Social Media Is Changing The Way Our Cities Operate

Venture capitalist Peter Thiel once said, "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters."  Thiel thinks that many ambitious entrepreneurs are now working on social media start-ups, instead of working on challenging issues. But it is often the seemingly marginal improvements that change the world. For example, birth-control pill was only a marginal improvement over the products that existed. But, the medicine allowed women, who constitute about half the working population, to enter the workforce and be financial independent. Many inventions that look like marginal improvements actually make a big difference to our lives. By the same token, social media will change our cities, though it is not easy to see the many different ways in which this will happen.

Many Indian politicians and government officials, too, are quite active on social media. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a large number of followers on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. This is true of his Cabinet colleagues as well. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry recently launched its 'Twitter Seva' to assist people in matters related to the ministry. When a waiter in a Delhi-Chandigarh Shatabdi train asked for a tip, a passenger clicked a picture and tweeted it to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu. The ministry took action against the food contractor within 24 hours. This is a case of “everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows” leading to action. To be friendlier to customers, every general manager and divisional regional manager in Indian Railways has an account on Twitter. Similarly, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj recently helped a man get his passport within a day when he tweeted that it was delayed for months. In a way, government officials these days are at the mercy of people who know how to use social media to their advantage.

In Mexico City, the mayor replies to the complaints of people on Twitter very frequently. This is not an exception. In all major Latin American cities, urban local bodies interact with people. This is becoming true across the world, and will soon become the norm. Now, it is true that urban local bodies do not have the resources to address all the queries posed to them on Twitter or Facebook. The single biggest reason why urban local bodies and governments do not implement sound policies is that it is difficult to negotiate agreements with people. Even when the ideas are good, there is so much resistance that they are forced to shelve those ideas. This is true of corporations, too. Many good ideas remain in the shelf because discussing such ideas will fuel so much resentment.

How will social media change this? Clay Shirky, arguably the most important thinker on the internet, points out that there are usually three stages in a crisis leading to a revolution. In the first stage, everybody knows that a problem exists. In the second stage, everybody knows that everybody knows. In the third stage, everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows. It is the third stage where action happens.  This is where social media will play a major role. When mayors interact with people on social media, it is obvious that people will be easily able to verify whether complaints of citizens were effective or not. The media will be able to highlight comments of frustrated citizens, too. It is true that many of the complaints may be unreasonable. It may be true that municipal corporations do not have the budgets to pay attention to everybody. But soon, they will be compelled to think of a way to address important issues in the best way possible.

A few months ago, Akshay Kore, a student at IIT Bombay created an interactive land-use map of Mumbai. Land use maps have been around for long. But no one really takes the trouble to arrange information in a way that it is useful to ordinary citizens. When the internet and social media was not around, people had to visit government offices and assemble the data themselves to have a reasonably good idea of the structure of their own city. But now, such information is shared instantly over the internet.

A city, however, is more than the policies urban local bodies implement. The internet and social media can change the landscape of cities. On Facebook, Twitter and portals like Zomato, it is possible to reasonably estimate which restaurant or store is more popular in an area. It is even possible to compare the ratings of various restaurants, stores and malls. This will make such outlets more and more popular, channeling more resources to more able entrepreneurs. If a certain service flourishes in a certain neighbourhood, entrepreneurs will have more of an incentive to locate there, raising real estate prices. Not long ago, doing such studies was difficult. But this is no longer true, and when the internet penetration approaches 100 per cent, the accuracy of such estimates will rise.

Now, it is possible to know the pattern of commutes by analysing the data from Uber, Ola and other transportation network companies. This is very important while designing transportation networks. Such data are limited, though, because not many people use such car-hire services. This will change when such mobile applications become very popular. This is true of housing, too. Home buyers today find it easier to channel dissent on social media, and ensure that builders listen to them. The effect of “everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows” will be the strongest in such matters. This, again, will channel more resources to more capable builders, changing the face of cities.

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