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My name is Art Molella and I represent the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention
and Innovation at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, and I’m, in particular,
at the National Museum of American History. My only interests are primarily historical.
I’ve had abiding research interests in technology and urbanisation. Also, I have interests in
the environmental movement, environmental studies, and this really seemed to put them
together and I think the eco city represents those issues for the 21st Century.
It’s clearly taking off in a number of countries after a very slow start. After all, the idea
of an eco city began, really, in the 1970s but didn’t begin to take off until later
on in the late nineties, and now it’s become a mass phenomenon especially in China, in
India and other countries. Europe having quite a few as well. Now, whether this is something
that will have meaning, socially, in terms of the environmental issues that we all face,
history will tell us.
I think you do need indicators to really evaluate the claims that are being made because the
stakes are very high for this. Standardising it, standardising these valuative criteria
is perhaps, in part, can be very difficult to do just because it’s difficult to standardise
anything within a locality, let alone within an international setting. But is there a need?
I think that’s one of the things I want to find out from this conference. How it’s
seen from different countries perspectives.
Well, we’re already seeing some signs of convergence and really, building standards
for example, whether this conversions going to happen across broad sectors is, I just
don’t know at this point. I can’t predict that. It’s asking for an awful lot.
Mostly, I was looking for the diverse perspectives to come out of this. I have looked at eco cities
from various particular perspectives. But I thought what was most valuable about this
conference is the internationalism of the conference, and the bringing together of different
cultures. Because the eco city phenomenon is really a planetary concern, it was really
crucial, for me anyway, to understand the perspective from different nations and cultures.
Well, I guess, not exactly surprised. But I think what interested me are the kinds of,
we’re starting to identify the kinds of tensions and contradictions at work with the
indicator movement, if such could be said to exist, and some of those key tensions are
between local and national and national and international, and how those work out is going
to be very interesting as we discuss this in the conference. So, I think it’s really
just looking at the kinds of conflicts that exist in this area. I particularly think that
it has a lot to do with political differences that exist.