What is a smart city?
According to a focus group on smart sustainable cities, the definition of a smart city
“a smart sustainable city is an innovative city that uses information and communication technologies and other means to improve quality of life, the efficiency of urban operation and services, and competitiveness, while ensuring that it meets the needs of present and future generations with respect to economic, social and environmental aspects.”
Why smart and green?
The smart initiative and the green initiative by many urbanizing populations in developed and developing regions of the world are suddenly going either smart or green if not both at the same time. This predictive turn of events is mainly related to how human beings live with their environment and how they want to exploit the resources at their disposal. More than half of the world is predicted to live in urban population which occupies very small percent of the earth’s crust while it utilizes almost all of the resources produced by nations. Challenges that are facing the modern population forces it to adapt to new technologies that help us manage lifestyle in urban populated regions. The challenges that the smart living and greening initiatives are expected to bring changes in several lifestyle areas like real estate projects, transportation products and technology consumerism with a dose of environmental sustainability.
So where are smart and green cities
Regions like Germany are leaders in Europe where public and private partnership are paving the way for a much smarter and greener urban dwelling for the citizens. The city of Duisburg in Germany has signed a memo of understanding (MoU) with a well-known international information and communications technology company, Huawei, to work together on smart city development. The plan of the city is to make an innovative digital urban dwelling that can make up a model city for others. Intelligent networks are meant to manage public systems like reads and traffic and internet connection and broadband in institutions and public places. It should not be a that Zurich is another smart city with sustainable goals and renewable energy plans that will see them become the first 2000 watts nations they also have a green city project that plans to preserve and increase all green spaces as allocated by the government.
All Asian tigers are engaged in making their cities smart and they have been on the forefront in raising concern that smart cities are not paying as much attention to social and environmental problems as they are paying on the business aspects of this new model of lifestyle Business Daily in Asia can are quoted saying “a 24 hour smart water meter should only work if there is abundant and clean water for common individuals.” Energy utilization is a priority for the Asian giants as they are very dependent on the manufacturing economy which is quite energy intensive and relies on its availability distribution and affordability for any growth or change. Smart cities are popping up in all regions in the world from the USA to Africa and South America. It is a phenomenon that I going to play a big role in urban 21st-century development
The technologies that are influential to these initiatives by urban societies are renewable energy storage, internet of things, big data management. The real estate and the architecture of smart cities are not going to differ from normal cities, the connectivity is what is considered smart, and how they interact with their environment is considered green. Smart and green cars which use renewable energy are less pollutant and their energy use in the long term is manageable compared to their fuel counterparts. We are getting to a point where the general welfare of our environment is expanding from our homes to our cities. We want to control and manage every aspect of modern life through technological, engineering insights and innovations to have a sustainable future
