Soft City

Quoting from this article about Amsterdam;

According to the French urbanist Lefebvre ‘the right of the city signifies the right of citizens and city dwellers, (...), to appear on all the networks and circuits of communication, information and exchange.’ We need to re-imagine what a real Creative City would look like. Let the first condition be that it’s software runs on programming that is ‘open source’.

This article and further ones on Amsterdam in Mute are worth reading for all of us. Amsterdam is a good example for us (as is Barcelona) because it is self consciously pursuing these policies which are in effect unspoken policies in Helsinki at the moment, and it is important that we don't fall into the 'branding' of Helsinki like Amsterdam in its IAmsterdam pr seems to be doing. There are though ideas behind this that are really useful in the last few posts over here. What does a Helsinki Operating system mean for transport, infrastructure and nature and the inhabitants of Helsinki? How do we enable the people to get more out of their operating system and reinvigorate the physical and social tissue of the city.