for bleating goats and evil-tempered camels. They
went there to look and listen and to marvel, to
buy and be amused. But mostly they went to meet
each other. And to talk.”
The Industrial Revolution of 1770-1870
changed the marketplace as we
knew it. Sprawling factories
offering decent pay and
guaranteed work sprung up
on the outskirts of cities,
which led to social
segregation – in the form
of harsh production lines
and, even up until the end
of the 20th century, work
cubicles and the boss’s
infamous corner-office.
Then came Netscape
Navigator in 1994 and the
internet began to reconnect
people in ways we could only begin
to imagine. There have been numerous
catalysts for this monumental leap – from GPS
mapping technology, to smartphone apps, to the
‘trust-leap’ that sharing economy model
platforms such as Uber, Airbnb and Kerb have
engendered. But urban transportation is one of
the sectors which will be most dramatically
impacted by these changes.
The 21st century marketplace
Today, the marketplace is creeping back into our
daily lives. The internet spawned online
marketplaces such as eBay, Amazon, Alibaba
and Facebook – where people could congregate,
barter and chat – while our quest for a more
transcendent existence has seen farmers’
markets, organic produce and boutique craft
stores reappearing in cities as diverse as San
Francisco, Santiago and Saigon. The walls are
coming down on the segregated workplaces of
the past two centuries, as employers’ once-rigid
attitudes to flexible work environments soften,
as co-working alternatives such as WeWork
proliferate and as the financial reality of fiveyear
office leases eats deeper into margins.
Coupled with this is the dawning realization
among governments that cities have become
inhumane environments. Pollution,
congestion and stress have
created a ‘quality of life’ that is
anything but.
The smart city movement
has fueled positive
competition between
governments at a local,
federal and international
level. Ride-hailing
companies like Uber, Grab
and Ola might not yet have
proved their financial
viability, but they’ve certainly
proved their popularity.
Meanwhile, smart-parking
platforms such as Kerb, Rover and
Arrive have demonstrated that people
are willing to rent out their parking spaces when
they’re not being used, in return for a tidy
income – teaching the same lesson to commercial
car parks that Airbnb taught hotels.
The stalls of yesteryear’s marketplace are
reappearing in cities across the world in the
form of Bikram yoga rooms, beeswax candle
shops and Burgundy tasting bars. People are
craving more meaningful urban environments
in which to interact with one another. The
congestion, noise, parking and pollution have
suddenly become too much. Citizens want
their cities back. The implications for local
authorities, commercial landlords and vehicle
manufacturers will be of a magnitude never
imagined. Don’t be surprised to see many swept
away by this wave of change. ■
Rob Brown is co-founder and managing director of
Kerb, a global peer-to-peer and business-to-business
parking marketplace. Kerb is available on iOS,
Androd and via www.kerb.works
Above: The smart
city of the future
will be a more
welcoming urban
environment,
and will be easier
to visit thanks
to peer-to-peer
parking services
IMAGES: METAMORWORKS, WAYNE_0216, RH2010, SITTINAN, B ILANOL/STOCK.ADOBE.COM
20
The number of different
languages the smart
parking platform Kerb
is available in
SMART CITIES & PARKING |
062 Intertraffic World | Annual Showcase 2020
/STOCK.ADOBE.COM
/www.kerb.works
/STOCK.ADOBE.COM