Literature Review on Smart City Initiative

Question: Discuss about theLiterature Review on Smart City Initiative. Answer: Introduction There is the feeling to the idea that living in cities makes one feel more at home especially in the 21st century. The large and dense cities in the current century can be highly productive and even be made greener than ever and make them appreciated in the future (Stokes, 2015: 13-17). However the massive rural-urban migration by citizens presents major challenges to the governments of cities. Along with the positives that come along with densely populated areas there also comes the negative side of the situation such as the traffic congestions, access to public resources, crimes and the management of waste. With the demand for quality and better services being the most immediate issue its the tax revenues that often come later to fund such projects. With increased levels of globalization the world has become more connected now more than ever before in terms of capital and resources. All these challenges has led to a different approaches in the lines of design, planning, finance, th e control and management of infrastructure, governance and services which can be defined as smart cities. These approaches have been linked with the modern Information and technology. Discussion The need to develop smart cities all over the world has led to the formation of professional communities who work collaboratively to understand and learn architecture, engineering, utilities, planning, environmental sciences, communication, information technology and the public policies and finances ( Zbornik, 2015:42-44). One of the major hypotheses that the team focus on is the theory of how cities can make use of information of what is happening in the city. The other thing that the team is seeking to understand is the impact of information technology on the society moral norms and behaviors. The new smart cities as they are theorized will give a better understanding of the urban system at the micro level. The definition of what a smart city is depends on the purpose of the city and it varies from one city to the other. Depending on how the concept is visualized the definition differs according to the level of development that the city will bring and the citizens willingness to change into the new smart cities and how they plan to live in the new cities ( Zbornik, 2015:44). There have to be guidelines that make the definition of what a smart city is across the different cities and countries. First the cities should guarantee quality life to the residents and have clean and sustainable environments through using smart solutions. The city should be able to offer assured basic amenities such as water and electricity resources and have efficient mobility and general public transport. The city should have a sophisticated Information technology infrastructure that will cater for the high tech needs of the city and ensure security to all the citizens. Singapore is a leading city in mobility technology given that the country is an Island with a 5 million population. The country has been able to control its traffic congestion using an innovative road system to detect traffic congestions and ease up the congestions the smart way. Smart cities are aimed at making the citizens feel free and have fun an instance is the shadowing project in Bristol, Britain in 2014 where infrared light with sensors was added to the street lighting. The sensors detect the pedestrians walking below and record their shadows and later it the street lamps project the shadows for other pedestrians who are walking by making it more fun. Another instance is the face recognition cameras in public buses to detect who has a bus permit on who doesnt. Smart means something that can be able to operate automatic without being controlled much. Governments all over the world are working hard to make their countries to be in the frontline in the new digital era this involves coming up with innovative ideas and policies that will make their citizens proud. The smart cities movement is one of the initiatives that governments across the world are using as a standard that define quality life style to its citizens. The fact that smart cities will solve most of the challenges facing the urban cities of such countries they are still facing the challenge of initiating these projects because they cannot get into terms on what a smart city is to them. The use of the computing technology will be of great help so to speak but its the economic side that is more appealing to the governments of these cities that they forget the other side of the technology (CELINO and KOTOULAS S, 2013: 34-35). With the current world being interconnected through the i nternet then it will become easier for the governments and other partners to decide on what a smart city is. With the internet it is easy to have real time data and make real time decisions. With a connection it means that a city will be able to form one big community under one technological roof. The smart cities will not only bring the positive things that people would want to have but also there is the negative side to it. According to the social theory of smart city Researches point out that the intelligence in the smart cities will be an area that needs to be addressed more clearly. With the usage of surveillance cameras it makes it easy to have the facial recognition features. In the current world smartphones for instance can be traced using GPS (Zipf, 2009: 23). Depending on the person who is handling information it will be difficult to monitor if the information is used in a beneficial or harmful way. Having in place data privacy rules will help the smart cities solve the issue. The society should be able to address the issue on privacy and offer the way forward on how privacy should be maintained. Creativity is one of the major drivers of the smart city movement especially in the 21st century. Education and learning will be an important part of the people living in the smart cities. With the learning culture a new group will emerge referred as the creative class (winter, 2010:9). With the new class it will be easy to team up and build a new city concept. A social infrastructure will be built that will reflect the peoples way of life and their relation in this cities. The smart cities will generally be a mix of cultures, education and learning to bring a new hybrid society. With the new society there will be new social, cultural and economic enterprises. A smart city will bring the opportunities to exploit the human potential and thus be able to lead creative lives. According to winters (2010:22) the smart cities will be made up of smart people that are the educated and skilled work force. The citizens in these cities will be able to advance their communities through offering their skills at work place. The levels of smartness will differ from one city to another where some will be considered as being smarter than the others. With this community work force there will come economic developments that will improve the quality of life of the citizens greatly. Therefore a smart city is made up of a smart community, knowledge city, the human factors, technological factors and the institutional factors. All these have to work together to make a city smart. The phrase smart city was adopted more in 2005 by several leading technology companies such as Cisco, IBM and Siemens. The technology companies developed interest in the issue in areas of its application such as the integration of information system in the urban cities infrastructure, buildings and designs and the public safety. With time the basic understanding has been revised to refer to any innovation that is technology based in the areas of city planning and development and operations within the city such as the electric vehicles initiative that requires plugins stations all over the city (Portland, 2011:7). The term smart city has been defined by many according to their way of understanding in relation to the society that they live. The Indian government website defines the smart cities as cities which are intelligent in physical, economic, social and institutional infrastructures (Harrison, 2014:8). The cities are expected to ensure that the citizens get their livelihood and are able to live joyful lives there more of utopia. The Indian definition of what a smart city refers is closely related to its demographic environment where about 31% of the population lives in urban cities and the population is projected to increase to 65% in the next ten years (USC, 2011:42). To cater for the projected demand India has put the target of setting up 100 smart cities to meet the expected challenges of urban population. Indian government is fully supportive of the initiative and has committed more than $1 billion dollars to the project which will be built from scratch. The smart city movement was launched to address the challenges that urban cities face and there are several benefits associated with it. With smart cities there is the reduced resource consumption such as energy and water which in turn reduces carbon emissions (NYC 2007:14). The system utilizes the existing infrastructures and makes improvements to provide quality life for the citizens (Stockholm 2006:75). The system will avail new services that have not existed before. The commercial enterprises will be improved through real time transmission of data on the cities services (Singapore 2011). The city can have real time data of the demand for services in the city and thus be able to manage the available resources. A city can be able to manage disasters in a more prepared way. The smart cities will greatly improve the quality of life of its citizens. With companies such as IBM who began project such as the smarter Planet initiative (IBM 2008) the response from the public on its initial stages was very positive. Its the economic development that cities around the world will get that makes the idea to be highly accepted. Cities all over the world are in constant competition to offer superior quality lifestyle to their citizens. The challenges of creating this lifestyle lie in the developers on how they can create a smart city and make it attractive now and for the future generation to come (Moraru and Mladenic, 2012:24). The smart city will be able to understand the current generation as described by Florida (2008:25). A smart city should be able to interact with the public and offer quality services through interacting with them in the digital platform rather than through the traditional offices associated with long queues. The cities should be able to appe al to the creative class as referred by Florida (2008:27). With the current technology and fresh innovative minds the smart city project is becoming a reality. There is very high competition in cities such as New York, Paris and Singapore. Cities such as Dubuque have propelled themselves through the theme of smart city movement and have gotten world recognition. Dubuque is listed among the livable cities in America (Dubuque, 2008:17-21). With such a complex setting and advanced technology the smart cities are most likely to change the social norms and behaviors of the citizens (KHATOUN and ZEADALLY, 2016: 46-47). In order to change the current cities into complex and integrated social cities there will have to be a clear understanding of the current society settings such as morals and behavior and determining how the new cities will affect behavior and conduct. With the advanced technology the cities will need to observe the citizens more deeply and in real time so as to note the patterns of change in the society. The technology can allow the city to have control of the misconducts in the society (Cleantechblog and Ling, 2013: 32). This sounds very good to the society security but looking at the other side the system will be capturing even the unintended data which may cause serious negative results. Information that is captured through the citys intelligent cameras need to be smartly handled so that it doesnt fall i nto wrong hands which can cause privacy infringement cases. The understanding of how the smart cities will work is important in accepting the idea of how the cities are more or less attractive to its citizens. First we have to understand the current urban city system in order to be able to accept the new cities. The information that flows through the network needs to be handled and addressed in a smart way to ensure that it is more benefit to the city citizens (Caragliu, Kourti and Nijkamp, 2015: 111). For instance one leaving water tap running can be the reason why the city is spending more money in water. The macro and micro levels in the cities need to be addressed first before decisions are made on adopting the smart cities theory. To discuss the issue collaborative urban systems have been formed to try and define what a smart city may be or will have to be in respect to the societys way of life. With these discussions agreements can be reached on how personal information will be handled in the urban system and also make research on how the urban system will work based on the general societys way of thinking or perception. Through having members from different levels in the society to make views it will be possible to have these smart cities built for the common good of the society though a multi-disciplinary organization that will give an understanding of the urban system way of thinking. Conclusion With the increased globalization levels it will mean that many people will want to live in state of the art Smart Cities by the end of the 21st century. The definition of what a smart city is depends on the cities critical needs now and in the future. Thus we have the opportunity to shape the future coming generation through making viable decisions that will make the urban system unique. That can be possible if we are able to first understand our current society and be able to accept the future in a more positive way. With the current rise in cities all over the world especially for the emerging economies the time is now to come up with theories of the smart cities which will act as foundations in order to achieve the demanding goals in both the current and new cities to come. The issue on smart cities needs to be looked from an all-round perspective and not only on the information technology and engineering perspective. Different professions need to work together collaboratively to make the smart cities theory true. References Caragliu, A, Kourtit, K and Nijkalmp, P. (2015). Smart Cities. News trans. Cleantechblog, and Ling, F. (2013). Smart Cities. Cleantech Blog. 2013-11. Celino I., and Kotoulas S. (2013). Smart cities. 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