Smart Cities: From Smart Growth to a Practical Reality - Essay Sample

Introduction

The idea of Smart Cities is not a new concept. Its origination is highly ascribed to the Smart Growth development of the late 1990s, which upheld new guidelines of urban planning. The expression was subsequently embraced by various technology organizations in describing the use of complex information systems to coordinating and operating the urban infrastructure, for instance, urban transportation, distribution of water, and public safety among others. It has since advanced to mean practically any type of innovation-based advancement in the arranging, improvement, and operation of urban communities. This paper will discuss what Smart City entails. The paper will further look into some of the benefits and drawbacks of Smart City Living.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

There is no precise clarification of a Smart City on account of the expansiveness of the technologies that can be used in a city with the goal for it to be viewed as a Smart City. Deakin and Reid (2018) characterize it as a city that uses Information Communication Technology (ICT) to satisfy the needs of its residents, and that the involvement of the community to the transformation process is a need for a Smart City. The contributing factors that make a city be considered a Smart City include the use of ICT in improving the working conditions and life of the city, application of ICT within the systems used by the administration of the city, application of various technologies in the town and its residents, and the territorialization of matters that bring the members of the city and ICT together to cultivate advancement and upgrade the services that they provide.

There are many economic and practical benefits of Smart Cities. The four major sectors that have adopted and successfully transformed towns to be considered as smart cities are security, water, and waste efficiency, infrastructure issues, and transportation (Deakin & Reid, 2018). Smart Cities assures its residents of maximum protection through its ability to monitor its residents by use of the CCTV cameras. Surveillance cameras can capture and assist in lowering criminal activities. Hult and Granath (2018) list other additional security features deployed by Smart Cities like the panic buttons and hotline numbers that enable quick reaction to emergencies. Smart water grids applied in Smart Cities helps in ensuring the security of water quantity is guaranteed and the safety of its consumption. Moreover, intelligent pumps and smart valves examine the environmental conditions and can adjust their working rate accordingly to suit the ecological situations at the theme. In regards to traffic matters, Smart Cities have greatly benefited with its ability to monitor the traffic patterns and assess the congestion points, monitor black spot areas, and dangerous intersections and the data obtained helps in redesigning of such regions to improve the traffic patterns. Additionally, smart technology is used in monitoring traffic lights and detecting the effect the traffic imposes on the environment. For instance, in Las Vegas, there are several sensors installed at intersections to determine the carbon dioxide content remitted by idling vehicles and this data can be used in reducing the light cycle so that cars do not idle and generate toxic gases unnecessarily. Smart Cities also uses green energy; for instance, electric vehicles to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide gas. Mobile applications are also used in the transport industry in giving time estimates for different transportation modes and routes. This concept helps the residents in deciding whether to use public or private means depending on the efficiency. Other benefits of smart cities include enhancing engagement between the citizens and the government, increased digital equity, efficient public utilities, increased workforce engagement, and massive economic development opportunities (Deakin & Reid, 2018).

However, smart cities also pose significant drawbacks. One major disadvantage is user privacy. Smart cities rely on real-time data collection on people and objects using surveillance cameras and sensors. For instance, auto-scanning cameras for license plates which automatically matches the details of the vehicle owner to trace the vehicle movement. Such information if wrongly used or compromised can be used by a criminal to help in executing crimes. Also, smart cities can be prone to giving false red flags. For instance, at one point, Boston developed a street bump application, which uses GPS and smartphone, and it helped in detecting and reporting potholes. However, people of low income lacked smartphones, and this meant that the app would exclude data from a significant group of people leading to wrong data collection. Also, the advancement and adoption of smart cities are stifled by the absence of acknowledged technological standards. Innovation without policies and thoughtful oversights creates a menace of privacy, security, as well as ethical breaches (Patil, Pathak & Sahasrabudhe, 2018, January).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the ultimate aim of smart cities is to use real-time status updates to the town in solving problems like traffic congestion, crime cases, and environmental pollution, among many others. A combination of technology and data analysis is used in achieving the goal of smart cities. However, in obtaining the goal of digitalizing public services, the city residents will face issues like inequality and conflict of interest between different parties. This makes it necessary that as smart cities are established policies are to be created to address such matters while also facilitating the development of smart cities.

Reference

Deakin, M., & Reid, A. (2018). Smart cities: Under-gridding the sustainability of city-districts as energy efficient-low carbon zones. Journal of Cleaner Production, 173, 39-48.

Hult, H., & Granath, H. (2018). The smart city-powerful but frightfully vulnerable?.

Patil, N., Pathak, D., & Sahasrabudhe, S. (2018, January). A novel refrigerator for a smart city. In 2018 International Conference on Smart City and Emerging Technology (ICSCET) (pp. 1-4). IEEE.