear in mind that the future city that fits the 21^st century society and economy can be smart, intelligent and sustainable, that is, knowledge city showing little care for borders and limits. People, information, goods and ideas can flow freely within and between such cities offering a whole gamut of cultural entertainments, spectacles and enjoyments to its residents and visitors alike.

The transition from the traditional modern city would not be complete if concomitant institutional changes do not follow. These institutional changes are required to boost the entrepreneurial and self-governance capacities of the 21^st century city technological base and may include acquiring technical knowledge, international experts and multinational corporations; promoting R&D centers and development of agglomeration economies based on universities, technology-based enterprises, education institutes, science parks and private firms. A whole new legislative arsenal of technology oriented policies, multicultural, ethnic, and collaborative planning, distance learning and continuous reskilling of the city's workforce must be accompanying the above stated recommendations.

The case of Riyadh was examined to show the prospects to position itself as a knowledge competitive city. How the city can take advantage of the knowledge assets that it possesses to make the successful transition from a traditional modern economic base to a knowledge post-Fordist economy was illustrated. The necessary transformations required on the physical land use planning and urban form were also mentioned. Some strategies to foster and speed up the process of such change were also devised.

In short, this construction of Riyadh’s structural competitiveness is designed to encourage the development of the city’s information services sector and to enhance its position as the premier information and telecommunications hub in the Middle East.

It must be noted that this attempt to sketch out some aspects of the physical projections pertinent to the knowledge city as exemplified for the Riyadh's case is by no means exhaustive. New researches and analyses are needed to study the impacts of ICT developments on land use change and related urban form. Other areas of research would focus their attention to explain the complex relationships between the social composition of the city, its urban fabric and the rising economy of knowledge.

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Website links

Melbourne Knowledge City, http://www.businessmelbourne.com.au/ last accessed 3/10/2007

Barcelona Knowledge City, http://www.barcelona2004.org/eng/ last accessed 3/10/2007

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Manukau NZ Smart Manukau -Knowledge City, http://www.manukau.govt.nz  last accessed 3/10/2007

Shanghai (China) City of The Future, http://www.gluckman.com/Shanghai2001.html last accessed 3/10/2007

Malaysia Knowledge Corridor, http://www.msc.com.my/index.asp last accessed 3/10/2007

Innovation Hub – S. Africa, http://www.theinnovationhub.com/ last accessed 3/10/2007

Manizales (Colombia) Knowledge City, http://www.infimanizales.gov.co/ last accessed 3/10/2007

      

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