Architecture, like medicine, is a markedly technological discipline. Clay, stone, wood, or glass, and their behavior under compression, bending, or tension explain, for observers fond of structural calculation, the shape of everything around us in cities; from the vaults of Gothic cathedrals to the greenhouses that farmers place in the fields to produce fruit. Everything has a quite logical explanation until the appearance of concrete. Rem Koolhaas states in Delirious New York that reinforced concrete is the plastic of architects.
But what about technology and cities? Urban planning has an important numerical component (urban parameters) but very balanced with legal and social issues. 100 years ago, having a map was like possessing a treasure. One only has to observe wonders like the Topographic Map of the City of Barcelona and its surroundings, made in 1806 by Josep Martorell, a sample of Barcelona confined within walls.
Other cartographic delights include the drawings by Cerdà, such as the Map of the surroundings of the city of Barcelona (1855), the famous map Plan and Project for the Reform and Expansion of Barcelona (1859) or its 1861 update, as well as all the cartography included in the General Theory of Urbanization (1867).
Mapping was an arduous task, and that is why very few and very precise maps were made. With a floor plan, an elevation, and a section, a property could be built. Now computer science has developed systems that allow, in a matter of seconds, machines to reason, think, imagine, and configure images of what an urban plan can convey in hundreds of pages. And this can help to make a better translation between what planners (urban planning departments) intend and what owners, investors, or residents can understand about the potential of their neighborhood.
I will give an example: imagine a plot with two disused (empty) warehouses built in Poblenou. On the buying and selling platforms, the minimum desired price by the owners is advertised. A potential buyer, if not from the urban planning guild, can spend weeks trying to understand what the Specific Modification of the Metropolitan General Plan says for a more inclusive and sustainable 22@, with all its environmental, social, economic annexes… There is a very good computer tool, the PIC (Cartographic Information Point), which is a digital service of the Barcelona City Council that allows access to detailed urban and cartographic information of the city. It is a platform that provides data on urban planning, infrastructure, land uses, equipment, urban qualifications, and other territorial elements of interest on a given plot. The system allows downloading all the regulations affecting a given plot in seconds, and we are talking about thousands of pages written with key issues.
The buyer of the warehouses may not know the urban planning burdens affecting the plot, may not be able to understand that there are two buildability coefficients for different uses (for example, economic activity and protected housing), may not understand that they will have to pay the equivalent of the transfers of the exploitation and pay a significant fee for the Special Infrastructure Plan. On the buying and selling platform, none of these costs are informed, nor is it indicated how to calculate them.
The more complex cities become, the more agile and open the responses must be for all types of conflicting interests.On the other hand, it is impossible for planners to imagine all the questions that citizens can ask about the repercussions of the plan: if the use of protected housing is mandatory, who should rent it? How will the flats be allocated? It is possible that a hypothetical buyer does not think that the new use of protected housing will require them to learn about the Register of Applicants for Protected Housing and the system of allocation by tender provided for in Barcelona's regulations. In the end, urban planning, under a supposed uniformity of criteria for any situation or property, ends up having a discretionary use that ends up being resolved in face-to-face consultations, often non-binding, on the interpretation of the regulations, becausea thousand possible projects exist, and a thousand different pre-existing situations.
Undoubtedly, training an intelligent system to explain, answer frequently asked questions, and lay down the law would help citizens, operators, owners, and municipal technicians alike to make urban planning a more agile and understandable discipline. The more complex cities become, the more agile and open the responses must be for all kinds of conflicting interests. Honestly, I admit that I myself have learned a lot about urban planning, thanks to the digital repositories of the Planning Registry and georeferenced systems. Why not take another step and think now about making it understandable for non-specialists?