While Portland is a charming and fantastic small city, there are of course many possible ways to make Portland a better, smarter city. Exactly what constitutes a “smart” city is still being debated, although it is clear that the use of technology for improving how a city functions is a necessary component [1]. The following are several ideas – some of which may be “smarter” than others – that I believe could be implemented in Portland:

1. Free public Wi-Fi
2. Recycling bins
3. Additional public parking
4. More public seating
5. A Portland City Council smartphone app

In this day and age in which computers are used for nearly everything, I feel that public Wi-Fi is necessary in any modern city. Because people are always on the move, it is important to be able to be connected (e.g., via email) wherever we go. Furthermore, as we discussed on the field trip to Portland and in class this week, the public library in Portland is a place where many people without jobs search for work because of the library’s Internet access. If Portland had a public Wi-Fi network, people without jobs could search for them much more easily.

Having more public parking would also be of benefit to Portland. Although I have only been to Portland several times, I have noticed that there are very few places for people visiting the city to park. At the few places where visitors are able to park, drivers are charged fairly high rates to park their cars. Garages and valet parking services are among the only options available to drivers. Valet parking in particular can be extremely expensive for drivers, reaching prices between $50 for special events [2, 3].

Public seating is one more area in which Portland could certainly improve. As William Whyte says in Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, spaces will be utilized much more if public seating is made available [4]. While this fact probably does not seem surprising, it is nevertheless important. Public seating in conjunction with public Wi-Fi, for example, could allow for people to work in a variety of places. Tourists and people unable to walk for long periods of time could similarly benefit from increased amounts of public seating.

1. Adam Greenfield, Against the Smart City (New York: Do Projects, 2013),  What is the smart city?, Kindle Edition.
2. Katherine Jones, “City Council Meeting Agenda and Packet” (Portland, Maine, 15 September 2014), http://portlandmaine.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/09152014-605.
3. “Amendment to Portland City Code 15-12: Re: Valet Parking Fees and Expiration Dates” (Portland, Maine, 15 September 2014), http://www.portlandmaine.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View/6701.
4. William Whyte, Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, documentary film, directed by William Whyte (New York: Municipal Art Society of New York, 1988), https://archive.org/details/SmallUrbanSpaces.

My initial list of 5 recommendations for Portland, Maine are as follows:

1. Integration of Back Cove to Old Port/Downtown area;

2. Statuesque icon/landmark;

3. More open waterfronts;

4. Less seasonal attractions that can boost tourism all year round, such as casinos, or other forms of one-stop entertainment center;

5. Green roofs.

After careful consideration and contemplation about long-term benefits, I have decided the two most urgent suggestions is to initiate the Back Cove-Downtown Project, and the Entertainment Center Project.

One of my biggest considerations is Portland relatively low population. Portland’s population has been relatively steady for the past years while most cities’ population have grown considerably. A lot of the other ideas our classmates have come up with, such as better public transportation, would readily come into place with increased population and increased demand.  A greater population would also increase Portland’s competitiveness and service-related industries, among many other positive influences.

Currently, Portland’s population shows seasonality—booming tourism during the summer, with much less inhabitants during the winter. Portland needs attractions that are not affected by different seasons, and a big casino/entertainment center would serve this purpose. It would attract tourists and visitors all year round, while also becoming a significant contributor to Portland’s economy,  boosting tax income and potentially creating tens of thousands of jobs. The complex could also feature shopping malls, restaurants, movie theaters, hotels, etc, to become an essentially a one-stop resort destination in New England. This also works well with Maine’s vacationland image and strategy. If built aesthetically pleasant, the complex could also become a statuesque icon/landmark of the City.

Portland downtown is a peninsula, with I-295 as the limits on land. This creates a confinement that in turn limits Portland downtown’s possibility of expanding and developing. Looking at Downtown Boston, which is similar to Portland in many ways, we can see the Boston Downtown does not have a thruway barrier, and other regions on the peripherals of the center have emerged as commercial centers, such as Back Bay, Newbury St, Prudential Center, etc. Major thruways like the I-93 and I-90 have gone underground to create space for city development and increase the city’s walkability.

Back Cove is geographically adjacent to Old Port, though separated from the latter by I-295. Bringing I-295 underground would not only allow Portland Downtown to continue grow, but would also open access to Back Cove from downtown, and also possibly integrate Back Cove into the Downtown region, which would also open up a huge waterfront for increased public access. Reclaimed land can also be used for valuable waterfront development and high value real estate. It can also be used to create a giant “Central Park,” surrounding Back Cove, for Portland. More housing and development will also in turn attract more population to Portland.

Ideas:
1. gigabit internet
2. free public wifi
3. cat walks/tunnels to allow people to stay inside and still move around the city (see Duluth)
4. street cars
5. improved bus signage

One of the things i thought was most interesting from the city council meeting discussions were the refrences to joint public and private partnerships. In many cases, the payments for road improvements etc. were actually made by those who would benefit from teh construction and the government both. I feel like we see this in many cities also in public transport. Hong Kong’s subway system for example is privately owned entirely.
I feel like most of the ideas I listed above would have demonstrable impacts on the businesses in the area. For example, most of down town Portland is really nice to walk around during the summer. During the winter however, no one wants to walk outside to walk around the streets and move from building to building. Having a part of the city where each building fed into one another would make it much more popular when it is bitterly cold.

Portland City Council, September 15 meeting, 127.

Based on the City Council reports, its apparent that sound infrastructure within Portland is rather lacking, or that it at least needs a fair overhaul. What’s also apparent, however, is that the city council isn’t exactly sure how to go about solving its infrastructure issues, especially those that concern user friendliness. As a primer to a much broader discussion on infrastructure, I’ve detailed a few options that could be potential (and possibly cost-effective) interventions that could benefit Portland in the short and long run:

1. Reduction of vehicular access within the Old Port.
2. Friendlier pedestrian/bike paths across (on or over) Exchange street.
3. Incorporating additional (potentially free-to-park) parking structures.
4. Expansion of parks/sidewalks by reducing street width and sidewalk parking spaces.
5. interactive information kiosks, scattered throughout the city, that function doubly as free WiFi hotspots.

I listed the information kiosks at the end intentionally, as I believe that this is an existing (though not well-loved) paradigm that could be modified to meet the demands of Portland’s users with a smart-city sort of flare. As Greenfield makes quite apparent, the idea that a smart city should be a perfectly autonomous system is misleading. For one thing, “perfectly autonomous systems” do not exist at the level of complexity on which a city operates. We only need to remember William Whyte’s overhead shot of the park in front of the Seagram Building; hundreds of people walked along unique, intersecting paths within a relatively small space, yet not one person collided with another. From a strictly algorithmic standpoint, the layers of code necessary to achieve such a complex feat with so many independent entities—with a 100% success rate—is utterly absurd. Secondly, such a “perfectly autonomous system” is incredibly unattractive to a city’s residents. Even if such a perfect writ system existed, the mere thought of its implication would likely be shot down. People, especially Americans, value their agency with a unique passion. These kiosks would use the ideas that city residents value personal freedom and that they don’t want their city to operate “perfectly” to its advantage, as it allows the city’s users to access the city at their own will and to whatever extent they determine desirable.

As a smart city application, the traditional idea of a tourist booth wouldn’t apply to these new kiosks. Instead, they would be interactive and multifaceted: while one aspect of the kiosk would maintain the traditional “where-am-I-in-the-city” aspect, it would also provide interactive touch screens that allow access to detailed maps of the city, showing points of interest such as local businesses, public parks, hotels, etc.; one could use a kiosk to look up the various entertainment venues and their respective schedules (and perhaps book a ticket for a film screening or a local play that night); one could look up Duck Fat or DiMillo’s, view a menu, get walking directions, and book a reservation; one could even look up the parking spaces within the city, viewing which parking garages were available/full and their respective fares, or simply finding an empty spot on Congress Street for no-charge parking. Such a kiosk could even act as an ATM, allowing customers to pay for concert tickets, parking fees, and complete various other monetary exchanges right from any convenient location throughout the city.

What really brings this information kiosk out of the 1980s and into smart-city dialogue is its accessibility and agency. These kiosks can be placed in public parks or along well-traveled routes, making them either places to hang out and explore the city options or make predetermined searches/exchanges from a convenient, en route location. Next, the kiosk can function as a free Wi-Fi hub, simultaneously making the kiosks a valued commodity for any flaneur as well as obtaining a city’s dream in a functional and attractive manner (kiosks would not have to look the same either; they could be designed to blend with their surroundings, incorporating like materials and also seamlessly integrating itself into the urban fabric. Finally, the clincher that makes these kiosks accessible is their co-function with a mobile app. The large majority of individuals who own mobile devices will be able to access the kiosk from their own pockets. Not only does the kiosk function as a valuable, in-city informational device, but it also can create a versatile database of all of its greatest assets—which can be shared from any living room, sidewalk, bus stop, or cafe across the country. People in San Diego could book seats at a concert at the State Theater following a business meeting that brings them to Portland; connoisseurs in Portland, Oregon could look up locations to buy gelato in their like-named sister city to sample, compare, and find inspiration for their own recipes. The possibilities are endless, and the agency in encapsulates meshes perfectly with how a city operates.