At the 1939 World’s Fair, General Motors presented a bold vision of America 20 years into the future with its massive exhibit, Futurama. Inspired by the fair’s “World of Tomorrow” theme and designed by Norman Bel Geddes, Futurama featured miniature towns, farmlands, bridges and an automated highway system connecting the nation. Safely spaced, self-driving vehicles traveled in separate lanes at 50, 75 and 100 mph. It was the first tangible, visible depiction of a smart city—a clean, sustainable and organized hub that presented opportunity and prosperity for all.
Over the next 70 years, equally audacious futurists presented not merely interesting ideas but game-changing innovations and technology that incrementally advanced everything from vehicles and transportation to healthcare and retail. At the same time, the world’s population exploded, particularly in urban centers, pushing municipalities and regional and national governments to invest in new ways to create smarter cities.
“Smart cities” built from scratch have so far failed to live up to their much-hyped promise. Some critics argue that rather than grafting a new city onto the landscape, it is better to integrate high-tech for clean, efficient energy and transportation into existing cities.
Last February, the Toyota Motor Company broke ground on what it calls Woven City, , a built-from-scratch futuristic urban center on 175 acres in the shadow of Mount Fuji. Woven City is a reference to the way the project plans to weave together cars, robots, data, and computers to create a city that the builders say, is highly efficient, pollution free, and sustainable.
Weiterlesen: Why the Luster on Once-Vaunted ‘Smart Cities’ Is Fading
We are in the era of smart cities due to hyper urbanization and globalization as people have migrated from villages to cities. In addition, people have been travelling from one country to another for business, vacation, religious tourism, medical tourism, etc.
That means the city today is not just the inhabitants and also the tourists and migrants. Hence, the consumption of power, gas, and water in a city has increased exponentially, creating scarcity.
Weiterlesen: How can technology promote water consumption in smart city?
Leading Cities’ CEO, Michael Lake, and Andrew McCue, an economy consultant at Metabolic, urge leadership in two key areas that provide hope in cities’ battle against climate change and their shift towards sustainability.
As world leaders gathered in Glasgow for the Cop26 meeting, goals and promises for achieving global sustainability were made and shared. Despite the promises of the past, the world is far from reaching the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting temperature rise to just 1.5-2.0ºC.
Weiterlesen: Two critical success factors for sustainable cities
Today, analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) have become big business. Throughout the 2020s, Harvard Business Review[1] estimates that these technologies will add $13 trillion to the global economy, impacting virtually every sector in the process.
One of the biggest drivers of the value-add provided by AI/ML will come from smart cities: cities that leverage enhancements in such technologies to deliver improved services for citizens. Smart cities promise to provide data-driven decisions for essential public services like sanitation, transportation, and communications. In this way, they can help improve the quality of life for both the general public and public sector employees, while also reducing environmental footprints and providing more efficient and more cost-effective public services.
Weiterlesen: What is the smart city, and why is cloud storage key?