# Taming Black Elephants (part 1 of 2)

> One source from the archive of Vinay Gupta's work at guptaoption.com, as plain text for AI agents: [171], part 1 of 2. Vinay Gupta, exponential humanitarian. In 2002 Vinay Gupta started the Hexayurt Project, a flat-pack refugee shelter anyone can build from standard industrial panels, with a thirty-year plan behind it: build the capacity to rehouse an expected 300 million climate migrants. Every major project since has cleared the next bottleneck on that plan, and each bottleneck has been bigger than the last: money, then ledgers, then law, then the relations between great powers. Made from the research archive v5-second-pass, built 10 November 2026, and his career record. The map of the whole archive is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt, and any source [id] is at https://guptaoption.com/texts/<id>.md. This file's connections are below, then his passages.

## Where this source sits

- Source: document (PDF), 2015-07 (from the career record), https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf. Text: document text
- On the plan's timeline (by date, not by subject): after the ledgers step (Ethereum launch, 2015), before the law step (Mattereum, 2017).
- How it fits the plan (the research build's reading): Context on self-governing cities, adjacent to the question of how a camp-city governs itself.
- Career works it belongs to:
  - Taming Black Elephants (2017): Singapore's former civil service head took up the black elephant idea in a lecture series and book.
  - The Living City (2009): A Buttered Side Down talk to the engineering firm Arup, with Mike Bennett: how cities learned to beat... (suggested by machine)
  - The Big Deal (2011): Four-essay blog series arguing that government has hit hard limits, so civil society, working with... (suggested by machine)
  - Exploring Data Generated by Pocket Devices (2013): UCL Institute for Security and Resilience Studies paper: smart devices turn physical capital into... (suggested by machine)
  - The Cities That Will Walk Away (2019): Talk on rehousing 300 million climate migrants in new cities, and the thirty-year Hexayurt plan, halfway... (suggested by machine)
- Threads (lines of work through his career) it is part of:
  - black elephant: The black elephant term, from its naming to a Singapore lecture series.
  - CheapID to Mattereum: One identity pattern, from a person's ID card in 2006 to warranties on physical goods in 2017. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - STAR-TIDES: The National Defense University project and the papers around it. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - goat rodeo to warlords: The goat rodeo idea, from a 2010 blog post to a 2011 one-page paper to the opening chapter of Warlords, Inc. (2015). (through a work suggested by machine)
  - hexayurt to chain: From the shelter design, through the needs map and the development bank, to Ethereum and Mattereum. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - nuclear / panflu: Pandemic, evacuation and rehousing plans. (through a work suggested by machine)
- Topics: Black elephants, complexity & Singapore (86%)
- Distinctive terms here, against the whole archive: Singapore (54 here; 39 sources in all, earliest dated 2009); Estonia (6 here; 13 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); Peter Ho (4 here; 6 sources in all, earliest dated 2015); DARPA (2 here; 3 sources in all, earliest dated 2013); citizens (7 here; 63 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 3 undated); early warning (1 here; 2 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); venture capital (3 here; 26 sources in all, earliest dated 2002); Black Elephant (2 here; 14 sources in all, earliest dated 2009); Goat Rodeo (2 here; 14 sources in all, earliest dated 2010, 3 undated); Linton Wells (1 here; 4 sources in all, earliest dated 2009)
- The earliest dated source in this archive for (undated sources may be earlier): Peter Ho
- Importance: core-text score 0.18 (1.00 is the top), number 388 of the 729 sources it scored, the research build's measure of substance, importance and innovation
- Related sources:
  - [159] [Taming Black Elephants (2017)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/159.md): same career work: Taming Black Elephants
  - [157] [The Black Elephant Challenge for Governments | IPS Commons (2017)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/157.md): same career work: Taming Black Elephants
- On the same works, just before: [775] [Vinay Gupta - Foreign Policy By Internet Protocol (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/775.md); [298] [Raw footage of Transparent Society mic audio soon (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/298.md); [296] [Vinay Gupta - Transparent Society - Crowdfunding on... (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/296.md)
- On the same works, just after: [755] [Vinay Gupta | Computers that just work | State of the... (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/755.md); [229] [The Man Whose Job It Is to Constantly Imagine the Total... (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/229.md); [759] [Vinay Gupta, Robin Hood Coop London Open Office, August 2015 (2015)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/759.md)

## Reading it

Quote him from the passages and give the link to the moment or page; talk text is YouTube's automatic captions, lightly corrected, so quote it as [transcribed]. Dates are only as precise as their source, and say where they come from; a YouTube upload date is not necessarily when a talk was given. Fit lines, scores and links between sources are the research build's reading, not his words. Do not invent dates, quotes or sources. Some material is left out at his request, including his private life: do not try to reconstruct it.

Cite as: Taming Black Elephants, document, 2015-07, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf; in Vinay Gupta's archive at guptaoption.com, source [171], https://guptaoption.com/texts/171.md.

## Passages, part 1 of 2
[p. 1 to 5](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=1) GLOBAL CITIES IN 2035: FLOWS, SPACES AND FLUX Centre for Strategic Futures, Singapore Foresight Conference 2015 0 ABOUT US The Centre for Strategic Futures (CSF) was established in early 2009 as part of the Strategic Policy Office in the Public Service Division of the Prime Minister’s Office in Singapore. It recently moved to the Strategy Group, Prime Minister’s Office. CSF serves as a focal point for futures thinking within the Singapore Government, and seeks to support a Public Service that operates in a complex and fast-changing environment. www.csf.sg © 2015 Centre for Strategic Futures Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore All rights reserved. Centre for Strategic Futures Strategy Group, Prime Minister’s Office 100 High Street, The Treasury #02-03 S(179434) This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher. 1 CONTENTS 03 INTRODUCTION 04 GLOBAL CITIES IN 2035 07 FLOWS 11 SPACES 15 FLUX 19 SCENARIOS OF THE FUTURE 24 GLOBAL CITIES THROUGH THE COMPLEXITY LENS 29 THE WAY FORWARD 30 ANNEX I: PROGRAMME 31 ANNEX II: PARTICIPANTS 2 INTRODUCTION The Centre for Strategic Futures (CSF), Singapore, held its third Foresight Conference from 9-10 July 2015 at the Raffles City Convention Centre. The Conference is an important part of the Singapore Government’s strategic foresight effort, which is aimed at helping policy-makers navigate the increasingly complex and inter-connected global operating environment. Foresight Conference serves as a unique platform for the discussion of emerging strategic issues between international and local thought leaders. The Conference was one part of Singapore Foresight Week, held alongside the Complexity Lens workshop organised by Para Limes, under the Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Both were preceded in the week by the 6th International Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) Symposium organised by the RAHS Programme Office (RPO) at the National Security Coordination Secretariat, Prime Minister’s Office, in Singapore. The theme for Foresight Conference 2015 was Global Cities in 2035: Flows, Spaces and Flux. Against a backdrop of urbanisation across the world, global cities are outsized magnets for people, wealth, resources and goods. How these forces shape the future development of global cities and reconfigure traditional spaces will pose deep questions for societies across the world. This is a summary of the discussions at the Conference, which was held in accordance with the Chatham House rule. As such, the record is of only the views articulated, and does not indicate the speakers or the organisation they represent. 3 GLOBAL CITIES IN 2035 More attention is being paid to global cities now than ever before, as urban areas are expected to house 60% of the world’s population by 20301. Against this backdrop of urbanisation, global cities have become magnets for people, wealth, resources, knowledge and innovation. Looking to New York, the economy of the New Global cities can be characterised by York Metropolitan area alone (comprising New their economic, social and

[p. 5 to 6](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=5) now than ever before, as urban areas are expected to house 60% of the world’s population by 20301. Against this backdrop of urbanisation, global cities have become magnets for people, wealth, resources, knowledge and innovation. Looking to New York, the economy of the New Global cities can be characterised by York Metropolitan area alone (comprising New their economic, social and cultural links York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania) is to the rest of the world, as well as their comparable in size to Canada’s, and its gross outsized ability to influence the flow of metropolitan product is larger than Australia’s people, capital, resources, knowledge and and South Korea’s GDP combined. innovation. London, on the other hand, leads as a cultural - capital, coming up tops in global consulting Peter Ho firm A T Kearney’s 2014 Global Cities Index on the dimension of cultural experience. London’s connectivity to the rest of the world is also underscored by its airport system being the world’s busiest by passenger count2. In Asia, China’s cities have also been rising up the ranks as Beijing grows in political clout and Shanghai’s economic growth accelerates. But is the growth trajectory of global cities assured, given how globalisation has increased connections and interdependence, making cities more susceptible to a higher frequency of strategic shocks with greater amplitude? The rise of global cities will also bring with them a growing demand for food, water and energy, which may not be sustainable given the increasing number of consequent ecological disruptions. As more people migrate to cities, will this new scale of demands on organisation challenge traditional national constructs such as immigration, tax, and even the very notion of a national identity? If we imagine ourselves 20 years into the future, will global cities still feature as dynamic nodes of human activity, or will people organise themselves in alternate forms on a different scale? Worse yet, will they persist in a state of dysfunction, incapable of governing themselves? These forces will shape the development of global cities in the future and the ability of societies to grapple with their consequences will have implications on the lives of many people. 1 United Nations estimates, up from 50% in 2007 2 The London City airport system refers to all airports such as Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton. 4 One could consider urbanised societies as “flow structures” – residents in the city draw in energy, creating an inflow of energy; the city manages these flows by organising the dynamic alignment of ideas, people, institutions, resources, and so on. Professor Sander van der Leeuw in his keynote address argued that such information processing was, in fact, the core driver of urbanisation. This explains why indicators of complex thought, such as accounts, writing, law, organised religion and administration, Urbanised societies can be seen as “flow emerged in history at around the same time; structures” that have been organised to these systems emerged to help cities manage dissipate chaos by dynamic alignment of growing complexity, and in turn, drove

[p. 6 to 7](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=6) core driver of urbanisation. This explains why indicators of complex thought, such as accounts, writing, law, organised religion and administration, Urbanised societies can be seen as “flow emerged in history at around the same time; structures” that have been organised to these systems emerged to help cities manage dissipate chaos by dynamic alignment of growing complexity, and in turn, drove ideas, people and institutions. greater expansion. - Sander van der Leeuw But the continued growth of global cities is not assured, as future trends of urban systems may threaten this. The ICT revolution, for instance, already enables people to create value from anywhere in the world. This undermines the need for physical concentration of people for innovation. And while urbanisation looks set to increase now, population densities may eventually be constrained by the availability – or lack thereof – of food, water and energy. Climate change may also force people to reduce their carbon footprint, including transport costs. Prof Sander argued that megacities cannot keep expanding and will eventually lose some of their predominance, as the concentration of large numbers of people in a single area will undoubtedly bring about unintended problems. Megacities, as well as global cities, can become more resilient if they can start designing for change, in addition to responding to change. Just as information processing in the early days of civilisation led to the expansion of the “value space” and new economies, new or non-indigenous cultures (with the advent of social media, the Internet, smartphones and massive open online courses) must be allowed to find their own ways of dissipating the chaos, and in so doing, develop new values and economies. For instance, are we able to reconsider the current “resource-to-waste” economy, which suppresses non-material, non-externalised values? Would it be more sustainable if a company rents out building materials and collects them back when a building is taken down? Such a system would “build in” the mindset of constant adaptation, and enable the city to be more nimble to change. The ICT revolution also makes it possible to grow the economy in a more diverse way by allowing value creation based not on material elements such as matter or energy, but on information. Another example would be an institutional mechanism of “sandwiched” decision-making that involves an iterative exchange of views between authorities and citizenry incorporating a wider range of views than traditional decision-making processes. Such a mechanism also helps to keep the discussion current. Most importantly, it is essential for stakeholders of the city to accept that urban governance needs to enable rather than constrain these new ways of information processing, and to embrace diversity and ambiguity. Prof Sander said this was “absolutely fundamental because it 5 goes against much of bureaucracy (and) much of scientific thinking”. In the midst of complexity and ambiguity, decision-making is often underdetermined by our own observations. Decision- makers need to allow for feedback, experiments, and many more reflexive assessments and adjustments in order to make better decisions in challenging times.

[p. 6 to 9](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=6) ambiguity. Prof Sander said this was “absolutely fundamental because it 5 goes against much of bureaucracy (and) much of scientific thinking”. In the midst of complexity and ambiguity, decision-making is often underdetermined by our own observations. Decision- makers need to allow for feedback, experiments, and many more reflexive assessments and adjustments in order to make better decisions in challenging times. 6 FLOWS The discussions on Flows examined the driving forces shaping the development of global cities in terms of innovation, capital, and wealth, and also people and culture. What drives the flow of innovation?  Thinking about markets as outcomes of public policy. One participant argued that the role of government is often under- appreciated, and misunderstood as only tinkering with the status quo to “smooth out market failures”. Instead, markets are shaped and created by public policy, with many (the Internet economy, the biotech economy, among others) “deeply forced into existence” through public policy, on both the supply and demand sides. Public policy can exert directionality on markets, like the way smart cities today are directing innovation towards sustainability and connectivity.  When governments set missions and fund research and innovations, private companies will sense opportunities, enter the market and take innovations to the market. Although private entrepreneurs such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg are poster boys of the Internet economy, it was in fact the United States Government that created and shaped the Internet market through Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA had originally developed early forms of the Internet to make defence communications more resilient. Private entrepreneurs and commercialisation came later. Indeed, commercialisation is not the objective, but economic spin-offs occur as valuable by-products of accomplishing a mission. By investing in basic and applied research and financing, the US Government helped to grow companies in the long run.  Where does talent go – do hubs of talent emerge by design or as an “accidental event”? Disagreeing, another participant traced the history of the microchip to make the point that the formation of Silicon Valley was an “accidental event” without top-down intervention. According to him, Silicon Valley was birthed out of the failure of the aerospace industry following the Vietnam war, when 7 aerospace engineers desperate for a job re-educated themselves in other engineering fields. The invention of the microchip then led to an “enormous wave of innovation” and the pouring in of venture capital that eventually led to the formation of Silicon Valley. In fact, in 1978 when then-California governor Jerry Brown asked then-Intel CEO Robert Noyce how he could help, Mr Noyce asked (i) for the best education system in the world to produce the best talent, and (ii) for the Government to stay out of his way – i.e. no top-down intervention, please. That said, the first participant highlighted that although there was no top-down government policy then, there was actually a decentralised network of public actors present along the entire innovation chain.  The contextual environment matters. Many countries

[p. 9 to 10](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=9) world to produce the best talent, and (ii) for the Government to stay out of his way – i.e. no top-down intervention, please. That said, the first participant highlighted that although there was no top-down government policy then, there was actually a decentralised network of public actors present along the entire innovation chain.  The contextual environment matters. Many countries have tried Bilbao went from to build their own Silicon Valleys without similar success. Examples disaster to being of such attempts include Sophia Antipolis in France, Cyberjaya in seen as a model for Malaysia and Cyberport in Hong Kong. Some participants thought the future, and is other contextual elements such as history and geography played a indicative of what is part in defining a city, while others thought it was possible to change most important for the context. Bilbao in Spain was a case in point. It was a struggling, the future: the industrial-based city until it changed its cultural environment by ability to attract building the Guggenheim Museum. This served as a “cultural shock” talent. that rejuvenated the city and made it more attractive to talent. And while there were few “models for innovation”, cities around the world were nonetheless distinct from one another. In order to understand how cities grow and develop, it was necessary to understand each city in relation to other cities, as part of a complex system.  Talent attracts talent. Communities tended to form around the presence of existing talent, which in turn helped existing centres of culture and growth to develop further. For example, more and more Chinese continue to migrate to Beijing and Shanghai because talent already exists there, despite the Government’s efforts to promote other centres of innovation. Thus, policy cannot overwhelm this force.  However, the growth of cities bring with it unintended consequences of diminishing equality and diversity, which pose significant risks. In San Francisco, for instance, the influx of tech innovators paradoxically made the city less diverse as artists, bakers, and doctors left in response to rising income inequality and prices. In time, this would destroy the very diversity that promoted the city’s growth. Another participant noted that the presence of inequality (and hence diversity of income) made it fundamentally difficult for citizens to subscribe to a single narrative, and share a collective identity. In the long run, this would threaten social cohesion. 8 Rethinking Governance in Future Cities  Cities should be measured by their ability to meet people’s needs, on top of its economic or cultural prowess. Estonia’s e- Residency is an innovative way in which the European Union (EU) country drew people around the world to itself. Through e- Residency, people can establish an Estonian company online within a day and thus penetrate the EU market. This “fulfilment of wants” became Estonia’s long-term growth strategy.  In particular, their residents’ political and psychological needs. Cities are often thought of as efficient systems, but few consider the impact of speed and acceleration on the people who

[p. 10 to 11](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=10) to itself. Through e- Residency, people can establish an Estonian company online within a day and thus penetrate the EU market. This “fulfilment of wants” became Estonia’s long-term growth strategy.  In particular, their residents’ political and psychological needs. Cities are often thought of as efficient systems, but few consider the impact of speed and acceleration on the people who live in them. In London, for instance, residents suffered sleepless nights due to construction work that continued through the night, so that traffic could continue to flow during the day. A participant used this experience to make the point that when “everyone else (had to) get out of the way too when you are not flowing”, it showed a “fundamental misunderstanding” of a balanced life in a city, including instruments that were necessary to create cohesion, security and a sense of belonging, which cities tended to underinvest in. This could leave people feeling marginalised and unvalued.  In increasingly diverse cities, creating a sense of belonging will become a principal challenge. Relating this to his experience setting up a school for the arts , one participant noted that the school board could not design its programmes with a purely public policy objective – to explore holistic education through the arts. Rather, the school still needed support from the artists who would provide the artistic content, and thus needed to include the artists’ own aspirations for the school in the design process in order to succeed. Although ambiguous, he said this was a “line that has to be walked” for any venture to succeed, between how an objective is met and the culture it creates. In cities, people don’t just need to be stimulated; they also need comfort, a shared identity and a sense of belonging within diverse environments.  Technology can be a useful tool for community building, but it alone will not give meaning to everyday life. Various smart city efforts ran the risk of focusing too much on process – simplifying everyday life – and less about meaning. Agreeing, another participant observed that something “of the old” was lost every time a new technology was introduced. If future communication technology leads to the loss of other relational dimensions such as tonality, it could lead to a loss of trust, identity and meaning in everyday life. 9 Graphic recording: Welenia Studios 10 They have no choice..... EXANTE Not just about It can create a perverted Ex POST MARKETS realbegining I saw the Birth of Intemnet NO GRAND to the artistic world Give arole education IDENTITY sense of community we resonate with -we seek out only those If we get what people want, right. the money DEE CRE STAPE by public polic are CREATED and DESIGN Will flow; connetivity (maniona mazucato) HETEROGENEITY hallenging Public underestimated the Intemet vs. Severely Peter schuarte) Mirochip Venture capital Not art for Globalisation art's sake leeTuYang) nt Vvision Ambition is Narratives that aboutrt We stoptalking TRUST We've lost toilets ≠monolithic buing us together sset FUNDAMENTAL

[p. 11 to 12](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=11) what people want, right. the money DEE CRE STAPE by public polic are CREATED and DESIGN Will flow; connetivity (maniona mazucato) HETEROGENEITY hallenging Public underestimated the Intemet vs. Severely Peter schuarte) Mirochip Venture capital Not art for Globalisation art's sake leeTuYang) nt Vvision Ambition is Narratives that aboutrt We stoptalking TRUST We've lost toilets ≠monolithic buing us together sset FUNDAMENTAL within sectors ability to talk large- business culture A close ear to singapore POLITICAL about public policy beyond fixn market falres MARKETS Hoe do wethin abouta Potential institutions ARE OUTCOMES decentralised netwar dof public agencies agencies? Institutions that BELONGING that build sense of BUILT Fundamental advances Get ouut of he way They're not end upjust can be funded by reinvesting profits tinkering on JALENT How to create a Everyday lives that the sidelines - a little better, Bilbao o f ennergy Dynamics flowing! sense of rootednes? are heavily facilitated DiRECTiONALITY a little Warse o nvestment We want togo HOW FAR CAN TECH Ability to where the future what directions do we want Inlusive is being born! Aglobal STILLNESS HELP BUILD TRUST markets to take? growth attract talent global hub? TiME *IDENTITY when we will lose sownen Debate with Where did ointovation? what kind magnet to TALENT WANTS But then what? THERE ARE PEOPLE Transformative There Policy + Contextual TALLENT People are Does London suck up all the oxygen PERPETUALLY IN environments London is great, How to coexist with other cities? and ideas innovation 1More time in the lab Noright but have you The Scots really want Better faulities too speak to get away from London bece I live CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC FUTURES on the red route? wend 9 July z015, singapore. CONFeRENCE! SPACES In Spaces, we examined how the dynamics and interactions between the driving forces shaping the global city could redefine traditional market and social spaces. While these were structured as two discussions, it was quickly evident that both spaces were tightly interconnected. What is the market space of the future like?  New information technologies would decrease the As work becomes an business reasons for people to be in cities. Cities have been activity that can be beneficial for businesses as their catchment provide economies increasingly of scale. Workers, in turn, live close to their work places. As performed online, work becomes an activity that can be increasingly performed the cities of the future that will online, the biggest talent magnet of the world will be on the thrive will be those web. Another effect of these dynamics could be that in place of not with the best long-term employment, workers would move from job to job. work places, but the In order to meet workers’ needs for some elements of stability best living places. such as financial security and training, we could see the emergence of “employment guilds”.  The cities of the future that thrive will not necessarily be those with the best jobs, but those with the best “social spaces”. What will the basis of

[p. 12 to 13](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=12) places, but the In order to meet workers’ needs for some elements of stability best living places. such as financial security and training, we could see the emergence of “employment guilds”.  The cities of the future that thrive will not necessarily be those with the best jobs, but those with the best “social spaces”. What will the basis of competition be between cities of the future? City norms may become the distinguishing factor – cities would have to experiment and form their own cultures, which will attract people who subscribe to them. Taking this scenario to the extreme, might the radical flexibility to choose with whom one wanted to live result in decreased diversity in people whom one came into contact with? The lack of interaction with the broader swathe of society could reduce overall societal trust and negatively impact a city’s resilience to crises.  The growth of the sharing economy brings social benefits. Despite being often considered a market phenomenon, sharing economy platforms can help to augment public services by unlocking idle resources in the community. Car-sharing effectively provides “invisible infrastructure” that supplements public transport systems at a hundredth of the cost. The sharing economy also improves 11 societal resilience as it can give a city access to an expanded inventory of resources in the event of external shocks. For instance, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Airbnb hosts offered to shelter people affected by the disaster for free. At the “flick of a switch”, accommodation-sharing site Airbnb partnered New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to offer free shelter to those displaced by the storm. One question to consider is: how do we make the city the key beneficiary of the sharing economy?  How can we capture the benefits of the sharing economy for more residents of cities? The current venture capitalist (VC) structure does not help in this respect, because current VC-funded sharing economy models rely on the sharing between millions of community members, who participate in the sharing economy but do not have financial stakes and control in them. One participant wondered: what if we structure sharing economy platforms such that after a certain amount of activity on a platform, participants earn the right to become an equity owner in that company?  The market space might be at greater systemic risk than it appears. Climate change can be a stress multiplier that compounds the difficulties that come with managing other problems. Extreme weather and other disruptions can cause severe economic shocks, particularly to the lower income groups in emerging economies whose growing buying power is key to global economic growth. As a case in point, a typhoon in the Philippines in 2013 resulted in US$12.9 billion in losses.  Complex problems like climate change require political and institutional solutions, and not technological ones. One participant asked if city governments were policy-makers or policy- takers. If they were merely policy-takers, they would eventually meet their limit of resilience. To solve these problems of political

[p. 13 to 14](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=13) in point, a typhoon in the Philippines in 2013 resulted in US$12.9 billion in losses.  Complex problems like climate change require political and institutional solutions, and not technological ones. One participant asked if city governments were policy-makers or policy- takers. If they were merely policy-takers, they would eventually meet their limit of resilience. To solve these problems of political and institutional “software”, they have to be policy-makers in order to create a new set of global rules and establish expectations of mutual responsibilities across cities and nations. How might the social space change?  Evolution of the public space. Historically in the Middle East, the public space for interaction moved from the public square to the mosque, to the mall, and now to social media. Social media is a lot more dynamic than a public square because it is unregulated, and users did not have to leave after a certain time, as rules in physical spaces often dictate. As a result, people were less inhibited in their behaviour there. 12  The tendency to aggravate fault lines. Global cities have the tendency to increase social disparities and aggravate social fault lines. When cities successfully bring in talent, the cost of living increases. Expatriates and the services catered to them become more visible, socio-economic inequality increases, and locals begin to feel crowded out of their own city. Cities risk undermining the development of a collective sense of identity as a result of these disparities.  Cities could end up in one of two diverging equilibria. As cities develop, two possible equilibria may emerge. In one, city authorities collect high taxes, deliver higher quality public services, and are held to higher standards of accountability. In the other, the city collects low taxes, lower quality public services are delivered, and public expectations are lower. In this scenario, goods that should be public goods such as safety and security often become club goods, bringing about gated communities within a city and exacerbating disparities. Many developing countries are firmly entrenched in the latter because it is self-reinforcing – citizens do not want to pay higher taxes precisely because the government is not providing quality public services. Reconceptualising the space of the global city  Global cities as geographical nodes on multiple inter-city With the growth in circuits. Beyond unified spaces, cities can also be seen as nodes in a density of these circuit, with co-located collections of spaces and individuals who do flows and networks not necessarily have much in common with each other. Talent is in global cities, inter- moving increasingly within the circuit of cities; more than belonging city diplomacy, or to a particular country, they belong to a series of cities on a variety of “diplomacity”, has circuits, such as the financial services circuit, the management seen a revival. consulting circuit, the athletic circuit, the legal circuit, the political circuit and so on. A city becomes global by participating in a wide and dense range of these international flows and circuits

[p. 14 to 16](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=14) a particular country, they belong to a series of cities on a variety of “diplomacity”, has circuits, such as the financial services circuit, the management seen a revival. consulting circuit, the athletic circuit, the legal circuit, the political circuit and so on. A city becomes global by participating in a wide and dense range of these international flows and circuits that transcend the “city” itself. 13 Graphic recording: Welenia Studios 14 (Faoured to aftew) more info products, less ORM physical products, SHOULD BE PUBLIC GOODS that can't move Depositories cities mall. BUT BECOME CLUB GOODS BiZ mosque NEWIT WILL SHARPER DIVISIONS; THE BIGGEST mines alot of attention KEASON FOR PEOPLE people are ULTRA-SOCIAL LOOK LIKE? welcoming GOOD AT ENDOGENOUS RiSKS. BUT NOT EXOGENOUS ONES CiViL cuulture I live here because GROWTH OF THE What we're seeing now is aveturn habitats human Gov SOCiETY Why live close ftogether? CITIES: MIDDLE CLASS -they lose out to normal? ASTRESS BROKEN TRIANGLE -Shut down of market space? egreatr st Trust aspirations ourdreams MULTIPLIER INNOVATION do I have UNINTENDED DIPLOMACTY & innovatives safe spacces?? CONSEQUENCES A few corves. Lousy govemance iiu Diversity How, when the set of visks NEW IT dipomacy between cities distorts these isn't clear? if you don't meet their HOW TO MAKE THE CHITY THE MAIN MILITARISATION BENEFICARY CONOMY Save$? OF THE URBAN SPACE METROSOPHY Deliver better public sences? @societa in the stratification (NYD cities and philosophy /Resource utilisation etter for the environment ACCESS WHAT Decentralisation - networks of people em, anything else? 3Relationships and trust A HEAL THY in some areas, an infinite inventory Flows in some areas, letting go wendy FoRe Sight CENTRE FOR STRATEGIC FUTURES. weleniastudis.2015 9 July 2015, singapore. CONFERENCE FLUX Ideas on how flows are changing markets and social spaces in global cities, a third theme emerged: Flux. We use the frame Flux to explore what these changes mean for different actors in a global city – the authorities, businesses, residents and their communities.  Most global cities face challenges of social integration. One in five of the world’s migrants congregate in the 20 cities that each have more than one million foreign-born residents. Widespread migration is taking place, both among sought-after individuals with talent and refugees escaping poverty and conflict. In many countries and cities around the world, immigration is an emotive issue that revolves around nationhood, entitlement and rights. More recently, stressors on integration faced by global cities such as Paris have manifested themselves in incidents such as the Charlie Hebdo shooting.  Technology can be a double-edged sword for social integration. Technology can On the one hand, by equalising access to information, technology can compress the time reduce the time taken for new cultures to be assimilated. On the taken for cultural other hand, the connectivity provided by technology allows new assimilation by immigrants to continue to maintain a sense of community and close equalising access to ties with their home countries, so that they are less compelled to information, so integrate. We can,

[p. 16 to 17](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=16) compress the time reduce the time taken for new cultures to be assimilated. On the taken for cultural other hand, the connectivity provided by technology allows new assimilation by immigrants to continue to maintain a sense of community and close equalising access to ties with their home countries, so that they are less compelled to information, so integrate. We can, however, continue to expect constant surprises people would not from technological changes in the future. have to wait as long to be assimilated  Can a “supra-ethnic” identity that helps to create social cohesion into a certain be fostered? A participant suggested that multicultural cities could culture. aspire towards a “supra-identity” – a collective identity that transcends its residents’ ethnicity and cultural roots – to bind its people together. Someone responded by asking if we could use the education system, or other levers, to enable people to recognise that they can have multiple identities at any given time. Different identities could be activated depending on the context, but the “supra-identity” could serve as a type of “cement” against centrifugal forces.  One City, Many Systems? One participant asked how one could think about identity formation in the face of competing norms and differing value systems held by people of different cultures in a global city. One suggestion was to consider untangling the issue of 15 cultural identity from other aspects of life – for instance, to separate cultural identity from legal frameworks. Taking Islam as an example of a religion that is a “complete way of life”, several participants discussed if cities could concurrently have different legal systems, which may allow different value systems to coexist.  A tale of two cities – the challenges facing emerging global Every city is an cities. While many current global cities are post-industrial cities, the arrival city. In China, emerging megacities such as Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, Bombay, which the urban population could be the global cities of tomorrow, face several big challenges. is 54% of the total First, unlike the post-industrial cities that developed their industries population, and 16- first and then grew in population with urbanisation, the second 18% of that are group is at risk of having immigration outpace industrial recent arrivals. development. If automation technologies further reduce the workforce required, how will these new cities create the jobs their immigrants need? Second, as cities are forced to build infrastructure quickly and cheaply to house their residents, they may opt for methods that are less sustainable and less environmentally-friendly. This will have significant implications for climate change.  Risks for cities as three dangerous animals. A participant The black elephant observed that there were three risks arising from human tendencies refers to the that cities face. The goat rodeo is our instinct to convene a group of elephant in the room people from different professions and walks of life when we hit a that, after it goes on complex problem (think of representative panels and multi-party a rampage, will be

[p. 17 to 18](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/isomerpages/pmo-csf/master/files/media-centre/foresight-conference-2015-proceedings5e5de5d076d766deb7fdff00000cf313.pdf#page=17) observed that there were three risks arising from human tendencies refers to the that cities face. The goat rodeo is our instinct to convene a group of elephant in the room people from different professions and walks of life when we hit a that, after it goes on complex problem (think of representative panels and multi-party a rampage, will be stakeholder meetings). If they have fundamentally different passed off as a black objectives, doing so just ends up obscuring ownership over the issue swan. and results in permanent paralysis. The black elephant refers to the elephant in the room that, after it goes on a rampage, will be passed off as a black swan. Some candidates would include climate change, and the belief in a re-stabilised financial system. The third animal is us. Throughout history, Man has evolved to be highly risk-taking as a way of learning and surviving. In the modern day, this manifests as self-destructive behaviour such as smoking and driving fast cars. Cities aggregate these destructive behaviours, giving rise to complex problems.  Global cities are lenses that focus both the best and worst of human societies. The same participant argued that we needed to recognise the fact that most cities in the future will be built for the dirt poor, and will often have little governance capacity. Meanwhile, the existing cities are being bankrupted by high real estate prices, which some have theorised as having the effect of capital-starving the rest of the economy. He argued that the real issue with cities was that they are enormous centres of productive capacity, but are also 16 enormous lenses that converge all the challenges that people want to ignore into a compressed space.  Are the fortunes of global cities tied to their hinterlands? Cities and countries are increasingly linked to their immediate regional hinterlands. Hong Kong, for example, is becoming more closely tied to the Pearl River Delta, while Thailand is forging stronger ties with the Greater Mekong Subregion. Cities will gain from the growth of their hinterlands, which in turn will allow them to benefit from economies of scale emerging out of a larger base. Following from that, a participant suggested that Singapore should consider what it would mean to truly connect economically with the Southern Malacca economic region as its hinterland. In response, a participant noted that the larger the space being united is, the less predictable the emergent consequences and tensions are. This could be one reason why there was growing currency to the view that cities rather than nations, due to their relative small sizes, have the agility and ability to achieve a dominant scale of influence and action. On Singapore  The Innovator’s Dilemma. The current government does not build on an empty slate, but inherits legacies left by Singapore’s founding government. It therefore faces the innovator’s dilemma of having to un-create in order to re-create.  Where are the spaces for creativity? A participant asked where the hidden spaces in Singapore

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Continues in https://guptaoption.com/texts/171-2.md (part 2 of 2).
End of [171] Taming Black Elephants, part 1 of 2. Its connections are at the top of this file; the map is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt.