Smart Cities, Smart Future

Showcasing Tomorrow

Mike Barlow, Cornelia Levy-Bencheton

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781119516200
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica pubblica in ambito scientifico e tecnologico

Are you curious about smart cities? You should be! By mid-century, two-thirds of us will live in cities. The world of tomorrow will be a world of cities. But will they be smart cities? Smart cities are complex blends of technologies, systems and services designed and orchestrated to help people lead productive, fulfilling, safe and happy lives.

This remarkable book is a window into our shared future. In crisp language and sharp detail, Mike Barlow and Cornelia Lévy-Bencheton explain how smart cities are powerful forces for positive change. With keen eyes and warm hearts, they invite readers to imagine the world of tomorrow, a fascinating world of connected cities and communities. They capture and convey the depth and richness of the worldwide smart city movement.

Smart Cities, Smart Future describes the impact of smart city projects on people in towns, cities and nations around the world. The book includes descriptions of ongoing smart city projects in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Looking Ahead to an Urban World

No two smart cities are alike. No one can say with certainty or precision what the term "smart city" means. There is no standard definition or common template. Today, smart cities are works in progress. They emerge from our hopes and our dreams.

This book provides you with the knowledge and insight you need to participate in the smart city movement. It explains how smart cities are "systems of systems" and introduces key concepts such as interoperability, open standards, resiliency, agility, adaptability and continuous improvement.

Includes Detailed Glossary of Terms and Essential Vocabulary

The book includes a detailed comprehensive glossary of essential smart city terms. The glossary will become your indispensable resource as you engage more deeply with the smart city movement and become more involved in planning our common future in an urban world.

Carefully Researched and Crisply Written

Smart Cities, Smart Future is carefully researched and fully documented. It includes interviews with leaders and experts in multiple disciplines essential to the development of smart cities, towns, regions, states and nations.

Written in the clean style of modern journalism, the book offers a strong and compelling narrative of a changing world. It reminds us that we are responsible for choosing our destiny and determining the shape of things to come.

The smart city movement is gaining speed and momentum. Read this book, and enjoy the ride!

Chapter 1
Cities of Our Dreams

EL DORADO, Atlantis, Shambhala, Avalon, Xanadu, and Shangri-La. Those fabled places inspire our dreams. They are fantasies that nourish our imagination, spark our curiosity, and embolden us to envision what could be.

The smart city is a modern myth, a dream for our time. It's an archetype and an ideal, formed in the realm of our collective unconscious. It's a magical place we long for, a vision shimmering in the distance and yet embedded deeply in our psyche.

For those of us who love cities, the smart city is where we want to live, work, play, raise a family, start a business, or simply stroll around on a pleasant day. The smart city inspires genius and originality. It also offers tranquility and peace.

This book approaches the smart city from the perspective of the human spirit. In the chapters ahead, you will learn about people using technology, rather than about technology itself.

This is a book for dreamers and visionaries. We invite you to dream along with us and to imagine the world your children and grandchildren will inhabit.

Today, more than half of the world's population lives in cities. The most urbanized regions of the world are North America (82 percent of the population lives in urban areas), Latin America and the Caribbean (81 percent), Europe (74 percent), and Oceania (68 percent). Africa remains mostly rural, with only 43 percent of its population living in cities.

About half of the population of Asia now lives in cities. That proportion will surely grow as Asian economies modernize and expand. Asia is still comparatively rural, but that won't be the case for much longer.

Inescapably, we are becoming an urban planet. From 1950 to 2018, the urban population jumped from 751 million to 4.2 billion. By midcentury, two-thirds of us will be urbanites. Cities will grow in size and scale; by 2030, the world will have more than 43 megacities with populations of at least 10 million.¹ Clearly, the world of tomorrow will be a world of cities (Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Global urban population growth

Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision (New York: United Nations, 16 May 2018).

Urbanization is not a new trend; people have been migrating to cities for millennia. What's changed? The velocity of migration has accelerated significantly. “Three or four thousand years ago, you needed an oxcart and a brave heart to make the arduous journey from the hinterlands to the nearest walled settlement,” we wrote in Smart Cities, Smarter Citizens. “Today, you can take an airplane from practically anywhere and arrive at the city of your choice in hours.”²

What hasn't changed? The basic socioeconomic drivers are the same. For as long as there have been cities, city living has been considered a step up from the countryside. Cities offer more economic opportunities, higher standards of living, more services, better health, and more access to culture than rural communities.³ That's why people move to cities.

In addition to being generators of wealth, cities possess intrinsic value. Small patches of urban real estate are worth much more than similar patches of land in rural or suburban areas. For investors, city land is a hot commodity.

A detailed study by economists at the University of Illinois and the University of Michigan estimated that 76,581 square miles of urban land in the United States is worth roughly $25 trillion. That works out to approximately $511,000 per acre. As the study's authors observe, a typical fifth-acre residential lot is worth about $100,000 and a typical parking space is worth $2,000. The most expensive urban real estate in the United States is found in central Manhattan, where land is valued at $123 million per acre.⁴

Part of the reason for the sky-high value of city land is simple economics: The demand for urban space is rising, and the supply of urban space is limited by physical constraints.

The high cost of urban real estate is also driven by desire. Cities work on our emotions and excite our passions. They are magnets for people and businesses; they offer intangible benefits that generations of poets, songwriters, and novelists have tried to capture.

In The Warhol Economy, Elizabeth Currid observes how cities “attract the human capital that drives the economy.” Currid's book focuses on New York City, yet her insight can be applied globally. In addition to providing ample opportunities for face-to-face contact, cities offer “dense networks of both collaboration and competition” that are necessary for maintaining strong and vibrant economies.

Cities provide the critical mass necessary for generating life-altering opportunities and learning experiences. When we confront other human beings, make eye contact and engage with strangers, we become sharper, smarter, and more confident. That's why city folk often seem to have an “edge.” We're proud of our abilities to discern instantly between someone who is merely odd and someone who is potentially dangerous.

Metropolitan habitats provide the vital sparks that enliven our existences. Jon Jennings, the city manager of Portland, Maine, calls the city's quality of life its “secret sauce.” When Portland decided to use advanced technologies, such as radar sensors and artificial intelligence to reduce traffic congestion, its goal was improving the lives of its residents and making it easier for tourists who support the local economy to navigate city streets.

For Jennings, the smart-city movement is about rebuilding trust in government and providing better municipal services. It's also about helping cities adjust to the needs and expectations of a new generation.

“We're all busier. We all lead active lives. We would all prefer to have fewer hassles,” Jennings says. “Today, we have expectations that we can get things done immediately, or at least more rapidly than was possible in the past. When we apply new technologies in Portland, we're doing it to make people's lives easier.”

What Makes a City Smart?

What is a smart city and how is it different from our traditional notion of a city? There is no single definition for a smart city. The term itself is a moving target; no one can agree on exactly what it means.

At minimum, it's a technologically enabled version of what urban activist and writer Jane Jacobs described as a “fantastically dynamic” place, a “fertile ground” for millions of people who hope and plan for better lives.

A smart city encourages people to walk, meet, talk, and congregate on streets, in shops, and in public spaces. It's a place where people interact easily, effortlessly, and joyfully with each other and with their environment. It's a place of random informal interactions, serendipitous meetings, and spontaneous relationships.

Most of all, it's a place where people feel safe—not because they are surrounded by cops and cameras, but because the city's cyber-physical infrastructure is designed intentionally for the purpose of creating an atmosphere of trust, community and shared responsibility.

Smart cities make it easy for people to travel from one neighborhood to another. They provide a mix of transportation solutions that reduce traffic congestion and diminish harmful emissions from vehicles.

They provide seamless broadband and Wi-Fi coverage. In a smart city, there are no dead zones and no dropped calls. Free charging stations are conveniently placed; no one worries about the batteries in their phones dying.

Smart cities take energy efficiency to the next level; they generate more power than they con...