Smart city

Trends in urban planning and development have contributed to the rise of the concept of the smart city. The term is used in various ways and does not have a universally accepted definition, but one widely cited conceptualization was developed by European Smart Cities, an initiative of the Vienna University of Technology in Austria. According to the European Smart Cities model, a smart city has six key "smart" features: smart economy, smart mobility, smart environment, smart people, smart living, and smart governance. In this context, smart refers to progressive, inclusive, sustainable, and forward-thinking policies that leverage technology, human capital, and social responsibility.

Connectivity technologies play a major role in the ongoing move toward building smart cities. As the internet of things (IoT) has continued to develop at a rapid pace, technology has played an increasingly prominent and essential role in the development of smart urban spaces. However, as the issue of data privacy became a matter of greater public concern by the end of the 2010s, some began asking how smart cities would handle their residents' data, and who would own it.

Background

According to the World Bank in 2023, 56 percent of the world's population, 4.4 billion people, lived in cities, and this population was expected to double by 2050. In a related trend, European Smart Cities noted that globalization has been driving economic changes with widespread impacts. Among other effects, globalization and increasing levels of urbanization have forced cities in both developed and developing countries to explore new ways to remain competitive. Meanwhile, as technology has continued to develop at an unprecedented rate, new applications that could positively affect urban life have emerged. Thus, while the "smart city" concept has been defined in many ways, the vast majority of theoretical models typically circle back to these two core principles: competitiveness and the transformative power of technology.

Cities that remain competitive tend to have stronger economies, lower unemployment rates, and offer a better overall quality of life than cities that lag behind. The ability to innovate also gives cities a competitive edge, which is why human and social capital investments are so important to the development of smart cities. Most smart city conceptualizations also focus on sustainability, with technology viewed as a core means of achieving this goal. Finally, some models emphasize the importance of civic participation in governance and the need for city residents and businesses to make equitable use of available resources.

Sustainability has become a particularly pertinent issue. Governments around the world have become increasingly focused on minimizing the environmental toll of human activity, especially in urban areas. According to the United Nations (UN), cities consume about 78 percent of the world's energy, with higher levels of energy consumption and transportation-related pollution being associated with lower-density urban areas. Thus, increasing urban population density and decreasing reliance on less efficient forms of transportation have remained salient topics in the smart city sphere. To boost urban population density, cities have been looking to build "up" rather than "out" by building more mid-rise and high-rise residential buildings rather than continually expanding the reaches of suburbs and city limits. On the transportation front, smart cities have looked to decrease the use of single-occupancy vehicles by encouraging residents and commuters to explore the growing number of available alternatives.

Topic Today

It is possible to explore current and developing trends in modern urban planning using the six key "smart" features cited in the European Smart Cities model. From an economic standpoint, one of the features that differentiates smart cities is the implementation of mixed-use land development policies. Mixed-use land development designates specific urban spaces for various uses, including a blend of commercial, cultural, industrial, institutional, residential, and retail applications. One of the key advantages of mixed-use development is that it makes cities and neighborhoods far more walkable, which helps fight traffic congestion, improves community safety, and reduces pollution. Researchers and experts have also noted that information and communication technologies (ICTs) are influencing practically every aspect of contemporary urban economies, including changes in land use trends.

However, the mobility aspect of smart cities is the area in which ICTs have been widely considered to have the greatest potential for positive change. Examples of smart mobility technologies include traffic light and traffic flow sensors that ease gridlock and congestion, especially during peak periods, and public transportation and parking apps that help users plan journeys using mass transit and spend less time searching for parking spots. These applications, along with the rising trends toward car-sharing and ridesharing programs, as well as the development of self-driving vehicles, were expected to continue to improve and advance as IoT technologies proliferated in urban areas.

From an environmental standpoint, energy efficiency has remained one of the smart city's primary goals. IoT technologies remained poised to bring about major shifts in urban power generation and distribution strategies. According to one proposal, public and industrial buildings would supplement their use of grid-supplied electricity by generating their own using wind and solar power technologies to capture energy and IoT applications to store excess electricity for later use. Internet-connected sensor networks would monitor individual and municipal power generation and distribution systems in real time, with some projections indicating that such initiatives could cut energy costs by 25 percent or more.

Beyond driving innovation, the inhabitants of a smart city have a major role to play in the ongoing effort to improve the quality of life for urban residents. The European Smart Cities model cited four key characteristics of smart city residents: educated, engaged in lifelong learning, multicultural, and open-minded. While these notions have drawn some criticism for being too abstract, they nevertheless reveal a possible path forward for cultivating a population base that is more civic oriented.

Living in a smart city has implications that extend beyond using ICTs to increase efficiency and accessibility. In designating cities as "smart," European Smart Cities evaluated criteria including the presence of cultural facilities, leisure facilities, quality housing, and educational infrastructure. High levels of safety, security, and social cohesion are also considered favorable, and cities that make concerted efforts to improve these characteristics generate higher scores due to their strong associations with improved quality of life.

Finally, on the topic of governance, smart cities display high levels of cooperation between citizens and municipal officials and between residents and the local business community. Smart cities aim to share key resources to the greatest possible degree, and the European Smart Cities model cited social service availability, government transparency, and high levels of political awareness and public engagement as desirable elements.

A notable example of a smart-city initiative, though ultimately abandoned, was a project launched in 2017 in Toronto by Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Alphabet focused on urban innovation. Sidewalk Labs won a bid to develop a twelve-acre lot in Toronto's East Bayfront neighborhood into a project called Quayside, which would implement all the emerging smart-city technologies, including hyper-efficient energy systems, sensor-embedded sidewalks and roads that respond to weather conditions and traffic flows, and autonomous transportation systems. A similar but larger project was launched by Microsoft founder Bill Gates in Arizona, where he and a group of investors planned to build a smart city called Belmont.

By the end of the 2010s, however, critiques of the smart city concept arose, in tandem with news stories about how big tech companies like Facebook and Google—the same sorts of companies developing smart-city technology—had business models that were based on selling user data for profit. Critics such as science-fiction writer Bruce Sterling questioned whether smart cities would really result in greater sustainability, affordability, or equity, or whether they would merely reproduce or even exacerbate the traditional social inequities of large cities under a veneer of technological sophistication.

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