Divide (urban management) and conquer

Big issues into small pieces to make better cities. Image by INTVGene at flickr

The First Industrial Revolution caused the massive arrival of people to cities attracted by the need for labor in the factories estblished there which offered them more stable income than those they get from their work on the fields. Since then the process of urbanization in the world has been increasing, there are more and more people living in urban areas while rural ones get depopulated, a phenomenon that started in Europe and the Americas which is now occurring especially in Africa and Asia.

The number of large urban agglomerations and megacities in the world is growing, as well as the number of people living there. According to UN statistics (*), in 1980 there were 19 urban agglomerations with a population between 5 and 10 milions, and 5 urban agglomerations (Tokyo, Osaka, New-York-Newark, Mexico City and Sao Paulo) with more than 10 milion, which means that there were 225 million inhabitants in all of them. According to the data of 2012, nowadays there are 41 and 26 respectively, with a total population of about 700 million. Managing these megacities is a very complex task, not only by the huge amount of people living there, but also by their extension, both factors making difficult the efficient management of the basic services these cities must offer to their citizens.

The Gadget City trap

ICT technologies are very useful tools for the construction of the 21st century city, however by themselves do not provide the desired “intelligence”. Image by Henry Marsh under CC0 License at Pexels

The Council of Vilagarrina (*), fully aware of the importance of the environment and with the clear intention of becoming a smarter city, has recently acquired three cutting-edge digital environment stations to control the quality of the air in three differents points of interest of the municipality. A consulting company has developed the whole solution, that implements an advanced wireless communications system between the stations and the municipal data center, as well as an internal web application in which city officials can consult the stored data. Finally, the developed solution implements a web service that allows to show in the City Council’s website the latest data acquired by each one of the stations. This solution, that makes use of the last technologies at each stage of the technological chain, is a clear example of how technology itself does not provide intelligence to the management of a urban space. Welcome to the gadget city!

It is important and very interesting to have this information, but it must be treated and analysed so that it can provide the desired “intelligence”. At this point the question is, what steps should follow the Council of Vilagarrina to move towards the Smart City?

ICT as a Utility

Free public Wi-Fi at Pompidou center in Paris to cover the need for connectivity of the citizens. Image by Dave Jimison at flickr

Among the basic services that any municipality must provide to its citizens there are the provision of drinking water and sewage, the street lighting and electricity, the waste management or the guarantee for mobility.

The irruption of ICT technologies about 20 years ago gave people immediate access to information and more recently, thanks to wireless data transmission technologies, ubiquitous access to it. Nowadays ICT technologies have reach a level of maturity that makes of them another utility, an essential, basic service today we could not give up.

ICT as a Smart Public Service

First steps are not easy. Image by Jeremy Atkinson at flickr

One characteristic of the concept of smart city is the promotion of innovative economic activities strongly based on ICT technologies. In this sense public administrations give facilities to those entrepreneurs who wish to develop a business idea that fits these characteristics. Many cities offer advisory services to entrepreneurs and even spaces in where they can take their first steps, such as business incubators. An example is the Barcelona Activa service, of the Barcelona City Council.

Why intelligent cities (IV). Economical reasons & conclusion

Detail of the Poblenou neighborhood in Barcelona, also known as 22@, a declining industrial area that has been revitalized in the 21st century by the ICT technology industry.

It is said that the adoption of ICT technologies, along with the power generation from renewable sources, has brought the third industrial revolution, and as any revolution this one has had its impact on the society, that is concerned about the destruction of job positions in industries considered as “traditional”. Another negative impact on the society of the 21st century is the global economic downturn that has caused a strong restructuration of the economy as well as a reduction of the available resources. Now is time to transform the economic activities and adapt them to the new technological environment emerging from this new industrial revolution, it is a key priority to ensure economic recovery and offer an effective response to a situation that threatens the social welfare.

An image to the concept of smart city

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, in fact any idea, no matter how complex it is, can be easily conveyed with just a single image. Surely anyone of us did visual schemes in our student days to learn the concepts of any subject. Images go beyond languages, for instance, a red octagon on a street or road would make us stop immediately, regardless the text written into it. There are even commercial brands that exploit the power of images and replace their trademark name by their logo, which becomes a worldwide recognized symbol which identifies them universally.

The huge quantity of concepts involved in the smart city can result in a mesh. Image generated at WorldClouds.com

In this post I would like to share with you an image for the concept of smart city, my own vision based on the knowledge I have gained on this field, and which has allowed me to order in certain way the thematic complexity behind the construction and management of the 21st century city.