Smart
Cities: Are We Ready?
Every week we keep hearing news about new
smart city initiatives being designed, planned, executed and initiated.
Developed, developing, non-developing- all countries are looking at smart
cities as solutions to a basic problem which has been plaguing mankind from the
beginning of time- infrastructure. City planners and urban economy analysts
have all been proponents of smart cities as cheaper digital devices, greater
Internet connectivity and the rise of IT-enabled features in our daily homes
have allowed this concept to become a reality.
These days, there have been constant
updates on self-driving cars, digital streetlights, pavements and other
sensor-laden features. While these are an obvious welcome, we must realize the
importance of creating a ‘smart infrastructure’- a back-end infrastructure which
must be set up in the upcoming years to operate, manage and store all
information coming from the former.
For any city, its basic tenets are roadways
and streets. Hence, redesigning them to adapt to new smart city features would
be the first fundamental change which must be brought in. More importantly,
they must be inclusive of all-electric vehicles, public transit, pedestrians.
More governance from the public must be expected. In fact, there are apps now
which would help in urban planning by mapping potential scenarios- crowd
sourcing decisions might be the way forward for city management.
Efforts must be raised on making smart
cities to co-exist with urban facilities. Combining such technologies would
improve daily civil services such as transport, sanitation, water, healthcare,
waste and traffic management, ensuring greater safety and quality of such
services. Just imagine the possibilities of such an interweaved system: more
time saved, millions of dollars saved and greater success rate.
“Smart infrastructure is the foundation for
future success, for better paying jobs and for a new era of prosperity for
all,” says Jesse Berst, chairman of the Smart Cities Council, in a welcome
letter on the event’s website. It is imperative that a ‘smart’ infrastructure
must be created to greet the new smart technologically-advanced cities.
