Smart Cities

Sustainable cities are an ecosystem with not many environmental issues. Some of the issues that are not present within a sustainable city are air pollution, mass population and excessive water and energy usage. A sustainable city does not have a negative impact on the environment. It has a small ecological footprint, which is the impact of a person or community on the environment. It would also have a lot of greenery, meaning a lot of vegetation and use renewable energy, solar panels and wind energy.

Urban development is the social, cultural, economic and physical development of cities. The development of cities is the main topic of human geography. Urban development can be used in different ways by the researchers. It can cause the price of things to increase fast. Urban development occurs in major cities like New York City, Tokyo, Japan. Urban development started back in the earlier cities like Mesopotamia, Egypt. This spreads the culture that affect people which makes them want to go to the major cities. Over fifty percent of the earth’s population lives in urban areas. Studies show by 2045 that the number of people living in a urban area will increase.

In this ted talk by Parag Khanna, How Megacities are changing the map of the world. The main theme of the talk is about how global networking civilizations in which the cities are now been compete more than the borders. This means that we are now moving into the a world where technologies has taken place in most of our cities, for example the way the infrastructural development and hyper-connected cities are rising to the top more than the state(page 12.10) due to the rapid growing of the people moving to the cities.

The wellbeing of people is interconnected with the wellbeing of cities. What people think and feel about the city is highly interacted with the civilization and urbanization of the city, yet planning and urban design also play a crucial role in this situation. Cities are where humanity’s innovation, creative and intellectual ideation take place. These potentials that come from human integration is major fact that lead to the success of a

One of the ways legislation has done this is by making San Francisco a less wasteful and greener city. In 2012 San Francisco was nominated the greenest city in the United States. San Francisco is a smart city which entails that “use information and communication technologies to be more intelligent and efficient in the use of resources, resulting in cost and energy savings, improved service

In today’s society an individual can travel to cities all over the world and experience different technological innovations in various forms. Skyscrapers, highway systems, and suspension bridges are all forms of innovation that, through the help of engineering and complex technological systems, can be observed in nearly every city around the world. These technological innovations have allowed sprawling urban environments to become the definition of a developed country, despite their infamous reputation for loud noises, traffic, and decreased air quality. Seen and unseen forces such as organization of labor and an expanded industry base gave rise to these urban centers through thoughtful planning and execution.

It became “virtual” and turned the real architectural landscape of the city into the collection of spaces and ties between them. The city space started to exist in the global environment, where the distance between two continents can be overcome in shorter time than the distance between two neighbouring areas that have traffic jam. A modern city that preserves the features of its cultural identity and combines them with the progressive technologies of life organization has the biggest chances to become attractive for the citizens and compete for the best of them with other global

Looking at the smart growth planning concept, it is clear that it has gained traction and is being embraced as a counter measure to urban sprawl. Smart growth is a concept that advocates economic and community development that is carefully planned and that attempts to check urban sprawl and worsening conditions of the environment. This program promotes walk able and bike able urban areas with mixed-use development and road construction on a limited scale (Joel 3). At the core of the smart growth concept of planning is the need to address issues of transportation, population density, and housing through the construction of mixed-use properties. Compact, mixed use and infill development near transit, jobs, shops, schools, and other community centers can strengthen communities, expand housing choices and affordability, as well as promote

This documentary is abut the concept of “Smart City” a current issue but however unknown to many people.

Since the Industrialization, cities attracted large amounts of labor force from rural to urban to engage in industries, which changed the structure of cities by increasing huge population. In addition, changing the structure of cities produces lots of problems, such as traffic congestion causes more serious air pollution, and insufficient housing problem; therefore, central cities began to extend the boundaries to desire better living environment to react the problems. However, urban sprawl is not the only one answer to solve the problems, and sprawling cities worse the problems. Thus, some ideas and critiques came out to analysis and solve sprawl, such as emerging smart growth and sustainable development to achieve a better living environment. Urban sprawl is not only affect the living style, such as commuting longer distance and time between workplace and home, but also influence our economic and government decision, for example, the costs of infrastructure in suburban is higher than the maintenance fee of existing infrastructure in city core. As a result, I want to know the history about sprawling, how sprawl affect cities, and how planners and people react to sprawl.

It is estimated that in the near future, 2 out of 2 people will live in cities. This is due to main reason that people naturally tend to concentrate in areas with desirable conditions. What does the cities offer as to why it is stated that the “cities will be our future”.

Smart growth is choosing a better way for communities and cities to grow without hurting the environment. “For example, the recently emerged concept smart growth is inviting communities and metropolitan areas to address sprawl and purposely choose to develop in more environmentally sustainable ways. The concept recognizes that growth will occur and focuses on economic, environmental,

A sustainable city is when harmony is reached between the environment, economy and society. Environmentally, sustainable cities are ecologically friendly by using alternative sources of energy such as solar or wind power. Economically, governments should share a similar decision-making process with institutions and with the public by having a common belief in what should be done by improving sustainability. Sorensen, Marcotullio, and Grant (2004), find that a good decision making process consists of planning and control at the municipal and national political levels which would allow local level functions to become reinforced. Socially, sustainable cities are classless, meaning that there are no social divisions which serve as limits; leading to a more equal society. One of the many ideas would be using mixed housing to remove the class divisions between people. Also, city streets would be walkable, with businesses and services located at close proximity to promote a healthier lifestyle and serve as an alternative to using cars for transportation. The writers differ in their analysis when examining the approaches to improving sustainability in cities. This section will analyze four important ideas on how cities can become more sustainable.

The use of IoT has already impacted the way cities operate. The term smart cities, is used to describe a city that possesses an IoT oriented infrastructure. “In a smart city, the digital technologies translate into better public services for inhabitants and better use of resources while reducing environmental impacts”. [3] For a smart city to be feasible, IoT must provide intelligence, interconnection, and instrumentation. Wi-Fi-enabled smart devices and low-cost sensors are components of the smart city and allow devices a way to communicate with the public via the internet. These devices collect real-time data, which not only improves the lives of residents, but transforms several sectors of public service as well. Transportation has been revolutionized by smart traffic management systems which gather data from an array of magnetic road sensors and hundreds of cameras. The result is less delay at major stop lights and increased travel speeds, because enabled drivers can see which lights are busy and monitor these areas for other vehicles and pedestrians. To lower traffic and driver search times for parking spots, parking sensors that detect parking-spaces for drivers are installed in major cities. Street lights use a method of energy saving known as adaptive lighting which enables them to determine their brightness setting, appropriate for a given situation. The smart city solution to conserving energy is through smart girds. A smart grid serves several energy management

The concept of the internet of things abbreviated as IoT was introduced as early as the late 90’s by Kevin Ashton, the Executive Director of Auto-ID Labs and a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now, “the Internet of things is already a disruptive technology capable of determining fundamental changes that are happening in everyday life, and it is considered the fourth industrial revolution.” (Hucanu) The Internet of Things (IoT)