The Smart “Enough” City
The smart city concept arguably dates back to the invention of automated traffic lights, which were first deployed in 1922 in Houston, Texas. The exact origin of the concept is not tied to a specified time or individual. However, Smart cities have been around for a long time. We can also trace its earlier influence through works like William J. Mitchell’s writing City of Bits in 1995 and Castells’ The Rise of the Network Society in 1996 introduced the concept of “space of flows” that contributed to the foundational idea in Smart City today. In the 1980s, the term being used was ‘wired cities’ after James Martin’s famous book The Wired Society (Prentice hall, 1978) focuses on how cable, telephones and other wired media were changing our access to services.
Figure 1: Walt Disney were planning for an “Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow – EPCOT” in the 1960s. “It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed but will always be introducing, testing and demonstrating new materials and new systems. And EPCOT will always be a showcase to the world for the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise.” Disney intended EPCOT to be a real city, and it was planned to feature commercial, residential, industrial, and recreational centers, connected by a mass multimodal transportation system, that would, he said, “Never cease to be a living blueprint of the future”.
What, then, does Smart City represent today after centuries of evolution and transformation? The term began gaining traction in the early 2000s. Based on the PAS report from the American Planning Association, a smart city is a city that has equitably integrated technology, community, and nature to enhance its livability, sustainability, and resilience while fostering innovation, collaboration, and participatory co-creation. Realizing the potential of Smart Cities will require public-private cooperation and security by design.
Real Time Data Intelligence – Public-private communication
In 1994, Amsterdam established a De Digital Stad (DDS), which translates to The Digital City, marked as the proper start of the term “smart city”, start of the public and social use of the internet. DDS was a free net designed to provide easy access to the internet and improve communication between the government and residents. Fast forward to today, internet has developed into much sophisticated form such as the IoT sensors, video cameras, social media, and other inputs that act as a nervous system, providing the city operator and citizens with constant feedback and real time data intelligence to inform decisions (Cisco) . While most cities use data and technology daily, a Smart City stands out by fully embracing technology particularly the Internet of Thing (IoT), as the guiding force of its existence.
Internet of Things (IoT)
The IoT refers to a network of physical devices, vehicles, appliances, and other physical objects that are embedded with sensors, software, and network connectivity, allowing them to collect and share data. (IBM, 2023) IoT devices also known as “smart objects”, enable the smart devices to communicate with each other and with other internet-enabled devices. Like smartphones and gateways, creating a vast network of interconnected devices that can exchange data and perform various tasks autonomously. This can include:
- monitoring environmental conditions in farms
- managing traffic patterns with smart cars and other smart automotive devices
- controlling machines and processes in factories
- tracking inventory and shipments in warehouses
Figure 2: “The best technology is the one that seamlessly integrates into daily life, like the real-time arrival screens in the London Underground…”
Figure 3: Sentilo project in Barcelona, network of 19,000 active sensors that capture real time information on noise levels, temperature, air quality or the traffic flow
It has a significant role in shaping efficient and smart cities in different sector ranging from retail, manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, transportation and etc, benefiting the city in terms of efficiency, cost saving, data driven decision making and enhanced experience.
Smart City in Barcelona
Smart City’s approach in Barcelona demonstrates the potential of enhanced quality of life through comprehensive design aided by technology, rather than allowing technology to dominate, again proving it is not all about the “high tech”. Barcelona’s diverse initiatives such as the Sentilo project, City OS, Superblocks, electric shared bike, etc. showcase technology’s subtle integration, maximizing its benefit without transforming the city into a tech-centric enclave, just at the right amount of “smartness”…
Figure 4 & 5: Superblock (Superilla) Barcelona, 400 x 400 m units–bigger than a block, yet small than a whole neighbourhood. The motive was to reduce vehicular pollution and move towards sustainable mobility.
Smart Gesture around the world
- SPF -Police Service (Singapore)
- E-Street project (Oslo)
- Priva – Smart Horticulture (Netherlands)
- Climate Dashboard (Oslo)
- Netafim – Drip Irrigation (Israel)
- Agrosmart – Smart Crop Monitoring (Brazil)
- Lighting Masterplan (Barcelona)
- RFID Traffic System (China)
- Smart Waste Bin (Singapore)
- Smart Aquaculture (China)
- Centrailized Underground Waste Disposal (South Korea)
- Real Time Bike Sharing System (Copenhagen)
- Smart Palm Solar Station (Dubai)
- Maas – Transportation (Helsinki)
However… “Why do smart cities offer only improvement?” asked by Rem Koolhaas. “Where is the possibility of transgression?”
Sidewalk Labs’ Toronto
Sidewalk Labs’ Quayside waterfront proposal showcased an ambitious vision of a high-tech, green and smart city, incorporating features like sensors to track residents’ movements, automated traffic systems and underground robots for waste disposal and delivery. However, the concept of constant surveillance sparked fierce criticism, with privacy advocates and tech expert branding it a “dystopian” vision and a threat t democracy and autonomy. Jim Balsillie from BlackBerry condemned it as a “colonizing experiment in surveillance capitalism”, raising concerns about how private company would exploit residents’ data and invention that drains job opportunity. Ultimately, these critiques contributed to the project’s downfall, leaving the site unused.
What is the Future of Our Cities?
“Going forward, all leaders will need to ask themselves: Do we want an airport or a smart airport? A bank or a smart bank? A highway or a smart highway? A supply chain or a smart supply chain? A business model or a smart business model? A city or a smart city?” –“A Smarter Planet: The Next Leadership Agenda” by Samuel J. Palmisano, CEO of IBM (Nov. 12, 2008) The obsession is real, “The Line” in Saudi Arabia is the striking example how this fixation has warped intentions, masking such “amazing absurdity” says Peter Cook, into an unrealized Utopian vision. (for the social media maybe?)
The benefits of Smart City seen across the globe are undeniable, but the belief that technology is the sole key to urban progress can be disastrous – much like how cities were once reconstructed entirely after car invention marks the beginning of the Sillicon Valley we live in today. Heavily relying on technology which is prone to glitches, surrendering our power to automation by over idealizing its capabilities can ultimately harm our cities. “What if Google comes in at night and dumps 10,000 of these (automated cars) on our streets? What would we do?”
The Smart Enough City
Smart Enough Cities must stay true to their priorities and embrace the benefits of new technology without falling prey to technological solutionism. Columbus demonstrates why it is so important to focus on real people and issues in the community rather than chase new technology. “It would be really easy for us to have a bunch of technical people in a room and deploy technologies that would be cool,” says Jordan Davis. “But instead we said, ‘Let’s think about people.’” In doing so, Columbus discovered that people’s problems were more complex and less closely related to technology than expected. Technology provides some new opportunities, but Columbus knows it cannot provide all the answers. “Transportation technology is a very exaggerated space,” Davis says. “I’m really excited to figure out what’s real and what’s not.” – the negotiation between the tech and the people.
Reflection
And to answer my first question, Smart City is always meant for tomorrow, with the risk of forgetting today… However, today was once the empire we anticipated centuries ago. The idea of a Smart City often strives for ever-greater summits, but to me it reflects an insatiable greed and blind devotion to technology that could lead us to drastic risks as it can be an indefinite pursuit. After all, it is never truly “smart” enough but “smarter and smarter” and it goes on and on and on… until it’s depleted…
“The goal should not be to build the smartest city, but to build a city that is smart enough to meet the needs of its residents.” (Green, 2019)
References
– Ben Green, The Smart Enough City, 2019. Published by MIT Press.
– Michal S. Gal & Niva Elkin-Koren, ALGORITHMIC CONSUMERS – Harvard Journal of Law & Technology Volume 30, Number 2 Spring 2017.
– Manuel Castells, “Space of Flows, Space of Places: Materials for a Theory of Urbanism in the Information Age”, 2020. By Routledge.
– Chris Salter,The smart city is a perpetually unrealized utopia
Urban technologies were meant to connect, protect, and enhance the lives of citizens. What happened?, 2022. MIT Technology Review. Available at:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/06/24/1053969/smart-city-unrealized-utopia
– Shannon Mattern, A City Is Not a Computer, 201. By Places Journal. Available at:
https://placesjournal.org/article/a-city-is-not-a-computer
– Chuck Brooks, The Emergence Of Smart Cities In The Digital Era. 2023. By Forbes. Available at:
– Alice Gomstyn, Alexandra Jonker, What is Smart City, 2023. By IBM. Available at:
https://www.ibm.com/topics/smart-city
