S04 Ep. 13. Joni Baboci - Cities in Flux: from Bureaucratic control to Participatory Ecosystems

In this podcast, we dive into the shift towards a more decentralized and organic approach to city planning with Joni Baboci, an architect, planner, and urban enthusiast. We discuss how the modernist paradigm of deconstructing everything into individual parts and putting them back together linearly is becoming less relevant. Instead, we see a shift towards a more organic, bottom-up approach that looks at the city as a complex and multi-layered system.

Joni Baboci is the founder of Layer, a spatial orchestration platform that empowers teams to govern through tactics and patterns while leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence. He has previously served as the General Director of Planning and Urban Development for the City of Tirana and the director of Atelier Albania, a structure of the Albanian government dealing with national and regional strategic planning. Joni has executed planning, design & development projects at different scales at the national, regional and local levels.

Joni shares his insights on how technological advancements such as AI and blockchain are enabling bottom-up processes in planning and thinking about cities. We also delve into the challenges of making these ideas practical and building a process of making them a reality. Joni highlights the importance of reinventing physical production through local value loops, and incentivizing the interconnection between urban and rural scapes.

We also discuss how DAOs and blockchain technology can improve local governance and participation, and how cities can invest in citizen-based entrepreneurship that let them decide how to perform a job or access a service rather than relying on a top-down approach.

Join us as we explore the potential of a more decentralized and organic approach to city planning with Joni Baboci.

Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: https://boundaryless.io/podcast/joni-baboci

Key highlights 

👉 The static, modernist way of thinking and planning cities is changing.

👉 Looking at cities through a “pattern language”: from communities to subcultures to regions.

👉 Bureaucracy can help to make sure things do not move too fast.

👉 The physical city won’t be replaced by a virtual city or a network state any time soon.

👉 New technologies make it possible to scale governance both on a technical and geographical level.

👉 Communities should be able to make small bets on things that matter to them

Topics (chapters):

(00:00)  Joni Baboci quote

(00:47)  Joni Baboci introduction

(02:13)  A Paradigm Shift Towards Humility in Organizing Cities and Space

(05:56)  The Shift Towards Decentralized and Organic City Planning

(10:57)  The Role of Cities in the Modern World: Cities as Labor Markets and More

(18:15)  Exploring the Pros and Cons of Network Cities: Coexisting with Physical Cities

(23:13)  The Future of Cities and the Interconnection between Urban and Rural Landscapes

(30:55)  Using DAOs and Blockchain to Improve Local Governance and Participation

(40:41)  City and Citizen Entrepreneurship for Bottom-up Development

(47:15)  Joni Baboci's breadcrumbs

 

To find out more about Joni’s work:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dbaboci
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonibaboci
Website: https://joni.baboci.net

Other references and mentions:

Layer: https://getlayer.xyz
Joni’s newsletter: https://thinkthinkthink.substack.com
METABOLISM OF ALBANIA | FABRICations: https://www.fabrications.nl/portfolio-item/metabolismofalbania-2
The Deeper Order of Cities: https://thesideview.co/journal/the-deeper-order-of-cities
Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs: https://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Street-Life-Jane-Jacobs/dp/0345803337
Remote bureaucracy by Dror Poleg: https://www.drorpoleg.com/remote-bureaucracy and https://medium.com/block-science/disambiguating-autonomy-ca84ac87a0bf
Center for International Development | Harvard Kennedy School - https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid
The Atlas of Economic Complexity - https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu
Overthrowing The Network State: Untangling Balaji's Helical Theory of History The Blockchain Socialist: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/overthrowing-the-network-state-untangling-balajis/id1501607045
Metromontagna. Un progetto per riabitare l’Italia - a cura di Filippo Barbera e Antonio De Rossi https://www.donzelli.it/libro/9788855221948
Disambiguating Autonomy. Ceding Control in favor of Coordination… | by BlockScience https://medium.com/block-science/disambiguating-autonomy-ca84ac87a0bf
Designing for children should be plan A — so why aren’t we doing it? | by Joni Baboci: https://medium.com/@dbaboci/designing-for-children-should-be-plan-a-so-why-arent-we-doing-it-71c7d9560b76

Joni’s suggested breadcrumbs (things listeners should check out):

Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State
A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language
Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities by Alain Bertaud: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262038768/order-without-design
A Crude Look at the Whole by John Miller: https://www.amazon.com/Crude-Look-Whole-Science-Business/dp/0465055699
Worlds Hidden in Plain Sight by David Krakauer: https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Hidden-Plain-Sight-Complexity/dp/1947864157
Scale by Geoffrey West: https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Universal-Growth-Organisms-Companies/dp/014311090X

Recorded on 17 February 2023.

 

Get in touch with Boundaryless:

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at https://boundaryless.io/resources/podcast 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/boundaryless_
Website: https://boundaryless.io/contacts
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/boundaryless-pdt-3eo  

Music 

Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: https://blss.io/Podcast-Music