The concept of a “Smart City” has been fashionable in recent years. Cities have claimed to be smart, based on their use of information and communication technology (ICT) for marketing purposes and to make it attractive to skilled labour. For a city to be smart, it has to be based on something more than ICT (Allwinkle & Cruickshank, 2011). While there are a variety of definitions for a smart city, the key concept of a “Smart City” relates to the use of ICT infrastructure as a means to enable social, environmental, economic and cultural developments (Allwinkle & Cruickshank, 2011).
Ensuring livable conditions within the rapid urban population growth requires an understanding of the “Smart City” concept (Nam, et al., 2012). Several definitions have been put forward. However, there are two widely popular definitions in the urban planning literature suggested by Giffinger and Nam and Pardo.
According to Nam and Pardo (2011), the smart city should be regarded as a combination of three dimension: Technology which is based in the use of ICT infrastructure to improve life within a city; People which is based on education, learning and knowledge, because well educated people strengthen human infrastructure and collective decision making; and Institutions which is based on governance, policy and cooperation between stakeholders.
Scholar Rudolf Giffinger from the Vienna University of Technology identified the operation of at least six dimensions in a smart city. These dimensions
Providing solutions for the good city pose questions such as: good for whom? what is good? etc. These questions prompt that good and city are two words that form more questions than answers. In these nebula of questions urban design plays an important role because its nature is in the urban and therefore in the city. As Madanipour points out, urban design occupies a potentially strategic place in shaping the city of the future (Madanipour, 2006).
Urban sustainability is the idea that an urban area can be organised without excessive reliance on the surrounding countryside and be able to power itself with renewable sources of energy. The aim of this is to create the smallest possible environmental footprint and to produce the lowest quantity of pollution possible, to efficiently use land, compost used materials, recycle it or convert waste-to-energy, and to make the urban area overall contribution to climate change minimal. Therefore allowing the next generations and future generations to have the required resources without compromising them. However sustainably needs to focus also on other issues such as crime and economic factors.
Bigio, G and Dahiya, B, (2004) “Urban Environment and Infrastructure towards Livable Cities.” The World Bank, USA.
Planning and management needs to happen in all countries over the world because no matter how different the level of development between countries the problems will be same in urban areas. These problems that need to be planned and managed in the urban areas of the city are becoming increasingly significant due to the fact that there has been a hug increase in the number of people living in cities worldwide, just over fifty percent of the world are now living in urban areas. The main reason for this is the huge increase in urbanisation which is defined as an increase in the proportion of
It is estimated that over 50% of the world’s population now lives in urban areas and that this will rise to 70% by 2050. Such a change will
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.
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
This documentary is abut the concept of “Smart City” a current issue but however unknown to many people.
To prevent these kinds of issues, most cities need to focus on effective planning and innovative practices. This will create more stable economic growth and ensure that every part of the city receives the same kind of services. To achieve these objectives requires examining the various components and players involved in the process. Together, these elements will offer the greatest insights as to how cities should strategize and
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.
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 city that we modeled is Chicago, and what we noticed throughout our intense research was that Chicago most resembles the Sector Model. Hoyt’s Sector Model is an urban city model describing urban land uses and patterns. In this model, social classes are separated by a series of sectors and or wedges which originate from the core, the central business district, and in the case of Chicago, the ‘Chicago Loop’. The blah blah blah of Chicago has lead to the formation of these characteristics that so closely resembles Hoyt’s Model.
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