Smart Cities are urban design and urban development approach that leverages recent Information Technology and Communication Technology advancements to provide a higher standard of living and more environmentally conscious and energy efficient city developments.
In the first post on the series, I will put on my rosy glasses and see what makes "Smart City" a good pitch.
Historically, cities have been the grounds where different political powers and social systems have arisen, and have faded away within the context of a settlement. As they say "Rome was not built in a day", most cities around the world are actually layers of cities built on top of one another, as a patchwork of different systems and sensibilities of different times and eras. In that context, Smart Cities are another flavor and style being crafted out of recent and modern technological advancements, as well as to solve some of the problems of previous city models. To understand how Smart Cities fit into the overall narrative, let us start with how cities came into being.
Understanding cities before they became Smart
In the beginning of human cities, these were market towns, or trading ports, where the cultivators and traders of their time came to buy and sell their wares. They slowly morphed into seats of political power as their wealth and influence grew leading to an age of empires. As empires grew, cities became fortified entities that could defend themselves from invading armies. The loot in these cases was taxes collected from the hinterland and armies raised from that capital to invade and protect.Industrial and Imperial Advancement
During renaissance, cities like Florence became seats of cultural and artistic revolutions and also scientific discoveries funded by benevolent rulers. This growth in learning cities in Persia, Middle East and India preceded the development of learning cities in Europe.Eventually the scientific discoveries of renaissance led to Industrial revolution and funding of expanding navies and trading routes to develop resource and raw material supply chains. Cities during the Industrial revolution evolved from markets to a combination of trading and production centers. As a result they became polluting slums where the workers migrated from hinterland to find economic opportunities. The living conditions also gave rise to several epidemics due to prevalent living conditions, but eventually led rise to development of modern public health systems.
Automobile and Suburbia
As the societies understood the perils of Industrial revolution, as well as the horse carriage gave way to mass produced automobiles at the turn of the century, a movement started to reduce densities and provide more countryside style of living through development of modern sub-urbia. The development of electricity, modern water and waste water systems, telephone, radio and television allowed sub-urban dwellers to stay in single family residences and yet be part of the urban economy in some shape or form.Modern communication revolution
While the Industrial revolution and Automobile were the foundation technologies of previous re-configuration of cities, the Smart City moniker definitely relies on TCP-IP networks. Starting from wired connections, TCP-IP based networks owe their popularity to an amount of scalability as well as some resilience. TCP-IP networks now bridge the high bandwidth networks found in many western homes and businesses with broad-band, as well as mobile networks such as GPRS, 3G and now LTE (4G). The ubiquity of TCP-IP networks has made "getting connected", a lot cheaper and easier.The digital connection and sensor revolution
As modern TCP-IP networks have evolved, it has become possible to start connecting many of the sensor-based systems that have been deployed in many modern systems. Sensors can be connected to automation systems that can take decisions based on simple decision trees or algorithms. With these changes, many cities have realized these computerized systems can now be used to make urban systems more efficient and resilient.The earlier transition of TCP-IP communication to Smart phones and wireless computing devices has also meant that people can now access many urban services and information from wherever they are.
But why the demand for cities to get Smart?
Many cities in the developed and developing world realize that the modern cities require a large amount of resources to serve and maintain them. In developed world, the demographic realities and operational budget constraints imply that cities do not have the resources to provide the quality of living they aspired to. They are being increasingly asked to do more with less.In developing world, increased connectivity and exposure to western living standards through social and traditional media now has made a new generation of population, hungry of a standard of living that was only previously in the west. However, they are in a position to chart their course to a more efficient urbanization model instead of an energy and resource intensive development model.
Reducing the resource foot print for 21st century living.
The energy and resources needed to sustain sub-urban development can now be more optimally utilized to allow smarter development models. Automating these aspects of urban development, maintenance and operations is where the so called "Smart City" initiatives make the most sense.Making the Pitch and the Sale
However, there are some challenges that make these not such an easy sell. While the pitch is becoming easier to understand, the sale is not that straightforward. This is primarily because it is perhaps not very clear, who is the customer that will pay for these roll outs. In subsequent posts, we will see how these may have an impact on the eventual realization of Smart Cities around the world.In the next post, I will expand on the opportunities and challenges for Making Cities Smart.
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