Infrastructure where information is used free to the public is most useful in smart cities. Open-source hardware is open-source because of “its deign process”[1]. When people cumulate ideas together there is an increase of product efficiency. The means that the contributors to the design of the item is “entangled in the social process of making or hacking property.”[2]This is influential to the productivity of the city and, more importantly, initiates creativity and room for improvement. Being able to connect and improve ideas in real times is a goal and useful tool smart cities need to adopt. This would help create more efficient traffic. Flow within a city “imposes its own idea of efficiency, always calibrated to keeping going, not stopping, overcoming impedance and resisting inertia.”[3]

To create infrastructure for the common good there needs to be a richer flow through the city. Sorkins describes it as non-stopping or in other words fluid. Part of the problem that Sorkins notices is the small spaces where humans interact in our economy. Simone describes the issue in an Urban African city by seeing the activities of “cooking, reciting, selling, loading and unloading, fighting, praying, relaxing, pounding, and buying happen side by side, on stages too cramped, too deteriorated, too clogged with waste, history, energy, and sweat to sustain all of them.”[4] He uses such words to visualize the amount of waste. Avoiding these spaces that promote social and openness creates an open creative one. The process of a scene where everyone is contributing to society allows more complexity toward ideas and social capital which is beneficial.

Portland needs infrastructure that promotes open source spaces where the ideas are evolving becoming more innovated and useful. The issue with this is that there needs to be a regulating committee to check if the design is being hurt or mishandled in a way. Portland could use a system that connects these individuals together toward a greater society and city.

[1] Jimenez

[2] Ibid

[3] Sorkins

[4]Simone