To manage the rising urbanisation of smart cities, city planners and managers must turn to real-time data processing
By 2030 it is expected that 28% of people worldwide will live in a city with at least one million inhabitants, according to a report on urbanisation by the Government Office for Science. In England alone, 82.9% of the population lived in an urban area in 2019, which is increasing all the time. To manage these levels of urbanisation, city planners and managers are turning to modern technologies and cutting-edge networks, leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT) to support ‘smart city’ solutions.
Weiterlesen: Why the creation of smart cities requires real-time data processing
Network has become the fifth lifeline of smart society; as cities are becoming both digital and smart, communication is the fifth core infrastructure network after water, electricity, gas, and transportation. The advancement of digital technologies and industries determines how smart cities can be, while the communications networks that underpin them have become a core part of how cities can operate and deliver services.
All-optical infrastructure can define what cities are able to achieve as they strive to become more intelligent and better connected. As such, more than 150 countries around the world have released fibre strategies or internet initiatives, promising to make network infrastructure widely available to the public. Governments are providing tax preferences or subsidies to rapidly build backbone networks, expand network coverage, bridge the digital divide, and promote national economic development.
Weiterlesen: How all-optical network infrastructure can re-shape smart cities
Smart cities will make lives easier now and in the future
The idea of a ‘smart city’ has theoretically existed for thousands of years, tracing back to ancient Rome where new technologies were applied through a complex interconnected urban system, which constructed its public transport systems and distributed energy sources. Once the aqueducts, water drainage systems, and paved roads were put in place, the lives of citizens were transformed.
Over the last 1,500 years technology has advanced so rapidly that we are now witnessing a digital (opens in new tab) age, with innovations such as driverless cars, intelligent traffic systems, and delivery bots. The evolution of technology advancement is seeing great progress, yet we need to understand that empires are not built in a day.
A few years ago, pre-Covid-19, there appeared to be an arms race beginning around smart cities. They had to be smarter and seemingly ever more ‘glossy’, driven by a need for sensors and data.
Then, as climate change became more evident, cities had to be sustainable, and of course, post-pandemic, more resilient. Now, in the wake of the fallout from the Ukraine-Russia conflict, they also need to be secure. So: smart, sustainable, resilient, and secure.
Weiterlesen: Smart Cities 2.0: Smart, sustainable, resilient, and secure
It takes more than garbage-collecting robots to build a great place to live.
There’s nothing like that new city smell.
The idea of wiping the slate clean and building a community from scratch is so appealing that around 150 of them are in the works globally. They range from Egypt’s aseptic New Administrative Capital to Mexico’s attempt to fuse the urban and natural worlds in its Smart Forest City. Even plucky Innisfil is planning a new town centre called The Orbit that could house 150,000 people.
Weiterlesen: New smart cities can’t escape the same old problems