Connect Across: The Conjunction of Geography and Connectivity

The preponderance of cities is out of the question, but the classification of cities is becoming more and more scattered. Fast, Happy, Smart, Future, Rebel, Soft, Creative, and With Soul are part of the need for understanding and part of marketing and always partial.

Although it would seem that another category is missing, which would be Risky or Uncertain City, because increasingly, risks and uncertainty are more and more real.

One of the risks is not knowing how to look at what is happening in cities and how they are evolving, not only within themselves but in the region. One of the things that will allow a redefinition of the role of cities is what Khanna calls connectography, that is, the conjunction between geography and connectivity, which causes cities to be linked in one way geographically and digitally on another scale.

The skeleton is the transport system of roads and railways, bridges and tunnels, air and sea ports that enable mobility across continents; the vascular system that drives the body is the pipelines and power grids that distribute energy; and the nervous system of communications is the internet cables, satellites, cellular networks and data centers that enable the sharing of information.

The ever-expanding infrastructure matrix now consists of 64 million kilometers of roads, 4 million kilometers of railways, 2 million kilometers of pipelines and 1 million kilometers of internet cables, and less than 500,000 kilometers of borders between countries. This has freed up other perspectives and alternatives; if there were isolated countries, hidden cities, this new vision of global connectivity has allowed for a leap in the mobility of people and knowledge. An example is San Diego in the United States and Tijuana in Mexico, which share an airport terminal through which one can leave for either country. 

The evolution is toward clusters. Megacity clusters can have a gross domestic product (GDP) of close to US$2 trillion, so, from an economic point of view, countries can be suburbs of cities by 2030.  A new map of at least 50 megacities can already be envisaged. São Paulo, Istanbul or Moscow have a GDPapproaching or exceeding one-third to half of their national GDP, but their individual value cannot be calculated without understanding the role of financial and technological flows that allow them to thrive. Once again, analysis has become more complex; economic complexity considers not only the static but also the dynamic.

Cities are the melting pots of civilization, cities are the source of global warming, pollution, diseases, impact on the environment, finance, economy, energy; however, cities, despite having these negative aspects, also have the solutions because they are the hoovers and magnets that attract creative people to generate ideas, innovations, solutions and wealth.

In this sense, value chains between countries can be more competitive and unlock trade barriers. Trade blocs have been just that, blocs, not networks, and at the level of world trade the effects are clear. MERCOSUR is an example of blocking rather than connecting; countries that were once the same country do not have free traffic of people or goods beyond declarations and treaties. 

Cities cannot be isolated or disconnected, the municipalization of regions, competition, the definition of public and private goods, the goods of coexistence, do not resist claustrophobia. It is not for nothing that border cities are more dynamic, those that present themselves as a laboratory of innovation.

Ciudad Hidalgo in Mexico and Tecun Uman in Guatemala, Cucuta-San Antonio del Tachira between Colombia and Venezuela, Salto and Concordia between Uruguay and Argentina, the triple border between Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Puerto Iguazu (province of Misiones, Argentina), Foz do Iguaçu (state of Parana, Brazil) and Presidente Franco and Ciudad del Este (department of Alto Parana, Paraguay). Nuevo Laredo and Laredo will be sovereignly their countries', but if the future of connectivity is anywhere, it is also there.

Everything is designed between networks; from the intercellular to the multicellular, down to the ecosystem level. And the most important thing in a city's network is people. And people are at risk and uncertain. If risk is quantifiable and uncertainty is not, one of the ways to be resilient is to increasingly mitigate risks. 

Networks are a containment element and a distribution function. Countries connected by pipelines, by internet cables, by aqueducts, by all kinds of connectivity, tend to cooperate, cities in clusters tend to have more interoperability and economies of scale, tourist routes increase their competitiveness. In all these cases, risk is mitigated and decentralized. 

That is why investments in transport, energy, and communications total US$10 trillion a year, where clusters of cities are connected and where mobility is facilitated; we push the system and then the system pushes us all. 

National borders are becoming more and more hub references than entrenched sovereignties. Flags are all very well, but will they remain on a flagpole or run on horseback?