Pioneering Urban Experience Design (The New Scale of UI/UX)

For the last 10 years I have worked in some of the world's most brutal conditions.  Along the way I've made and lost friends, witnessed miracles and tragedies, and have immersed myself into every moment of it.  But I've always known that this is not a sustainable or necessarily healthy way to live.  In my desire for a full life, I cannot always live and work in war and violence.   So a few years ago, just at the same time I took up residence in Afghanistan, I began laying the foundation to one day take all the lessons hard-learned from the battlefield into a different direction.

Shifting the Terrain at HSpace

At the beginning of 2014 I transferred my practice from Kabul, Afghanistan to Detroit, Michigan. Detroit is famous for its poetic ruins and tragic rate of decay.  I have also continued to work abroad - in fact, I am posting this blog post from downtown Mogadishu at this very moment.  And in the meanwhile I have experimented with new methods to engage urban environments and to create technologies that shift the way we experience the world around us.

Today today my work is a fusion of deep theoretical understanding of complex urban environments and cutting-edge experiments in physical computing and design strategy.  Although it has not been featured online, much of my time since January has been heavily occupied in a partnership with a global technology giant to develop a new technology to monitor events in Syria.  Those who were present for my talk at the School of Visual Arts in New York City got a sneak-preview of the work we have undertaken.

In my off-hours, I've also been bashing out an array of prototypes and design mockups, primarily in the realm of augmented reality, experimental cartography, and drone-based design.  Here is a sample.

Choose Your Adventure - The Mobile AR Experience

Problem: I've never been a fan of video games.  There is nothing wrong with them, but my sense has always been - why play a game when you could live it?  In fact, I recently discovered that playing a video game will satiate my desire to explore the more challenging environments in the world.  But playing a video game also imposes tremendous limitations.

Concept: What if we combine geo-caching exploration with AR gameplay?  What if we use our existing mobile technologies, gps positioning, social networks, and user-generated rating systems to refine the games?

Below I've put together two brief concept videos to show how this can work.  The first video presents how such a game could be organized. The second video presents some screenshots of how such a game would function.

The cool part:  This is an entirely new way to engage our cities and communities.  Your city is no longer just an environment, but it is also an interface, stacked against a digital interface, so as to participate in the construction of new narratives.  The natural syntax of our urban environment shifts, opening new interpretations of space, time, and meaning.  Consequently the identity of the city is no longer what you see in the street, but also how it is constructed in the cloud.  Like your online digital identity, cities can have a digital self, to be pushed-probed-and-hacked.  We've had this digital infrastructure for years, but we lack sufficient methods to maximize its potential.

(Best enjoyed with headphones or decent speakers)

Created in 2014 by Mitchell Sipus

Conceptualizing the City as a Synthesis of Habits

When I started my education in city planning, I took a course on urban form, wherein Jay Chatterjee introduced a different perspective on the organization of cities every week.  Jay knew his stuff, having studied with Kevin Lynch and later, as university president, having led the way to a master plan for the University of Cincinnati featuring an array of established architects.  In fact, studying at UC DAAP was basically akin to studying at a museum of architecture, surrounded by buildings designed by the likes of Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenmen, and Michael Graves (himself a DAAP alumnus).

In Jay's class we looked at the history of how a cities have been conceptualized.  Renaissance diagrams of the city as a human body compared roads to arteries and parks to lungs.  Then of course there was explorations of the city as a mandala or as an ecology.  I found these approaches to interesting at the time.

But now, after having worked extensively within complex urban systems, I find them as little more than poetic and perhaps damaging.  To an extent there is truth.  Cells combine to create tissue, tissues combine to create organs, organs combine to create organ systems, and organ systems combine to create an organism.  Thus if to combine organisms you create an complex organic system (city) and to combine these urban systems you create another macro-entity (state). But how does this conceptual organization of systems help advance the needs of the people within it?  How does this framework provide any utility for intervention and to what end?

As an organic system, we can examine capital flows, supply chains, and nodes of interaction just as one would examine the circulation of blood or oxygen.  Milieus of capital and power will intersect in a fashion that is either harmonious or catastrophic.  An array of intersections will form hierarchies in the form of institutions, or institutions will harness the dynamics of these nodes by means of hegemony. Clearly the metaphor can be extended, but what can an urban planner or designer make of this?

I'd argue very little because ultimately it is only a metaphor, an approximate model of reality, and models are fairly archaic in the contemporary world.  With an abundance of technologies to measure and predict interactions, we can do better than model our environments, but we can create new methods to engage, measure, and predict the events around us.  Today, the model and the reality are the same thing, if they are not - then you are doing it wrong.

I say this because we must take for granted that all urbanism is self-organizing, and once we acknowledge that, we are better positioned to ask the more important question: how does a self-organized system actually operate and to what end?  

Now we have an opportunity.

A city, like a business, is better understood - not as an organism or geometric mandala - but as a collection of habitual processes that have organized in time and space to form a collective habit.  This collective habit continues to operate because it has survived to do so.  Any imposition that will undermine the collective habit will force adaptation (new habits) or it will die.  A good example can be found within most manufacturing companies - either they keep with the times or they go out of business.  

At the granular level, changing one individual's habits will merit only limited impact (thus a new mayor or president can only do so much), while changing a large collection of granular habits will lead to a massive change at a larger scale.  This is incredibly difficult but possible.  Take for example the changes in popular music.  While a dominant musical paradigm is perpetuated at the collective scale, a new form of music may grow in appeal at the fringe which will eventually become popular.  No behaviors changed - all people continued listening to music with the same supportive behaviors - but the music selection changed, and thus we find certain elements attached to the music (fashion perhaps) also rising to the fore.  Now we can ask, why has a new form of music replaced the other?  What drove the sustainability of that change?  The habits did not change, but the form of each habit was modified, so how did that work and how can I use the same methodology in my own project?

Conceptualizing a city as a collection of habits will do more for a designer than conceptualizing a city as a body, beast, or geometry.  In the reductionist sense, we can examine the procedure of those habits and fine tune our environments to respond.  For example, if we find that people habitually congregate in a given location, we can  capitalize upon their congregation or choose disrupt the location to redistribute the population, and replicate the process at within all similar environments to the same effect.  Or, from a constructivist perspective, we can examine the array of elements that inform the formation of that organization, and attempt to infuse other environments with those elements to stimulate similar activity, hoping that the inhabitants will contribute something else to create a positive outcome.  

Contemplating a city as a collection of habits will not solve all problems. Yet it provides more utility than visualizing the city according to classical metaphors because it provides opportunities for intervention.  Likewise, I encourage interested readers to create other paradigms for interpreting cities but to never get stuck on any particular idea as the ideal.   For example, thinking of a city as a creative entity, aka Richard Florida, is fine.  But if you really plan to leverage that concept for your own city... don't expect much return.  That singular notion, like any other, is merely an approximation - a model - and therefore it will only reap so much reward.  Rather you need to go beyond the limitations of a single ideology. Believe in nothing. Believe in everything.

For example, what does it mean to examine the city as each of the following? How can you build off of these idea to create opportunities toward a given objective?  Simply challenging yourself to organize your thoughts around each of these given prompts will provide a new way to think of human structured environments in a manner to reveal restrictions, possibilities, mechanisms, and more.  If you map out a series of ideas based on each prompt you will also discover many conflicts will emerge.  That is good. Embrace the frictions and the voids because these points are perhaps more important than the symmetries.

• City as record
• City as interface
• City as library
• City as software
• City as hardware
• City as inheritance
• City as puzzle
• City as experiment
• City as a game
• City as language
• City as narrative
• City as reaction
• City as sport
• City as reproduction
• City as resistance
• City as byproduct
• City as ...

The Problem With Refugee Camps (Architecture, Design, Planning)

For decades our television screens have been dominated by images of ragged people, hopelessly isolated within political limbo as destitute refugees.  Movies describe refugee camps as exotic edge-of-the-earth locales full of victimized dark-skinned people.  Magazines and websites occasionally release an article on a brand new shelter technology, solar stove, or water pump that is expected to change the future of these settlements.

Although often inaccurate, there is some real world legitimacy to these images.  A decent example of the typical chaos can be found at this moment in Nigeria.  But this is not always, even often, the case. While camp conditions are often poor, there have been strides toward the improvement of camp planning, most notably in Turkey.  Many seek funding to further improve existing camps, such as found in this request for assistance to displaced South Sudanese living in Ethiopia.  But overall, regardless of funding or geography, the progress of change has been slow and grinding.  Refugee camps are an embarrassment to our 21st century civilization. While most refugee camps are not like the movies, they continue to be miserable solutions to a complex political crisis.

Why is it, with all the expertise bubbling in the world, do these places continue to function poorly?

Before I go into this, I want to highlight that dramatic improvements took place from the 1970s through the 1990s.  Up until the 1970s, the United Nations had zero interest in the African continent, but this changed as part of a general meandering toward global sensibilities over the previous decades.  Initial steps in aid and development lacked professionalism, but was the work of untrained adventurers in the global south. This is where we get the classic image of a white guy unloading sacks of grain from a truck - as if refugees need help carrying sacks.

Much of this change toward a professional model is the consequence of Barbara Harrell-Bond whose intense anthropological criticism toward UNHCR, and UN operations in general, did much to orient it toward an improved system of accountable projects by competent people. Yet while her impact has been monumental, and continues to be extended by the efforts of countless researchers and activists within refugee studies, the state of encampment remains poor.

So again, why?

There is no simple answer, but in terms of designing and upgrading a camp, below is a list of critical factors.  This list is by no means exhaustive. Add to this list the local conditions and political realities of a random country and conflict, then stir.

The Problem with Refugee Camps - (Architecture, Design, Planning) - A Top Ten List

1. We must recognize that Refugee is a legal term.  Technically, before 1951, there was no such thing as a refugee but simply displaced people with no legal status.  The term acquires its legal meaning from the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Notably, while a country may agree to accept people seeking asylum to provide "protection," each signatory may withhold elements of the convention. For example, if you are a refugee in Egypt, you have the right to "protection" but you do not have the right to health care, the right to education, or the right to employment because the state of Egypt has withheld those rights in its signature.  By withholding rights, a government strategically removes incentive for a refugee to remain in country.

2. Protection is define in the 1951 Convention but the operationalization is not. This is a big issue. Countries who are providing "protection" in accordance to the expectations of the legal agreement are not bound to provide a particular quality or form of protection. The language is intentionally vague so that each country may decide what protection will look like.  Ultimately, they can do as they please (more or less) aside from a few specific restrictions, such as it is unlawful to send a refugee back to the country of origin if the threat remains.  But within state borders, a state can treat the refugee however it pleases within the boundaries of it's own law.

3. The refugee laws are a response to WWII, and while displacement camps existed prior to WWII, it was only in the immediate aftermath of the war that a legal "refugee" was born into existence.  At that moment, the legal space of the refugee camp was also founded.  With populations scattered everywhere in Europe, refugees were seen as a security threat and the responsibility was thus entrusted to militaries. Militaries therefore used POW camps, prisons, and military barracks to contain, order, and redistribute displaced populations.  Military camp planning and design goes back to the Roman era, as spatial structures to maximize the needs of efficiency, not humanity.  Consequently, todays camps are designed using the same spatial structure.  A refugee camp is made to process, contain, and secure an individual. It is not a space to facilitate the expression of rights.

4. Camps are to be temporary so as to encourage the return toward home (repatriation).  This is a tricky one.  We think of camps as a way to safely help a population in need.  For example, MSF may create a camp so as to rapidly deliver much needed medical attention to many people at one time.  But protracted encampment is a different issue.  Ultimately governments encourage camps so as to isolate a population (due to xenophobia), facilitate the responsibility of "protection" (whatever that means), and to encourage repatriation.  Therefore a refugee camp cannot be nice getaway from a conflict because that incites refugees to remain indefinitely.

5. Professionals are not trained properly.  When I first went to a refugee camp, I was the only urban planner on site.  The UN engineer was trained in the UK to create UK infrastructure and the architect from Spain was trained to build stadiums and suburbs.  Now they were in the middle of nowhere Africa and told to design a new camp.  Naturally they approach it like a London suburb, unfamiliar with the deeper political and legal substructure (which inspired me to research this issue for years).  If you want to know more about why this is a problem, check out this older Humanitarian Space article on water infrastructure and conflict.

6. The idea and images of refugees and camps as sprawling 3rd-world slums presupposes the actions taken by stakeholders.  Consequently, we reproduce the same systems over and over again, creating more 3rd world slum refugee camps because we have an idea of what they look like and how they function separately from normal society.  I'd argue that the current camps in Turkey for Syrian refugees are the closest thing to a normative planning structure to emerge. Note that those camps are entirely state operated, having borrowed technical guidelines from UNHCR, but with no managerial involvement by UNHCR.  I question how long Turkey can sustain the cost.

7. Architects and designers focus too much on building technology rather than social systems.  A good example is a recent IKEA solution to refugee shelter.  I'm sure its fine.  Except it costs more to manufacture, import, and construct than any local solution.  Consequently the folks who really do the work in the field have zero interest in a slick pre-packaged technology for import.  It is just too expensive and will require complex logistics to procure and implement.  In the meanwhile clever designers churn out sexy new refugee shelter technologies every year.  This is a waste of time and money when you consider that an imported solution is impractical and the dominant socio-cultural/political/legal systems demand low-standard and cheap but scaleable solutions.

8. A massive communication gap exists between dominating entities and camp populations.  Most aid workers are afraid of the populations they are intent to serve.  Most aid agencies and UN operations maintain highly restrictive rules that negate interaction between staff and refugees.  UNHABITAT, for example, regularly plans camps using satellite images and locally contracted social research, but never actually make a site visit to talk to locals or see the terrain first hand.  This can have extreme repercussions.  The most dramatic example is from an Ethiopian friend who lived as a refugee in Sudan for 12 years.  He told me that a UNHCR director arrived at the site and was angry because the camp was built on a piece of land different from the location originally intended.  Why?  Because maps and satellite images will never be as accurate as boots on the ground.  Again, I feel the need to direct you to this previous article on infrastructure and conflict.

9.  Camps are isolated (for focus on service distribution) and cannot participate as viable economies. This is to further encourage repatriation.  It is also a xenophobic exercise to separate refugee populations from national populations.  But consequently, any camp-based economic development initiative will have a low ceiling of growth or will fail because there is no viable supply chain for production or transit conduit to export of commodities.

10. Residents (refugees) are forced to live in conditions that make them reliant on services, negating the opportunity to advance their own situation and simultaneously undermining the ability for return. The vast majority of encamped refugees do not want to be in this position, but do to legal and political rules, are restricted from any other path.  Typically to break out of this cycle requires extraordinary measures. For example, a Somali friend of mine was born in a refugee camp in East Africa, but at 20 smuggled himself all the way to Hong Kong where he lived as an illegal immigrant but eventually achieved employment and a better quality life. Of course another guy I know attempted to do something similar ended up imprisoned in Israel.

**Bonus** 

UNHCR has zero accountability. If you ask a UNHCR professional about this they will disagree and say that UNHCR is accountable to the broader expectations of the UN or are accountable to the media and to the public.  But this isn't really true because a discontent public has no legal recourse to counteract UNHCR.  It is simply a brach of the UN, and does not go on trial under the UN system because there is no UN Court.  The biggest problem UNHCR can experience is a drop in donor funding, yet as UNHCR is primarily a political tool to exert outcomes derived by internal politics, there is little advantage in reducing funding.  Ultimately UNHCR can get bad press, but a donor still pays them for a desired outcome intent that the bad press will never come back to the donor itself.

Advice for Choosing a PhD in Urban Planning

When you enter a new city, do you immediately start deconstruct the environment into use patterns? While driving do you frequently get a thrill from clever interchanges or notice over-engineered drainage with pangs of anger? And perhaps, when you hear about a massive social or economic problem, your mind ignites with strategies to improve the situation?

So now after years of thinking about complex urban problems, working in the field, and reading all the current literature, your mind is suddenly probing the possibility of pursuing a PhD.  Or maybe you were always interested in research?  Or you like the idea of teaching in a university?

I understand all these impulses.  For over a decade my mind has been fixated on building strategies for social change.  Even when I was an art student dreaming of a career as a conceptual performance artist, I sought to do work that could facilitate profound social transformation.  And throughout my entire life, I've been drawn toward the satisfaction of writing and research offset with the engagement of the lecture hall.  I always wanted to be Indian Jones. In my own fashion this led toward the decision to pursue a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning.  

It may then come as a surprise that when I applied for a PhD,  I only applied to four programs, and 3 of them were not in urban planning. Why? The answer is fairly simple.

The compelling aspect of the planning is its interdisciplinary composition.  People come from all backgrounds to study and work in planning.  It is rare that a professional field can consists of engineers, artists, historians, and statisticians all working together, side-by-side, using a shared vocabulary toward a common objective.  Its amazing really. But when we focus this energy through the lends of doctoral study, the tectonics start to shift, and I believe the value of planning education begins to go downhill. I'll explain more about this in the sections below.

Yet perhaps you are considering a PhD in planning.  Where do you go? How do you choose?  And should you make sure it is labeled "Urban Planning" or can it be something else?  Should it? 

Is the PhD useful for you?

Because of the unusual nature of Urban and Community Planning, the pursuit of a PhD is peculiar. For one, among those who are dedicated to practicing planning, a PhD is popularly rumored to reduced employment prospects because it makes one overly academic.  I don't know if this is true, but if it is true, the situation is stupid. People need to stop believing this or the PhD Planning needs to change to become more relevant.

How much time do you have?

I spent several years looking at the curriculums of the worlds top PhD programs in Urban Planning. There are advantages and disadvantages to the US model vs other countries.  First you need to think about time.  How much time do you have to do this?

In the European model, schools such as LSE or UCL feature some decent programs, but only one year is devoted to coursework with 5 to 7 years devoted to research.  The problem with this model is that the research is typically focussed on a very narrow proposal, supplied at the time of the application, limiting options for exploration and experimentation in subject matter.  The resulting dissertations are boorish and that the personal experience of the PhD is rife with depression, cognitive dissonance, and grief.

When a professor at a famous university in the UK expressed interest in working with me about government issues in Somalia, my initial excitement turned dour. I've worked with the government of Somalia and it sounds absurd to spend 7 years proposing policies the government of Somalia will never care about.  They have only marginal support for outsider interest and zero concern for academic arguments, so this will not end well. To do such a project for 7 years of doctoral study would be equivalent to 7 years of lying to myself.

Within the American model, the timelines are shorter, typically under 5 years, so it can be a bit healthier for mental health, yet 3 years are occupied by in-class learning.  That takes us to the next issue.

Curriculums

Most American curriculums require 3 years coursework then 2 to 5 years for dissertation research. Typically one year of the 3 will focus on research methods. This is considered the standard gateway to expertise.

One problem is that hands-on experience is a better way to deepen specialized knowledge than through additional coursework.   For example, I frequently meet people in Washington DC who are experts on Afghanistan.  Those people have a PhD, twice went to Kabul for a week, and read a lot about the country.  They do have a very deep understanding of actors and context, but the reality is that local politics change so rapidly, that anyone not actively living in the country will always be far behind. I mean, I've spent 10 years in developing nations, and that experience has provided a far deeper understanding of planning issues than any class.  So why do I want to spend many years sitting in classes that are disconnected?

Another issue is that while a PhD is about deep expertise and slow learning, the motivation to pursue additional schooling is also based on the desire to learn new things.  I want to study new ideas to inform my thinking and reshape the way I structure information.  I want to experiment with my brain. I want to pursue some electives.  PhD programs typically do not support such divergence because they are designed for a deeper study of a small thing.

So look closely at the curriculum of each school... is that what you want to do?  For example, University of Wisconsin Maddison is a great school, but I found its curriculum to be outdated and traditional to issues like transportation and housing. In contrast, Ohio State features coursework on new technology and urban development. Super cool.  But if you want to build technologies, it doesn't give the flexibility to do that - not as part of the core curriculum anyway - you can only study their impact.  Same situation with Columbia University.

It is important you evaluate your need and interest for coursework.  Will one year suffice?  Two or three?  Are you jumping into new territory and require many foundation courses is a new skill?  Will the program facilitate flexibility?

Outcome Projections

Most of us know to ignore the rankings and focus on the specific industry reputation of the program. But there is more to the selection process.  For example, many schools in California have stunning reputations for Urban Planning, but none of them were churning out students that I saw as a model for my own career.  Rather than look at the rankings, I advise you look at the dissertations coming out of each program.  Do you want to spend 5 years writing the same kind of work?

Rather than looking at rankings, ask, what kind of funding does this department have?  Is it getting federal or corporate research grants?  Are the professors actively publishing groundbreaking work or running audacious companies? If you choose to teach afterward, what kinds of schools and programs would want to hire you?  Where are the recent graduates teaching? Will you be qualified to only teach in one department (planning) or several (design, social science, business, planning)?  Personally, I want options.

Changing Times

This part is really important. Realize that programs are constantly changing.  Are you applying to a program based on its history, its present configuration, or on its future?  What kind of faculty are they hiring?  What are the department goals?

For several years I was convinced that the only program for me was at MIT.  The DUSP program for international development (IDG) was inspiring.  Diane E. Davis was generating work about conflict cities, other professors were looking at technology,education, and humanitarian work.  Some of the students who came out of that program like Topher McDougal were rockstars to me.  

Then just before I sent PhD applications, everything changed. Dr. Davis went to Harvard GSD and many of the other faculty rotated as well.  I like some of the professors there very much, but I could not see myself working with them. In the meanwhile, I do not like Harvard's program at all, so I would never follow Davis there.  After years of preparing for one program, it changed so dramatically that I never bothered to apply.

Where do you want to live and work?
Four years will go by fast but of course you must consider the reality of living there.  Case in point, the University of Umea in Sweden is amazing and has sufficient doctoral funding - but it is nearly the north pole. Ouch.  They were interested in my work, and I was interested in their program, but after 3 winters in Afghanistan, my wife and I were not willing to move to the Arctic circle.

Also consider, will living there advance your career goals?  When my wife did her masters, she went to the American University of Cairo, Egypt because she wanted to work in the middle east.  That gave her far more advantage than any graduate program in America or Europe.  Likewise, after graduating you might continue to live in the same city for awhile, so make sure you like it enough.

Look Outward

As I mentioned before, I only applied to one PhD program in Urban Planning.  But I also applied to 3 programs in political science, sociology, and design.  I received 2 full fellowship offers from among the four programs.

If the interdisciplinary nature of Urban Planning is its strength, we should leverage this strength to break away from the limited vision of the profession. Consequently, I encourage planners to do their PhD in anything but urban planning. Computer Science, Economics, Geography, Political Science, and any technical discipline are valid options.  

Personal Outcome

Final decision? I am pursuing a PhD in Design at Carnegie Mellon University.  CMU has the technological focus I desire, but more importantly, the new PhD Design is focussed on transition design.  This concept is akin to my own methodology, wherein it embraces turbulence of complex systems to advance scaled instances of social chanee.  As this approach is based in the field of UX Design, rather than planning, it also introduces new perspectives, vocabularies, and breaks away from the historical inheritance of the planning profession.

The curriculum and leadership are flexible, and as a new program, it is future-focussed with a zeal for creating new opportunities and ideas. Consequently, this PhD has the resources I need to create whatever future I want to create.  For my goals, there is no better option in the world.

Designing a Better Tax Experience in the USA

I've spent enough time living and working among impoverished and struggling communities, from Detroit to Addis, to know the wonderful benefits of public services and infrastructure. I've also seen the depths of corrupt systems, having spent nearly 3 years in Afghanistan, and so I also know what can happen with tax dollars are abused - and the damage can be severe. But from these experience, I fully believe that taxes are awesome. Thanks to taxes, I have enjoyed luxuries such as clean water, paved roads, and breathable air.  I've been able to acquire student loans to access otherwise unreachable opportunities. I have enjoyed the deep knowledge and entertainment of libraries, bike trails, and the internet.  Taxes are good.

Then why is it is so painful and frustrating to pay to taxes?  

For many years I've been engrossed in a never ending flow of  interrelated IRS documents to sort out taxes owed to my own government. I have also paid much in taxes to other governments, which was equally frustrating from the lack of information and structure. Then of course there is the act of watching your personal balance suddenly diminish while media outlets continually cover abuses of federal spending. When you pay your taxes in America, you feel like you have been beaten by a complex system.  You do not feel like a winner.

I propose that the rate of tax payment and frustrations with federal spending are not really the problem. The US already has a low tax requirement. Out of the richest 114 countries in the world, the USA is way down at number 55 in tax expense upon the population. So the frustration is not an indicator of too much paid in taxes, but it is merely a symptom of something else. 

The poor Service Design of US taxation.

Historically the US government has had very poor service design for many of its service systems, but in the last 5 years, great improvements have happened. Regardless of what you might think about Barack Obama, his administration has made massive strides in creating information systems and interfaces for the American public so as to improve the service design of governance with platforms such as the following:

• Government Spending Information = usaspending.gov

• Citizen Engagement = http://www.whitehouse.gov/engage

• American Recovery Investment Act = http://www.recovery.gov/

• Comprehensive Information Gateway = http://www.usa.gov/

These websites are impressive. They provide the means for anyone to acquire comprehensive information, engage the federal government in a personal manner, and even go so far as to directly petition the executive branch of government to address specific issues (We the People). None of these tools are perfect. The biggest flaw is that most American's don't realize these tools exist, and thus continue to rely on popular news media for information about their government rather than investigate information directly at the source.  

So things are looking good regarding user-integration in governance... until you look at the IRS website. Suddenly the interface between citizens and government breaks down to a grinding slow-motion act of torture at the very moment that this interface is of greatest importance. As US citizens we are left feeling abandoned and dismayed, handing our money to an impersonal force while under duress.

The USA has one of the most complex tax codes in the world.  In fact, deconstructing and comparing our tax system across 16 different categories to the 220+ countries in the world, the USA is number 94 on the Tax Attractiveness Index.  Who is number 93?  Zimbabwe.  

Unless you work a standard 9-5 job for a standard wage and have a limited income, it is difficult to calculate the amount of tax owed to the US government. Add an additional variable, such as living abroad or having multiple investments, and you will find it gets quickly complicated.  Since millions of Americans do not live in the USA and yet are faced with with this really difficult tax structure, it is no surprise that many have been giving up their US citizenship. But we do not need to necessarily simplify the tax code.  We need to change the way we engage with the tax code and our government.

Creating a New Experience

Lets think about the tax payment process differently.  How can we structure this for the sake of the user?  How can we simply the process and how can we make the relationship between the citizen and the government feel more personal?  How can the payment of tax feel like a meaningful contribution to society and not a point of frustration?  Lets redesign the process.

The IRS does not offer an online site to determine or pay taxes.  This is a serious flaw.  Instead, tax payers must find a 3rd party site (such as HRblock) to determine the rate of taxation.  These sites vary in their user friendliness and in their ability to provide the customer with the proper guidance.  These 3rd parties also frequently charge fees and if the user has special needs, such as a side business of freelance work, then the fee can jump into hundreds of dollars.  I happily used one such site for about 6 years, but once I moved abroad, I found it didn't offer the services I needed and it took a lot of research to find the right tool.  Even finding a qualified accountant to work with the needs of a non-resident citizen was super difficult.

So once you find a tool to determine tax, then the act of payment is painful.  The IRS does not have a simple online payment portal.  Rather debit or credit card payments are available via 3rd party online services who charge a fee for the processing (often about 3 dollars + 3% of the payment).  Lame.

If you choose to pay via check, then you write the check (typically for a hefty sum), put in in the mail, and never have any continued relationship with your earned money.  It is no longer yours, and you don't know what came of it.  Then you turn on CNN and some politician or reporter says that millions of dollars was wasted on some pointless initiative... I'm thinking of the classic "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska.  How can you feel good about this?

Imagine for a minute how all this could be different..

• Imagine, if instead of a 3rd party website, you simply go to the IRS website.

• Imagine scanning your thumbprint and being connected to your personal account.

• You input your income, are guided through a series of questions and your rate of tax is determined.  Much of the information passes across years and you only need to apply updates. Unused credits from the following year are automatically transferred and advice is given freely on the website regarding deductions.

• You click "continue" and your final tax rate is explained to you in simple English, such as how that amount was determined and you are shown some data visualizations of how much other people are paying in your state and nationally, across different kinds of jobs, and at different incomes or with similar households (3 kids and a private business).  See this page at Brookings for an example... I was interested this morning to see how different counties take advantage of deductions.

• After it is explained to you, you approve the processing of your tax fee, or the reimbursement if one is owed.  Perhaps it could even make a suggestion on how to improve your deductions for the next fiscal year to lower your tax rate.

• After the tax is paid, your deposit is assigned a tracking number.  I'm thinking of a large-scale version of "Wheres George" in which individual US dollars are mapped on their movements around America. I'm not certain of the intricacies, but imagine if you could say "oh yeah, last year I paid for a road, or the year before I paid for a school."  Perhaps you can login at any time and see updates to the spending of your contribution.

Connecting your tax to its use would entirely transform our political system, reduce poor spending decisions, and make people feel better about paying their taxes. It might even shift voting patterns.

When you imagine what taxes can do to change the quality of life, and when you think of your personal ability to make a dramatic impact on your community, paying taxes can be a pleasant and rewarding experience.  

I am happy to share 2/3 of my income with everyone because we all benefit by working together.  But I also know the pain and frustration that comes from the tax process. Yet if I've learned anything from my last 10 years of working in economic development, design, education, science, and governance, it is that all problems can be managed.  

We must accept that there is no ideal tax system.  Debating over flat tax vs. sliding scales vs. VAT vs. income tax and so on is not only redundant, but the arguments lose relevance when we shift our perception on tax delivery and the interface of citizen engagement. Consequently, we can  even drop all the self-importance and egocentrism that are connected to the suffering of taxation. We can move onward, and to do that, we don't necessarily need to change the structure of taxes, but rather, we need to change the way in which we undertake the experience of taxation.  It needs to be more personal, more simple, and more rewarding.  It needs to be re-approached as a service. Better yet, it needs to be revisited to become an opportunity.

Post-Conflict Reconstruction is Dead

I have argued for many years that post-conflict reconstruction is a thing of the past but only recently, at Making Sense of Syria 2014, did I realize that a more direct spotlight needs to be shone on this issue. Already there is an inconsistency in language in which I find many planners label post-war reconstruction and post-disaster reconstruction as nearly the same thing - which they are not, as environmental disasters take on an array of variables and conditions entirely separate from acts of human violence.  But the notion of post-conflict is entirely flawed, as ultimately, today we only have the ability to respond to stabilize and build - with little contribution available in terms of creating remedies rebuilding.

Much of our thinking on the notion of reconstruction is rooted in the reconstruction of London in 1666. In response Christopher Marlow did much to improve the city through the state led rebuilding process. Our conception of reconstruction was then solidified with the Marshall Plan of WII, again a process of state led rebuilding which also led to local improvements, such as exemplified through the reconstruction of Warsaw, Poland.

But today post-conflict/post-war reconstruction is obsolete because the nature of conflict has changed. Wars do not end with a clean resolution. Rather, contemporary wars are resolved through entropy, wherein the pace of conflict is reduced to a simmer.  Protracted over many years and subject to bursts of violence, spaces in conflict remain under the stress and pressure of danger, and are inhibited by its demands.  

Furthermore, cities and regions in conflict no longer exist as a neutral stage for the conflict theatre. Whereas WWII was fought in the rural hinterlands and urban cores between two states - with little regard for the landscape itself - contemporary conflicts are fully integrated with the terrain, as the ultimate stakeholders and primary actors are the local populations.  

We no longer experience state-to-state conflict. Unless a dramatic incident initiates large-scale international conflict (such as 9/11 and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq) the primary conflicts consist of non-state actors either against the state or against other non-state actors. The motives, capabilities, and organizational structure of these groups vary greatly, thus further shifting the landscape into frenetic patterns.

From this context, it is clear that the efforts made to rebuild a wart torn city must change. If a city is destroyed by an aggregate of non-state actors, then is it reasonable to expect state-based reconstruction to be effective? What if the state hires businesses If the war was fractured and erratic, will a largely institutional process (such as via the United Nations) mend the wounds? Can populations traumatized by the violent atrocities of their own neighbors work put grievances into the past and work together for community-based development?

Unlikely. 

Yet these are the standard response mechanisms in place. This can and must change. I've written below some of the key lessons I've learned over the years to better facilitate reconstruction, though this list is by no means complete. Maybe one day I'll get around to writing a book. But for now, lets just stick with the list:

Steps toward effective resolution and rebuilding for cities in conflict

1. We must recognize that conflicts do not have a clean end, yet there is a turning point wherein enough variables for continued conflict reach a collective low-point, providing a point of entry for external variables toward response, stability, and construction.

2. The ability to conduct any form of development or positive social contribution exists only in relation to the level of security available. In a city like Aleppo, there is no room for things such as "personal agency" in the midsts of high-intensity conflict.  

3. Traditionally high-need systems (such as food markets) continue to exist, but they change form in response to the conflict, frequently becoming more widely distributed and with a higher cost of access. We cannot assume any traditional elements of society continue to function unchanged while under duress.

4.  Linear planning is a waste of time. Sequence planning can be feasible, but the success of each sequence cannot be dependent upon the success of a preceding or adjacent sequence. Each one must autonomously reach success or fail. In Afghanistan, NATO pursued an approach based on key locations to function as interdependent sequences, yet this structure is too feeble and can not respond to dynamic conditions.

5. Failure must be strategically integrated within the planning process.  

6. If a city was destroyed by disparate non-state actors, then its greatest potential to pacify and rebuild is is also in the hands of disparate non-state actors - not the State or by external institutions.  The symmetry of destroy/rebuild by fractured processes is more than aesthetic, but is essential to long-term stability and functionality.

7. We can at best inject materials and actors to nudge existing variables into new forms. Strategic intervention is inept to shift the context of the conflict, yet we must realize that introducing new variables will not merit success. Sometimes it is essential to wait for less variables to exist.  You must be patient to let the conflict play out sometimes. Mogadishu waited 21 years to bounce back, and there were likely only 3 other points in time in which it had the potential.  

8.Stress, fear, and survival instincts are the biggest factors to judge how populations will respond to a given scenario and who will participate in an intervention, to what extent, and for how long.   While the boring elements of life continue to exist - such as the need to go to a job and earn an income - these systems adapt to the above concerns.

9. Anyone that wants to do "development" while within a state of conflict is not thinking clearly. It is essential for a turning point to arrive - which also, cannot be forced.

10. The key to sustainable transformation is speed. Bad decisions, bad policies, and bad infrastructure can be repaired and modified. But taking a long time to do it the "right way the first time" will undermine everybody. It is better to work from general to specific so that all actors can witness and participate in the transformation.

News and updates from Hspace

I admit it has been awhile since I've posted anything, but I've been overwhelmed with various projects lately.   I've recently returned from a month of fieldwork in Ethiopia followed by multiple speaking engagements in Canada and the US.   Here are updates on some recent activities and hopefully I can soon return to writing.

Article

Over at the Fulcrum blog you can read my recent article on how to use mobile applications for qualitative data collection.  Too often social scientists dismiss the capability of mobile applications for ethnographic research, citing that mobile devices create barriers between the researcher and the research subject.  Also there is an assumption that mobile data collection requires rigid planning that is not suited for qualitative research.  In the article, I break down these assumption by explaining a step-by-step methodology to fully engage the phenomenological elements of social research while leveraging the advantage of spatial data.

Presentation

I recently presented some ongoing research at the workshop "Making Sense of Syria" at the School of Visual Arts, MFA Interaction Design.  In this workshop we have been looking at the wonderful work by Nate Rosenblum on Syria street-level data collection, the data compiled by the Syria Conflict Monitor, and the Carter Center.  At present, various working groups are assembling new tools based on these data sets.  I'm teamed up with Matthew Brigante, a MFA IX student and look forward to announcing our project in the near future. 

Company

My research and design company, Sutika Sipus, has also launched a new website at sutikasipus.com. All of my consulting and research work is now conducted through the company.  I'm very lucky to have an extraordinary team of specialists around the world.

Kabul

I've been deeply saddened, moved, and completely unsurprised by the escalating attacks in Afghanistan.  I do not believe these recent attacks will do anything to destabilize the elections, although they are an obvious effort to do so.   Having lived in Kabul for nearly 3 years, these problems have become very personal, and I am deeply concerned about those who must daily face them.   It is difficult to describe the stress that comes from living in such a place, although a friend of mine caught a recent attack on video.  While you watch this, imagine trying to fall asleep during or after such an incident.  

Cairo Egypt - A Contentious Veneer of Political Nothingness

This last weekend I was in Cairo, Egypt thanks to a 12 hour layover on my way to work in Ethiopia. Having previously lived in Egypt, I was excited and nervous to see what developments have occurred in Cairo since the Arab Spring.  I must admit, I was somewhat disappointed.

Here is what I found:

One, there has been an incredible explosion of street art throughout the city.  Not only in Tahrir, but everywhere one can find evidence of artistic expression and protest.  This is rather incredible.  Below is a photo from the old social science campus for the American University of Cairo, located on Mahmoud Mahmoud street.  The quantity of texts and imagery that adorns the building is not unique, but such messages can be found elsewhere in the city.

Admittedly however, Tahrir is the focus of more extraordinary works. On the wall of the original American University campus one can find massive murals and other large-scale works which are less clear in their political intent, but remain aesthetically striking.

Beyond the presence of street art, near Tahrir is an extensive array of defensive fortifications.  Large concrete blast walls and stone structures are arranged for about 1 or 2 blocks in every direction around the Ministry of Interior.  Concave walls line some of the streets, striking because their design would be clearly ineffective against explosives (such as the role of the traditional T-wall) but make human access nearly impossible.  Furthermore, large steel gets have been erected near the Mugama on the edge of Tahrir which can be used to close access to the square.

Yet beyond Tahrir, the city remains fairly unchanged.  Vegetables are sold, donkeys pull carts, and traffic barely moves.  Only one block from Tahrir, one can see that daily life has remained the same as before the uprising.  After meeting with some Egyptian friends, I voiced my concern that nothing has truly changed.  The jobs are the same.  There are still police posted on every corner.  There is still a large quantity of easily identified secrete police scattered throughout the city.  In terms of formal political systems, it appears no different than when I left in December of 2009.  They agreed.

Yet one change remained clearly observable.  The divide between the rich and poor has continued to grow.  Outside the city in Qahira Jedida (New Cairo) the suburbs have exploded in size.  Massive malls, large water fountains, and sweeping grass lawns (in a desert!) stretch as far as you can see. There is even a massive, brand new Ikea located nearby in New Maadi.

In the meanwhile old Maadi, which has been the longstanding neighborhood residence of the elite, has grown old and tired.  There remain some beautiful houses, yet much of the neighborhood has lost its upper class allure.  The rich have vacated for the suburbs and the poor have struggled to fill the gap.

In addition, large scale construction projects can be found everywhere.  Capitalism has run rampant in the interest of the upper class.  Just below is  photo from Tahrir, where on the very edge, massive new office buildings are under construction.

In the end, government has remained unchanged, the security of the common people no different, and capitalism has had its way.  Even the revolution has been co-opted.  Below is a photo-synth of 2 images I took of Tahrir with the Mugama in the background.  Perhaps the revolution was televised, but today it is bought and sold, to no benefit of those fighting for change.

Kiev Before and Now

I will admit, I have not followed events in Kiev Ukraine very closely in the last few weeks as my attention has been overly absorbed with work.  However, I felt the photo-synth above perfectly illustrates what is happening. Also it highlights just how much an environment can change when under duress. I'm not sure who made it, but I found it via journalist Jared Keller at twitter.

Detroit Urban Development and Communication with a Drone

Recently while assembling a project in Detroit Michigan, I came across some videos utilizing a consumer drone to document parts of the city.  They are truly gorgeous.  This particular one below documents the Heidelberg Project, an neighborhood-wide art installation by Tyree Guyton.  

I've been a fan of the Heidelberg Project since my days in art school, when I learned that Tryee was using his method of found-object art construction to highlight the excessive needs and attention of his neighborhood. Adjacent to the abandoned Packard plant, and situated among endless blocks of abandoned buildings, Tryree constructed the Heidelberg project as an act of beautification, neighborhood protest, and empowerment.  For many years people were outraged by his actions, but as it brought attention to the landscape, one could argue that the Heidelberg Project has been an important catalyst for change, now that Detroit is on an upswing.  If you cannot view the embedded video, find it here.

Recently a series of arsons have been consuming this urban installation. Rumors abound regarding the motive and source of the fires and investigations on on-going.  The drone footage captures the landscape just before the most recent fire.

I've theorized in the past how drones could be used by urban planners, yet the documentation of Heidelberg illuminates a new, and fairly simple prospect.  

It is difficult to convey the qualitative, intangible feeling of vast spaces.  While photography and film has the ability to convey strong emotion, it does not necessarily have the means to do connect a viewer to an entire neighborhood.  The power of shaped and empty space is the ability make a person feel large, small, connected, or alone. Standard videography does not effectively transfer the essence of space to a viewer.  Yet perhaps this is a new opportunity for drones.

When I watch the video above, irregardless of any music, I get a sense of the atmosphere, I get a sense of the weather, and I get a glimpse of what it is like to move through the installation.  I get an idea what it is like to participate with the space, from the physical perspective of a small child, as a grown adult, or even perhaps from within the imagination of Tyree, who arguably has a more concrete vision of the installation than anyone.  He knows its details yet can see the large picture of interlocking pieces.  As a viewer and participant, we can eventually acquire an equally sophisticated relationship with the space, but to transmit this relationship is a challenge.  The drone imagery does not solve that problem, yet it may get us a step closer toward communicating the ethereal.  Perhaps drones will do more than cause new problems, perhaps they will give us the chance to be one step closer of experiencing the multilayered syntax of place.  That is a powerful thing. 

The Danger of Development

When I tell other urban development folks that I don't care about resilience or empowerment, they tend to look at me like I'm an idiot.  How can resilience be bad?  Empowerment is good!  And yes - those things are true.  However, in my work I argue that we should never start with the idea, we should start with the people.

Everywhere I work, the process is similar because it starts with building real human relationships.  I can work in Detroit or Mogadishu or the Bahamas because I go in with no assumptions or expectations.  I only ask that I can spend time with people, observe them, and learn from them.  The more people I meet, the more relationships I can create, and the better I can offer something of value.  Maybe my proposal will fall into the domain of resilience, maybe not, it doesn't actually matter.  I've also written extensively about this in the article, Urban Planning Trends are Bad Medicine.

Unfortunately, this approach to "Development" with a capital "D" is not universal.  Many of my peers embrace the certainty of formulas and answers, and are more than happy to debate endlessly on the works of Sachs vs. Easterly.  But I suspect those rockstars of international development would agree with me to say the debate misses the point.

Today a friend of mine shared this fantastic video on the perils of international development.  It is funny but it is also sad because these things do happen.  I have personally witnessed such tragedies occur, and even wrote about one such incident in the article Deep Water in a Geography of Conflict.  I strongly recommend the video below, if it doesn't load in your browser, feel free to visit the source at http://www.survivalinternational.org/thereyougo.