Link to draft essay: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FovPVOHv1rnPsxloobp4_akUFaApqVrN9FtOBnE6SmY/edit

Popular ideas about what desirable urbanism entails have remained fairly stable since the mid-20th century, when Jane Jacobs and others articulated a vision that remains just as compelling (if still elusive) today. This research project proceeds from a hypothesis about that vision: Good urbanism, as popularly understood, is protocolized urbanism. Vibrant public space, multimodal transportation systems, and diverse commercial activity in cities all depend on protocols that coordinate complex activity, enabling the achievement of the collective goals they embody. By contrast, the top-down, modernist urban planning that Jacobs railed against represents a “platformized” urbanism that has mutated into new, pervasive forms in recent decades.

The city, and the built environment more generally, is an information system as much as a physical or geographic object – a network of complex interactions and flows that happen to manifest themselves in concrete form. At its best, the city’s “hardware” can function as a scaffold for these interactions and flows, enabling them to flourish; too often, however, the built environment impedes the proper functioning of urban protocols, intentionally or not.

This research project will articulate a definition of protocolized urbanism, contrasting it with the more rigid and centralized platforms that mediate the contemporary city. It will investigate the nature of protocols and their relationship to built forms and physical infrastructure that are inherently unable to evolve as fluidly as the protocols themselves. As information flows themselves increasingly move from physical space to digital networks, the city’s purpose changes accordingly, necessitating a better understanding of how protocols are situated within the urban environment.