The App of Life 手機應用：讓城市生活更完美

Simon+Kuper1

I am a late adopter of new technology， so I only recently discovered that an age-old urban problem had been solved. I was in a restaurant with friends. Outside it was cold， and on Sundays the bus ran only every 20 minutes. When to go to the bus stop？ My friend pulled out his smartphone， and told me when my bus would arrive. It was a little trick—like finding another friends house on my smartphones GPS with three tired children in tow2）—but it made urban living easier. Thanks largely to smartphones， this is probably the best time ever to live in a packed city.

As my economics guru3） Stefan Szymanski4） explains， when the internet arrived many pundits5） predicted the decline of cities. After all， why live in a flat in Hackney6） when you could send emails from an old farmhouse overlooking a sheep meadow？ But the prediction was wrong. Overcrowded， overpriced cities only became more popular， which is why Hackney flats have gotten so expensive. Meanwhile the countryside has turned into something of a desert， inhabited by farmers and old people， and used by the rest of us chiefly for long walks. In 2008， for the first time ever， most humans lived in cities.

They are lured by social networks. To be rural is to be isolated. You live in a village or suburb to have space， not to meet people. But cities create contacts. Someone you run into at a party or your kids playground can give you a job or an idea. The perfect one-on-one urban encounter combines mating， education and business development over a cup of good coffee. Mathieu Lefevre， executive director of the New Cities Foundation， says： “In a dense city you have these two-minute chance encounters that make your life richer. You and I have nothing in common， but maybe we meet and start Facebook together.”

For two centuries， technologies damaged cities. Factories brought dirt and noise. Then cars added sprawl7）： Los Angeles creates fewer encounters than dense Manhattan. Even in the 1990s， the desktop computer swallowed valuable space， and chained each person to his own desk. Carlo Ratti， director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology， says 20th-century technologies were no use to a dense city such as Venice.

But the internet was perfect for cities. It created new networks that reinforced older urban networks. Patrik Regardh， head of strategic marketing for the mobile-phone operator Ericsson， says urbanites email， phone and use social networks more than people outside cities. After all， they have more contacts， and so they communicate more. In Stockholm， for instance， women use Facebook to team up for safe jogging tours at night.

When laptops arrived， urbanites could use the new networks anywhere—but they often still needed a coffee shop to get online. Starbucks rose thanks to the laptop computer. Now， though， people carry their networks around in a 10-sq-in device. This is transforming city life in countless ways： everything from finding a date to finding a bus in an instant. Greg Clark， the UKs minister for cities， says the London bus finder app “actually makes the transport system hugely more effective.” Now we just need a good app to find parking spots. Clark sighs： “A lot of congestion comes literally from people driving around looking for a parking space.”

In short， smartphones are helping make the densest cities the best places to live， as witnessed by property prices in Hong Kong， New York， Paris and London. By contrast， sprawling cities that rely heavily on cars—Moscow， Istanbul， Beijing—are becoming dysfunctional as roads clog up8）. I recently took three hours on a Saturday afternoon to reach a Moscow airport. If you live like that， your networks shrivel9） because you stop meeting people.

The technological revolution in cities has barely begun. Indian slum-dwellers without electricity will soon use solar-powered phones to find cheap healthcare nearby， says Parag Khanna， who， with his wife Ayesha， just published Hybrid Reality： Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization.

The next step is urbanites using technology to help run their cities. Dublin has thrown open its data on everything from water use to transport， hoping that software developers will create apps to improve life. Were starting to see almost an “open-source design” of cities， says Ratti.

Elisée Reclus10）， a 19th-century thinker， said the ideal city would combine rural pleasures with urban pleasures. Ratti says， “And I think that has happened.” In post-industrial London， the war on cars has made the air and the river cleaner. In cities everywhere， tiny or invisible technologies are replacing big old industrial technologies. That has created space for bicycles， new parks， piers and summertime beaches， all packed with people on smartphones. Steve Jobs was a lifelong suburbanite， but it turns out he perfected the city.

我是一個較晚使用新技術的人，所以我直到最近才發現，一個由來已久的城市問題已經得到解決。我和一幫朋友坐在一家餐廳里，外面天氣冷，而且是周日，公交車每20分鐘才來一趟。該何時前往公交站呢？我的朋友拿出他的智能手機，然后告訴我公交車將于何時到達。這只是一個小把戲——就和我一邊帶著三個疲憊的孩子，一邊用自己智能手機上的GPS找到另一位朋友的住處差不多——但它卻讓城市生活更加輕松。如今可能是有史以來在一個人滿為患的城市里生活的最好時候，而這很大程度上要歸功于智能手機。

正如我的經濟學導師斯特凡·希曼斯基解釋的那樣，當互聯網時代到來時，很多專家都預言城市將要衰落。畢竟當你住在可以俯瞰一片牧羊場的古樸農舍里就能收發郵件時，你又何必要住在哈克尼的一套公寓里呢？但是這個預言錯了。擁擠不堪、物價過高的城市只會變得更受歡迎，這也是為什么哈克尼的公寓售價如此之高。與此同時，鄉村已經變得有點荒涼，只有農民和老年人住在那里，其余的人則主要把它當成徒步旅行的場所。2008年，有史以來第一次，大多數人都住在了城市里。

因為人們受到社交網絡的誘惑。而生活在農村容易被孤立。你住在村莊或郊區能獲得空間，卻無法與人會面。但是城市能為人們創造接觸的機會。你在派對上或者你的孩子們的游樂場上偶遇的人能給你提供一份工作或者一個主意。城市里完美的“一對一”邂逅能讓你在品嘗一杯美味咖啡的時間里同時進行交友、教育和業務拓展。新城市基金會執行董事馬蒂厄·勒費爾說：“在一個人口密集的城市，你擁有很多與人偶遇兩分鐘便能讓你的生活更精彩的機會。你我可能沒什么共同之處，但是可能我們相遇后就開始一起開個像Facebook一樣的公司。”

在過去的兩百年里，技術的進步對城市造成了破壞。工廠帶來了灰塵和噪音。接著汽車促使了城市的無序擴張：洛杉磯的偶遇概率要低于人口密集的曼哈頓。即使在上世紀90年代，臺式電腦也在占領個人的寶貴空間的同時，把每個人都束縛在各自的書桌前。麻省理工學院感應城市實驗室的主任卡洛·拉蒂表示，20世紀發展起來的技術對于諸如威尼斯這樣人口密集的城市來說是無益的。

但是互聯網技術完全適合城市的發展。它創造了新型的網絡，該網絡又加強了城市的老式社交網絡。手機運營商愛立信公司的戰略營銷部經理帕特里克·雷高指出，城市居民發郵件、打電話和使用社交網絡的頻率要高于非城市居民。畢竟，他們有更多接觸的機會，因此交流也更多。比如，在斯德哥爾摩，女性利用Facebook組團在晚上慢跑以保證安全。

筆記本電腦出現后，城市居民能在任何地方使用新型網絡——但是在很多情況下，他們仍需要走進一家咖啡店才能上網。星巴克的興起就得益于筆記本電腦。而如今，人們可以通過十平方英寸的設備隨時隨地上網。這正改變著城市生活的方方面面，從找約會對象到飛快地搜索某輛公交車都可以實現。英國城市大臣格雷格·克拉克指出，倫敦公交搜索應用“實際上大大提高了交通系統的效率”。如今，我們只需要一個不錯的應用幫我們尋找停車位。卡拉克感嘆道：“很多道路堵塞其實是由人們開車四處尋找停車位所造成的。”

簡而言之，智能手機正使得人口最密集的城市成為最宜居的地方，這一點由香港、紐約、巴黎和倫敦的房地產價格可以作證。相比之下，那些嚴重依賴汽車而無序擴張的城市——莫斯科、伊斯坦布爾和北京——正因為道路擁擠而變得運行不暢。最近一個周六下午，我花了三個小時才到達莫斯科機場。如果你照那樣生活，你的社交網絡將會縮小，因為你會不愿與他人會面。

城市的技術革命才剛剛開始。保勞格·康納表示，現在還沒用上電的印度貧民窟居民很快就能用太陽能充電的手機來搜索附近價格便宜的醫療服務。保勞格和他的妻子艾莎剛剛一起出版了《混合現實：在新興的人類技術文明中繁榮》一書。

下一步是城市居民運用技術來協助管理自己的城市。都柏林已經向外公布了從用水到交通的所有數據，希望軟件開發者們能研發出改善生活的各種應用。拉蒂稱，我們將看到對城市的一次近乎“開源的設計”。

19世紀的思想家埃利澤·勒克呂曾說過，理想型城市應能將田園的樂趣和城市的快樂融合在一起。拉蒂認為：“我想這已經變成了現實。”后工業時代的倫敦對汽車的管制已讓空氣和河水更干凈。在城市的各個地方，微型的或是看不見的技術正在取代大規模的傳統工業技術。這已經為自行車、新公園、碼頭和夏日海灘創造了空間，這些空間將被智能手機的用戶們填滿。斯蒂芬·喬布斯一生都住在郊區，但結果表明他讓城市變得完美。

1. Simon Kuper：西蒙·庫珀（1969～），英國撰稿人，歐洲最好的足球記者之一，畢業于英國牛津大學，擅長從人類學的角度來寫體育，曾供職于《衛報》及《觀察家報》等，現為英國《金融時報》專欄作家。

2. in tow：（被）拖著；隨著，陪伴著

3. guru [?ɡ?ru?] n. 導師，指導者

4. Stefan Szymanski：斯特凡·希曼斯基，經濟學教授，倫敦卡斯商學院MBA課程主任，著名的體育經濟學家，曾與本文作者合著《足球經濟學》（Soccernomics）。

5. pundit [?p?nd?t] n. 專家；學者；權威，大師

6. Hackney：哈克尼區，英國英格蘭大倫敦內的倫敦自治市之一，位于大倫敦中北部。

7. sprawl [spr??l] n. （城市的）無計劃擴展

8. clog up：堵塞

9. shrivel [??r?vl] vi. 變小，減少

10. Elisée Reclus：埃利澤·勒克呂（1830～1905），法國地理學家，著有19卷巨著《宇宙地理》（Universal Geography），并因此獲得巴黎地理協會的金獎。