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Smart city
The world human population has been growing exponentially and human has been looking for new technology and ideas to improve urbanization planning and to develop a “Smart City” in order to sustain the human population. But how would you define a “smart city”? What is the main aspect to look into when we are trying to develop a smart city? Should we look into renewable energy? Pollution prevention? Smart and efficient mass transportation? Sustainable agriculture? Security and video surveillance? Fire and disaster management? Public health and entertainment?
64 months ago
3 answers
I have worked on various approaches to the 'Smart City' for about a decade and I appreciate the question. I would answer yes to all the above. It is a simple vision.
What we do not consider is how to educate our 'Smart City' citizens, What values we will need to develop, plan training for the support jobs and skills and what institutions we will need to build and transition from what we have now. Further we do not consider how we measure progress or report towards a 'Smart City' vision or reward our city employees for their contribution. Have you ever read a municipal budget? (Seriously lacking in indicators.) A serious backcasting exercise is needed.
First step - Does your city report its carbon footprint? Does your city have a plan to reduce its footprint (decarbonization of energy, tax its citizens accordingly) and waste recovery?
64 months ago
Currently, "Smart" in front of any word, has come to mean it is part of a heavily digital entity connecting one part of a technology, city, etc. to other digital technologies. In principle this sounds just fine as it can acomplish many positive ends.
The problem is, particularly in power systems (the grid(s) it can be subject to cyberattacks that can partially to totally incapacitate operations for sizeable periods of time. Witness the cyberattack on Ukraine in 2016 as one example and they were not even over digitized.
Expect more of this as we deploy all sorts of digital technology whch can be comandeered into botnets. For details on this, please see my testimony to the Connecticut Public Utility Regulatory Authority at https://drive.google.com/file/d/10F5I70PIZgqgps8SCCyaZ8dgzixqBYjT/view?usp=sharing
64 months ago
The word "smart " has other connotations to me. It would mean a city that is cashless in that everything is paid for by a "smart" card like the contactless card we have in UK or via phone to someones/a business bank account as I paid for my car service today. One of the problems is that it reduces the workforce as has happened in supermarkets with the promotion of self service tills where you pay with a card.
64 months ago
