Hard times breed innovation and ingenuity. Take 19th century London, where a series of cholera outbreaks taught the city to send its poop downstream. Today, COVID-19 could catalyze a wave of smart city upgrades as governments turn to digital infrastructure to guard against future crises.&
Cities moving from containment to recovery offer a glimpse of what could come. In Wuhan, China, factory operators register workers’ temperature daily. Returning employees are working alongside more robots than when they left. And to get on a train, residents display app-based “health codes” ranking them by infection risk levels.
In 1950, 746 Million people lived in cities but just one hundred years later in 2050, this is anticipated to surpass 6 Billion – some 66% of the world’s population. In this increasingly urban, data-driven and hybrid world that integrates the physical and the virtual, the concept of ‘smartness’ comes to the fore. The vision of a ‘smart city’ has been in existence for many years but it is only recently that advances in technology have enabled tangible progress towards its real-world actualization. I believe this is also critical to the successful implementation of the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGS).
So, what does a smart city mean to you?
Can you guess how many people move to city every week?
Not hundreds. Not thousands. But more than a million.
Globally, there are 1.3 million people moving to cities every single week.
What does this convey?
Intensive urbanization andindustrialization.
How cities are turning to collective intelligence to enable smarter approaches to COVID-19.
Density - it’s part of what makes cities bustling cosmopolitan hubs for transnational commerce and mobility. It is also what makes them particularly vulnerable to the risks of outbreaks such as COVID-19, with some experts arguing it will force a significant rethink of urban planning if we are to achieve long-term survival in a pandemic world.
Smart buildings can create a domino effect, leading to more opportunities for integrated advancements in the urban setting. Smart buildings have been utilizing the Internet of Things (IoT) to connect and advance systems, delivering more efficiency and data. These connected systems could include IP video camera systems, access control systems, smart parking, etc.
The global smart building market size is projected to reach USD 42.70 billion by 2025. The major factor driving smart building market growth is the growing global energy usage concerns. The global smart cities market was valued US$ 302.0 Bn in 2019 and is expected to reach US$ 1,520 billion by 2027 at a CAGR of 23.3 %, according to sciencein.me and publicist360.com.