The smart city has moved in recent years from a worthy idea in principle to a rapidly occurring reality.
Cities around the world are making extensive use of information and communication technology (ICT) to improve the overall efficiency of urban operations, make information accessible to citizens, provide better quality government services, and improve the general well-being of the city’s residents.
But there is a problem. The approach to creating a ‘smart’ city has often occurred in fragmented, isolated initiatives that do not always connect to each other and optimize city planning as a whole. These initiatives also tend to affect a small area of the city, and not the city as a whole.
The consequence of this lack of holistic planning is that while some citizens reap the benefits, and are able to consider digital services as normal, many urban populations are left behind.
Here are just a few examples of how this inconsistent approach is slowing down smart city development:
Inclusion of people with different abilities: many services are inaccessible to the elderly and disabled, including the blind and deaf. Modern cities also have many inhabitants who do not necessarily speak the local language, and are excluded from intelligent services.
Services that are not identical: take the example of the smart parking application that allows you to find parking and pay automatically with your smartphone, but is not linked to any electric bike stations or public transport that can help you move forward when you travel within the city.
Underutilized environmental knowledge: Electricity and water meters use smart billing, but in most cases they are not involved in monitoring the global carbon footprint, or tracking waste usage.
A more unified vision
Against this backdrop, what is needed is a bigger, more integrated vision of how a smart city can work for its people. It is a vision of how to plan smart cities by connecting different domains of the city and responding to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) worldwide. In this way, mobility, energy, environment, health, education, security and economy are not treated separately, but as a whole, a constant continuation of human-centered services.
Smart cities must become better at creating an open dialogue platform available to all citizens. They should be transparent and available to all through open data portals or mobile apps. It allows residents to interact with large amounts of data, as well as complete personal tasks such as paying bills, finding efficient transportation and evaluating home energy consumption.
A city that feels like home
Smart cities must also account for the social infrastructure that provides a cultural fabric, making the city attractive to residents and offering a sense of local identity. It is often the social and cultural aspects of a city that citizens find make it the most attractive place to live – aspects such as green open spaces, a wide selection of retail stores, and chaotic nightlife. This is especially important for cities that are being created ‘from scratch’ (rather than already existing) and need to find effective ways to attract residents.
Private and public – an essential partnership
Often, and especially in the areas of real estate, transportation and business, private infrastructure is left to grow organically, without connection to public planning. Compactness – the density of services and facilities available – is essential to the city environment, and can only be achieved through careful, collaborative planning between the public and private sectors. This includes the conversion of unused land.
Forward-thinking cities, in their quest to become smarter, must develop a planning culture that engages directly with the private sector. It is important that more efforts are made to connect these two different components of a city, and ensure that they can coexist and provide an optimal mix of services (as well as work) for citizens.
In general, smart cities must put citizens at the center of all activities. Disjointed or sporadic smart city services do not fulfill this goal so intelligent planning and collaboration between the public and private sectors must take place immediately to make everything connected for truly smart cities.
About the Author
Xavier Mongin is the Global Director for Government, Defense, and Smart Cities at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. We are Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. Our mission is to make everyone connected with digital age networking, communication and cloud solutions. Our solutions are tailored to our customers’ industries providing built-in security and limited environmental impact. We offer flexible business models: in the Cloud, on premises, and hybrid. More than 100 years of innovation have made us a trusted advisor to more than 830,000 customers worldwide.
Featured image: ©Dlgilife
