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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Become empowered to build and maintain smarter cities At its core, a smart city is a collection of technological responses to the growing demands, challenges, and complexities of improving the quality of life for billions of people now living in urban centers across the world. The movement to create smarter cities is still in its infancy, but ambitious and creative projects in all types of cities--big and small--around the globe are beginning to make a big difference. New ideas, powered by technology, are positively changing how we move humans and products from one place to another; create and distribute energy; manage waste; combat the climate crisis; build more energy efficient buildings; and improve basic city services through digitalization and the smart use of data. Inside this book you'll find out: * What it really means to create smarter cities * How our urban environments are being transformed * Big ideas for improving the quality of life for communities * Guidance on how to create a smart city strategy * The essential role of data in building better cities * The major new technologies ready to make a difference in every community Smart Cities For Dummies will give you the knowledge to understand this important topic in depth and be ready to be an agent of change in your community.
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Seitenzahl: 588
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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Smart Cities For Dummies®
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Copyright © 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Smart Cities For Dummies®
To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Smart Cities For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
Table of Contents
Cover
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
How This Book Is Organized
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1: Making Cities Our Home
Chapter 1: Comprehending the Past, Present, and Future of Cities
Discovering the Origin of Cities
Comprehending the Impact of the Industrial Revolutions
Urbanizing the Planet
Chapter 2: Defining Smart Cities
Identifying Smart Cities
Building the Case for Smarter Cities
Examining Examples of Smart Cities
Chapter 3: Responding to the Needs and Challenges of Cities
Mapping the Evolving Needs and Challenges of Cities
Expecting Different Results
Transforming Urbanization
Part 2: Building a Smarter City
Chapter 4: Starting from Zero
Establishing a Vision
Building a Smart City Team
Chapter 5: Creating a Smart City Strategy
Building the Plan
Codifying the Plan
Chapter 6: Enabling a Smart City Strategy
Putting the Building Blocks in Place
Governing the Strategy
Part 3: Using Smart City Technologies
Chapter 7: Embracing Urban Innovation
Defining Urban Innovation
Implementing Urban Innovation
Chapter 8: Enabling Change through Technology
Recognizing Technological Change in Modern Cities
Exploring a Variety of Urban Technologies
Chapter 9: Unleashing the Power of City Data
Becoming City-Data-Savvy
Working with City Data
Part 4: Planning for an Urban Future
Chapter 10: Building a Secure Foundation
Securing Your Smart City
Addressing Digital Security and Privacy
Chapter 11: Imagining the City of the Future
Recognizing That the Best Is Yet to Come
Envisioning Big Ideas
Chapter 12: Engaging in Your City’s Future
Embracing an Urban Future
Making a Better Tomorrow
Part 5: The Part of Tens
Chapter 13: Ten Smart City Pitfalls to Avoid
Making Your Smart City Project a Tech Program and Putting IT in Charge
Garnering Insufficient Support and Engagement from Stakeholders
Limiting Efforts to Your City Boundaries
Paying Insufficient Attention to Inclusiveness Issues
Moving Forward with Inadequate Governance
Working with No Clear Vision for the Program
Downplaying the Essential Roles of Security and Privacy
Sharing Successes and Failures Too Narrowly
Sticking Stubbornly to the Old Ways of Doing Things
Thinking Too Short-Term
Chapter 14: Ten Ways Cities Will Define Our Human Future
Most People Will Live, Work, and Play Their Entire Lives in Cities
The Increasing Demands of Sustainability Will Shape Human Behavior
City Interactions Will Increasingly Be Digital
City Data Will Drive Community Decision-Making
People Will Have Expanded Opportunities to Co-Create and Collaborate on Urban Solutions
Crime May Be Reduced Significantly
More Diversity Will Show Up in What Humans Do and How They Work
The Way People and Goods Move Will Continue to Evolve
The Delivery of Healthcare Will Be Transformed
Everything Will Be Delivered
Part 6: Appendixes
Appendix A: Smart City Strategies
AFRICA
ASIA
AUSTRALIA
EUROPE
MIDDLE EAST
NORTH AMERICA
SOUTH AMERICA
Appendix B: Smart City Organizations
Appendix C: Open Data Portals
AFRICA
ASIA
AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
EASTERN EUROPE AND RUSSIA
WESTERN EUROPE
MIDDLE EAST
NORTH AMERICA
SOUTH AMERICA
Appendix D: Solutions Built on Open Data
Appendix E: City Performance Dashboards
ASIA
AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
EUROPE
MIDDLE EAST
NORTH AMERICA
SOUTH AMERICA
Index
About the Author
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 8
TABLE 8-1 Examples of IoT Solutions for Cities
TABLE 8-2 Common Wireless Connectivity Options
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
FIGURE 1-1: The Ancient Agora of Athens: An early marketplace and the center of...
FIGURE 1-2: The core characteristics of the four industrial revolutions.
FIGURE 1-3: Population growth since the 1700s.
FIGURE 1-4: Share of population living in an urban setting over the past 500 ye...
FIGURE 1-5: The top ten global megacities.
Chapter 2
FIGURE 2-1: The basic components of digital infrastructure.
FIGURE 2-2: Eight examples of islands with smart island initiatives.
FIGURE 2-3: The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Chapter 3
FIGURE 3-1: A hansom cab: London, 1877.
FIGURE 3-2: The top ten fastest-growing city populations, by inbound migrants.
FIGURE 3-3: Transportation accounts for 15 percent of global carbon emissions.
FIGURE 3-4: In Tokyo, Japan, housing and offices occupy dense areas of the city...
FIGURE 3-5: Light rail offers a convenient, low-carbon, public transport option...
FIGURE 3-6: Messy-looking telephone poles have become a visible part of almost ...
Chapter 4
FIGURE 4-1: Basic smart city team organizational structure.
FIGURE 4-2: A simple RACI chart.
Chapter 5
FIGURE 5-1: The basic steps in creating and executing a smart city strategy.
FIGURE 5-2: The relationship between vision, goals, and objectives.
FIGURE 5-3: Melbourne's smart city website.
FIGURE 5-4: Moscow's smart city website.
FIGURE 5-5: Barcelona's smart city website.
Chapter 6
FIGURE 6-1: The basic steps in creating a government policy.
FIGURE 6-2: Systems development lifecycle (SDLC).
FIGURE 6-3: Basic strategic governance framework.
FIGURE 6-4: Four central project governance functions.
Chapter 7
FIGURE 7-1: The Pont du Gard Roman aqueduct, in southern France, from the first...
FIGURE 7-2: The basic cyclical process of urban innovation.
FIGURE 7-3: Examples of challenges at the US government site, challenge.gov.
Chapter 8
FIGURE 8-1: Common areas of digital transformation.
FIGURE 8-2: The four industrial revolutions.
FIGURE 8-3: The basic architecture of the IoT.
FIGURE 8-4: How blockchain technology works.
FIGURE 8-5: Autonomous vehicles are already on the road, including providing pu...
FIGURE 8-6: Flying drones may soon become a familiar sight in cities.
FIGURE 8-7: A variety of wireless communications solutions, based on bandwidth ...
FIGURE 8-8: The electrical grid is a common sight in cities around the world.
FIGURE 8-9: Many municipal water systems are old, poorly maintained, leaky, and...
FIGURE 8-10: An example of a city’s digital twin with real-time building operat...
FIGURE 8-11: An example of city wayfinding that perhaps needs a little work.
Chapter 9
FIGURE 9-1: The growth of data being created and stored worldwide.
FIGURE 9-2: Blended data leadership activities ensure optimum success.
FIGURE 9-3: An example of data visualization to tell a story by way of an infog...
FIGURE 9-4: An example of GIS in action.
Chapter 10
FIGURE 10-1: Street flooding is now a frequent occurrence even in the most soph...
FIGURE 10-2: Closed circuit TV for public safety is a common and controversial ...
Chapter 11
FIGURE 11-1: The tragedy of city prosperity is the volume of waste that’s creat...
FIGURE 11-2: Conceptual art for a Hyperloop pod.
FIGURE 11-3: Pedestrian areas are quieter and safer, have less pollution, and s...
Chapter 12
FIGURE 12-1: The data is clear: Our future belongs to cities.
FIGURE 12-2: Map showing happiness of countries by their score from the 2018 Wo...
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Introduction
Welcome to Smart Cities For Dummies!
This is a book about people. At its heart, it’s about improving the quality of life for urban communities all over the world. Though the popular term smart cities is used, this book focuses on the future of all cities.
To succeed at elevating the human condition for billions of people, cities need to adopt new ideas, new approaches, and new technologies for how they’re operated and delivered. That’s the definition of a smart city.
Note, however, that this isn’t a book primarily about technology, although technology does play a large role. Neither does the book suggest that cities need to create a surveillance society or erode privacy in order to succeed. At their core, smart cities aren't about sensors or algorithms or virtual town halls — they’re about a better future for humanity. After all, to quote Shakespeare, “What is the city but the people?” (Coriolanus, Act III, Scene 1).
Earth is already a majority urban planet and it’s estimated that, by midcentury, 70 percent of all humans will live in an urban area. Put another way, our human future belongs to cities. Most people will spend their days living, working, and playing in a metropolis. If we want to enjoy career opportunities, clean air and water, efficient transportation, low-cost energy, safety, convenient city services, and inclusion while all the time saving the planet from a climate crisis, we have a lot of city work ahead of us.
The city is already the center of the human experience. It is the most complicated and successful of all inventions. Urban areas have lifted billions of people out of extreme poverty, and they continue to shape and define our future.
The challenges ahead for cities aren’t trivial. Cities have come a long way, but they have a long way to go. Building better and smarter cities may be the biggest challenge that humanity now faces.
I wrote this book as the definitive reference guide for anyone who has an interest in creating safer and more prosperous communities. It’s also for anyone who wants to understand the opportunities and challenges in the world’s cities. When I discovered that cities would be central to our human future, I was compelled to become a part of positive change. I’ve spent several years helping to build smarter communities and educate city leaders on almost every continent. The realization that, done right, cities were capable of offering the best solutions for a better tomorrow was the moment my passion for cities emerged. This book is my attempt to share the city planning-and-development lessons and ideas I’ve discovered and executed along the way.
Smart Cities For Dummies is the first comprehensive reference and how-to book that gives you the knowledge and tools to build smarter cities and improve the quality of life for the greatest number of people.
About This Book
This is a practical, action-oriented book about building smarter cities. It doesn’t dwell on theory and abstract concepts. The entire text is about how to achieve results, build real solutions, and explore actual examples.
The subject and study of cities is deep, wide, and complex. A comprehensive approach would require multiple books of this size. Few would ever read that much. Who has the time these days? Instead, I have taken the approach to identify and condense only what really matters. This book is thorough, but it has no verbose or unnecessary content. You get everything you need in order to be successful in creating and implementing a smart city strategy.
My hope is that this book inspires and intrigues you about the possibilities ahead for cities. Unlike some topics, the urban world has many dimensions and layers. Everyone can find an area that’s compelling to them. Cities involve subjects as diverse as energy, water, climate change, housing, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, policy development, and so much more. This book is focused on people and cities, but it covers hundreds of interrelated and diverse topics.
Human destiny is tied to cities. If we’re going to have a happy and prosperous future, we need new ideas, skilled talent, and informed leaders to build the cities of tomorrow. Everyone deserves a good quality of life. This book can help make that happen.
Whether your job is directly linked to the future of a city or you’re a service provider, professor, or teacher — or if you’re simply someone who is fascinated by cities — you’ll find Smart Cities For Dummies a fun, inspiring, and useful guide.
Foolish Assumptions
To get the most from this book, I assume that you
Are seeking a comprehensive yet condensed and easy-to-follow guide for planning and implementing a smart city strategy
Have little patience for unnecessary jargon and complexity and want to know only the essential knowledge to get stuff done
Recognize that the goal of smarter cities is to continuously improve the quality of life for their residents and that the term
smart cities
is far less important than the desired outcomes
Recognize that the subject of smart cities is largely still an emerging topic and that the playing field will continue to change in the months and years ahead
Keep an open mind to the possibilities and challenges of emerging technologies
Know that mitigating the risks of smart city technologies, such as potential impacts to privacy, is a priority for everyone who is passionate about this subject
Acknowledge that getting results in government requires strategy and determination and that, for example, simply implementing technology may achieve nothing
Understand that this is a book about people and the future of the planet
Icons Used in This Book
Throughout this book, you see these little graphical icons to identify useful paragraphs:
The Tip icon marks tips and shortcuts that you can take to make a specific task easier.
The Remember icon marks the information that’s especially important to know. To siphon off the most important information in each chapter, just skim these paragraphs.
The Warning icon tells you to watch out! It marks important information that may save you headaches. Warning: Don’t skip over these warnings!
How This Book Is Organized
The book is arranged into six self-contained parts, each composed of several self-contained topics. By self-contained, I mean that I do my best to tell you everything you need to know about a single topic inside each chapter, other than when I have to reference other parts of the book to connect parts that are legitimately linked.
Here’s an overview:
Part 1: Making Cities Our Home
These early chapters build the context for smart cities. They begin with a short history of cities that takes you from the origins of dense, human settlements right up to the current megacities. Then you’ll learn about the role of the industrial revolutions and population growth in shaping the story of cities. You’ll recognize what a smart city is and what it is not. Finally, you get a detailed overview of the current needs and challenges of cities that all become the motivation for building smarter communities.
Part 2: Building a Smarter City
In this part, you’re quickly introduced to the steps to begin the planning of a smart city. You’ll understand the importance of creating a vision and identifying the team to make your goals a reality. After you have agreed on a vision and have the right people in place, you’ll want to create a strategy. This is some of the most substantive early work that the smart city team will complete.
This part concludes with guidance on enabling your strategy to succeed. After digesting this section, you’ll discover that implementing technology will probably be the easiest part of the journey.
Part 3: Using Smart City Technologies
In these chapters, you dive deep into the innovation processes and technologies that comprise the platform and solutions for your smart city. You’ll learn about the different forms of urban innovation that can be implemented.
You'll find a comprehensive list of smart city technologies that includes detailed descriptions of what they are, how they work, and how they can be applied in the real world.
The final chapter in Part 3 explores the essential role of data in cities and how data can be used to solve problems and create solutions.
Part 4: Planning for an Urban Future
Smart cities are secure cities. In this part, you’ll find out about cybersecurity and privacy in the age of digital communities. The role of public safety and the ability for cities to bounce back after a crisis is also explored.
Cities continue to evolve as they have throughout history. Local government leaders are now prioritizing for their cities to be greener, more inclusive, and healthier. You’ll learn about each of these different focus areas. You’ll also discover some of the big ideas that may be part of the cities of tomorrow, such as Hyperloop and flying cars.
This part wraps up with lots of ideas for you to get engaged in your community and become an agent of change. You’ll get suggestions for things you can do immediately to make a positive change in your city.
Part 5: The Part of Tens
If you have ever read another book in the For Dummies series, this part of the book is like seeing an old friend again — the friend might be wearing a different outfit, but you will recognize the person right away. The Part of Tens is a collection of important advice and suggestions about smart cities, broken into ten easy-to-digest chunks. Part 5 offers guidance on how to avoid some of the most common pitfalls in smart cities. It concludes with a list of ten ways that cities will define our future.
Part 6: Appendixes
This is a practical book. It provides clear guidance on how to develop and implement a vision for a smarter city. Because it’s also a relatively new topic, being able to leverage the work of other cities is an important aspect of this subject. In this part, you’ll discover lots of examples of work being done in cities all over the world. These examples will support the guidance given throughout the book and will further reinforce what you've learned. Look at what others are doing — you’ll be inspired and enlightened by how other cities are implementing their smart city work.
Beyond the Book
Although this book broadly covers the essentials of smart cities, there’s only so much that can be covered in a set number of pages! If you reach the end of this book and find yourself thinking, “This was an amazing book — where can I learn more about smart cities and related topics?” head over to www.dummies.com for more resources.
Cheat Sheet: If you’re looking for the traditional For Dummies Cheat Sheet, visit www.dummies.com and type Smart Cities For Dummies Cheat Sheet in the Search box.
The subject of smart cities is quickly evolving. As soon as this book is printed, new items will emerge. I’ll include those in later revisions. Updates for this book may also be occasionally available online at the For Dummies website.
Fortunately, other books are available that go deep on some of the individual topics in this book. For example, you might want to learn more about solar energy or smart waste management. Experts who specialize in these areas comprehensively cover all the subject details.
If you enjoy my style of writing and presenting knowledge and guidance, I have a lot of complementary material online in written, audio, and video formats. You can find many of my popular video courses on LinkedIn Learning, at www.linkedin.com/learning.
I also speak regularly on the topic of smart cities at events online and in person all over the world. I hope that I’ll see you at one of these. Please do come up to me and say hello. I’d love to meet you and hear about your smart city interest and work.
You can keep up with my work and ideas, and contact me, on Twitter (@Reichental), on LinkedIn, or at my personal website: www.reichental.com.
As for you, if you ever end up citing this book or your own smart city experiences on social media, be sure to add the hashtag #smartcitiesfordummies. I’ll read them all and will share the ones I like.
Where to Go from Here
You don’t need to read this book from cover to cover. You can, if that strategy appeals to you, but it’s set up as a reference guide, so you can jump in wherever you need to. Looking for something in particular? Take a peek at the table of contents or index, find the section you need, and then flip to the page to resolve your problem.
Part 1
Making Cities Our Home
IN THIS PART …
Explore the origins and history of urbanization.
Understand the definition and motivation for building smart cities.
Identify the core challenges that cities face today and tomorrow.
Chapter 1
Comprehending the Past, Present, and Future of Cities
IN THIS CHAPTER
Examining the origin of cities
Exploring the impacts of the industrial revolutions
Looking at population changes
Introducing megacities
For thousands of years, humans were wanderers, existing only in small groups and consumed primarily with daily survival. Then everything changed. The story of why humans went on to eventually build cities is essential for understanding the future of humankind. In this chapter, I briefly describe the origin of cities, including the important impact and role of the industrial revolutions in defining the world today. I also explore how urbanization continues to change the planet, and I introduce the next stop for many major urban areas: megacities.
Discovering the Origin of Cities
The writer and philosopher George Santayana is reported to have said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." In other words, ignoring, or being blind to, the lessons of the past puts you at a disadvantage. It makes sense to me: I believe that if you’re going to create better and smarter cities, you need to understand a little about their origin. Figuring out why we humans started living in ever-growing urban centers and have now decisively made them our future home helps you understand the present and — even more importantly — what it means for the future of cities.
I don’t bore you with an extensive history lesson on the origin of cities, but I do provide you with enough information to give you a sense of the key milestones that have resulted in the urban planet humans now inhabit.
I also help you explore the consequences of urbanization and look at trends that are contributing to today’s rapid city growth, and I begin to tease out the impact and challenges to be solved in a future of megacities (cities with a population of more than 10 million inhabitants).
What is a city?
But wait — first, what is a city? It’s a physical location that is permanently settled by a large number of people and has defined boundaries. It has formal systems for supporting areas such as land use, housing, sanitation, energy, and transportation. Most occupants in a city work on nonagricultural activities. A city has some recognized form of governance that facilitates the operations of the area and interactions between the community, businesses, and government.
Charles–Édouard Jeanneret, the internationally influential Swiss architect and city planner, said that cities are “a machine for living in.”
Today, most people live in a city. You know, cities are quite popular now. Opportunities that range from employment to entertainment and from education to healthcare all tend to be better in an urban context. For most of human history, as you can read later in this chapter, it wasn’t this way at all.
Do you know the origin of the city where you're living now? I’d bet that some people do, but I’m also confident that many don’t. After all, for most people, there’s little utility in this knowledge.
If you find yourself in a role today that’s directly related to the function and success of your city, historical context is golden. It can inform all manner of future decision-making, by highlighting strengths and challenges, ensuring alignment to culture, and exploring untapped opportunities.
For everyone else, wouldn’t it be fascinating to know how your community came to be? I’m a naturally curious person, so this type of detail fascinates me. Learning about your city might surprise you. It may make you happy or perhaps even make you sad. Whatever the emotional response, my guess is that you’ll become enlightened and likely curious to go deeper into the areas that spark your curiosity.
Go online and search for your city’s website. (Let’s assume it has one.) Then find out the answers to these questions about your city:
When was it established?
Why was it started?
What are the current challenges of the community?
What are the current priorities of the city?
Oh, and does your city have a smart city strategy or something similarly named?
There’s no grade for doing this assignment, but isn’t it interesting? Talk about it with your family. I’d bet that the discussion is fascinating and enlightening for everyone.
For extra credit, you might repeat this exercise for another city somewhere else in the world that you’re curious about.
Okay, let’s move on.
Why each of the world’s cities came to be is a big part of the broader narrative of the human story. Humans can’t change the past, so we’re stuck with the current outcome of a myriad of decisions and their consequences — some good and, frankly, many not-so-good. Some of the past humans have been able to control, but there’s a fairly good chunk that we haven’t been able to. For example, being invaded probably wasn’t something the residents of any city welcomed. Natural disasters are acts that humans have no role in creating but must deal with the aftermath of (although the role of human behavior in climate change apparently is making many of these disasters much worse).
On the positive side, getting lucky and establishing a human presence in places that had abundant, in-demand resources like oil or coal created what some could consider unfair advantages, and being strategically located in the supply chain for products that humans fell in love with also helped. The human thirst for coffee and tea, their love of silk, and an addiction to tobacco are all examples of the development of certain urban areas over others. This is because all sorts of intermediaries and services were required along the complex global supply-and-trade routes. An exchange of ideas resulted from diverse traders from different geographic areas meeting at the urban centers of these trade routes. This was a catalyst for innovation. Cities became engines for a whole new generation of creative solutions.
(Hang on. Writing that last paragraph made me thirsty. I’m going to make a cup of tea.)
The origin of cities, like so much of the human story, is the result of a series of unpredictable and surprising events. Human history certainly didn’t progress in a straight line — and any change along the way would have resulted in a world far different from the one we live in today. But this is simply a thought experiment. It doesn’t help much to wonder what the world would look like, for example, if there hadn’t been colonialism by European nations. What matters is understanding what did happen and what that means for you today and for the future.
Building the first cities
Humans living in cities is a relatively new phenomenon. For most of human history — around 200,000 years of that history, by our best guesses — members of homo sapiens lived and wandered together in relatively small groups, tending to their crops and hunting for animals and fish. It was a basic and crude existence. Life span barely ever reached 40 years. Nothing much changed for most of that 200,000 years. The world in which people were born was identical to the world they exited.
A little over 10,000 years ago, the first significant urban areas emerged. Damascus, in Syria, is often cited as the oldest continually inhabited city. Athens in Greece wasn’t far behind and, like several other urban centers of that period, was a source of rapidly maturing human development. (Figure 1-1 illustrates Athens' Agora, an important center of developing commerce, political, and artistic life.) A handful of these cities, spanning from the Middle East through Europe and into China and India, were founded in this general period. Though many of these cities were instrumental in defining civilization, they were all modestly sized compared to the massive, industrial megacities of today. Athens, at its peak of enlightenment, was populated by mere thousands of people.
For most of human history, there really weren’t that many people, and most of us lived a rural lifestyle. Until as recently as the early 1800s, the entire world had fewer than a billion people. Compared to today, where over 55 percent of humans live in cities, back in 1800 only 3 percent occupied urban settings.
Cities emerged and grew because they offered a compelling alternative to life in rural areas. For example, rather than hunt, gather, or farm all the materials needed to survive, in a city a person could trade in a specialization to earn money to live. Not to get too technical, but this behavior originates as a consequence of the Neolithic revolution, a time defined as the transition from a rather ad hoc approach to wandering and hunting to settling into permanent areas and formalizing farming. The subsequent agricultural revolution created food abundance, which was highly liberating to humans. No longer tethered to the obligation of acquiring food, humans were free to focus on other tasks (like invent and watch television).
"The temple of Hephaistos, at the Agora, in Athens," by ArkanGL is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
FIGURE 1-1: The Ancient Agora of Athens: An early marketplace and the center of political, artistic, and athletic life.
Once humans started to settle in large numbers in these cities, everything started to change. Needs inspired innovation. Neighborhoods were defined. Law-and-order took shape. Products began to be mass produced. Communities created wealth. Conditions improved, albeit gradually. Cities became bustling centers of commerce, production, social activity, and leisure activities, with increasing varieties of arts and new models for education. Challenges grew in lockstep with prosperity. Crime, poverty, worker exploitation, disease, and other problems all weighed heavily on the emergence of cities and the lives of the new urbanites.
It’s an unfortunate fact that early cities were unpleasant places. They had poor sanitation, and deadly diseases ran rampant. Rats thrived. Crime was commonplace because few public safety protocols existed. Before electricity was discovered, lighting was provided by candles and gaslights, and with most buildings made of wood, fires were all too frequent.
The Great Fire of London, in 1666, destroyed the homes of 70,000 of the city's 80,000 inhabitants. Many other cities suffered the same fate.
As a consolation, the vast destruction caused by these fires did force the rebuilding of the cities with improved design. It also resulted in the introduction of building codes, regulations, and fire services — most of which had never existed.
For a small minority of inhabitants, life was good, but for the majority, one set of problems was replaced by another. Chaotic urban planning and rapid population growth all aided in creating issues that, frankly, still haunt humans to this day. In many respects, the phenomenon of smart cities is a late-in-the-game response to these originating circumstances.
Comprehending the Impact of the Industrial Revolutions
For much of the 200,000 years that homo sapiens has been around, not a great deal happened. But suddenly, after 199,000 years, a series of significant revolutions occurred that dramatically changed the trajectory of humanity.
Around the year 1300, the Renaissance began in beautiful Florence, Italy. Historians define this time as the transition to the modern era. It was a time of reasoning, scientific discoveries, advances in art, intellectualism, and improved management of knowledge. And more. This period spanned over a few hundred years and set the stage for the age of enlightenment and the scientific revolution. During this time, humans made leaps in their understanding of the world and the universe, but also in mathematics, physics, biology, and chemistry. Today, you might take it all for granted, but if it weren’t for these breakthroughs, the world might be quite different. Some argue that humans would be at a better place today had this science emerged considerably earlier in those long, lazy 200,000 years. (It depends on one’s perspective, I suppose.)
Though all this may or may not be all that interesting to you, it’s all driving me to the punchline: The stage was set for a series of three industrial revolutions that would change the world beginning in the 1700s — and a fourth, which is now under way — that would solidify the path toward the cities people live in today.
The first industrial revolution
The first industrial revolution begins in Britain. The invention of the steam-powered motor is a game-changer. Truly awesome machines could be powered by steam. Until that time, animals, humans, and windmills did much of the pulling and pushing. With the addition of steam, the production of products could be kicked up a notch. Steam also enabled railways to flourish. Britain began producing low-cost iron and steel, and then big machines and bridges could be built. All manner of new production techniques across industries — and particularly in textiles — were introduced.
This industrialization supported the development of mass-production factories, which were typically built in urban areas. These facilities needed increasing numbers of workers. Homes were built around the factories to keep those workers close. Farm workers seeking better economic circumstances flocked to these factories. City populations in these areas began to grow quickly.
New, positive social systems were hatched during this period. This included schools and mandatory education for children, labor unions for workers, and the arrival of the first law enforcers: the police. Healthcare options and sanitary conditions improved. For the first time, the notion of free time and discretionary income meant increased demands for entertainment and other ways to spend nonworking time. In the scheme of things, all this change was happening quite fast. Of course, it wasn’t restricted to Britain, either. Similar progress was occurring across Europe and in some of the outposts of the various European empires that spanned the globe at the time.
Still, this period was no utopia. With insufficient safety nets, many people suffered in this new, urban, and industrial landscape. History books are replete with descriptions of undesirable circumstances, including poor housing conditions and air quality, little or no sanitation, long working hours, and rampant, violent crime.
Sadly, and surprisingly, even in the 21st century, these conditions still exist in many global cities. One in three humans still live in poor urban living circumstances. Come on, let’s fix this. Smarter, sustainable, and resilient cities, anyone?
(The United Nations’ 2030 sustainable development goals, SDGs, are an earnest global effort to improve these poor conditions. Details can be found in Chapter 2).
The second industrial revolution
Within just 100 years, the second industrial revolution would be under way. It would be defined by the achievement of the wide-scale use of electricity. It’s hard to overstate the difference between the world before electricity use and the world after. That truly is the definition of a revolution. Pause for a moment to consider all the items you use that require electricity. Wild, right?
Electricity brought light bulbs to homes and streetlights to cities. It enabled the invention of the telegraph and telephone. Telephones! It powered new levels of manufacturing. Eventually, electricity changed the lives of everyone living in most cities. Today, electricity continues to change lives, though it’s fair to say that few people think of it that way. You also need to recognize that 11 percent of the world’s population still has no access to electricity. There’s work to be done.
The third industrial revolution
In the 1940s, a third industrial revolution began. Built on the progress of the previous revolutions, and in particular electricity and telecommunications, the information age began.
In many ways, humans are all now living through this revolution, and it could be argued that we’re still only at the beginning of it. It seems like computers, software applications, smartphones, and the Internet have already radically changed the world, but the potential seems only partially met. Just in the past few years, we have moved from static web pages to dynamic websites that support e-commerce to apps that enable people to manage and coordinate many aspects of their lives.
With still another 45 percent of the world to come online in the years ahead (that’s over 3 billion people yet to be connected!) and the potential for the technology to be even more disruptive, this revolution has some ways to go.
The game-changing technology of the information age has been the miniaturization of the transistor. This revolutionary technology uses a special material, called a semiconductor, to control the flow of electricity. Like a light switch, a transistor uses electricity to turn a switch on or off. Assigning a value of 1 to the On state and a 0 to the Off state provides the 1s and 0s that are the language of computers. Today, over a billion of these tiny transistors can fit on some of the fastest microchips. My head nearly explodes trying to comprehend the tiny scale of this technology that enables so much of the modern world.
The third industrial revolution has enabled the Internet, the World Wide Web, word processors, spreadsheets, all sorts of cool devices (including everyone’s beloved smartphones and their apps), massive automation and artificial intelligence, videoconferencing, online banking, and on and on.
The third industrial revolution is creating new business models such as on-demand taxi services, and slowly destroying others. Consider the fate of the newspaper or the challenge to brick-and-mortar retail coming from the popularity of shopping online.
For most people living in cities, all they have to do is look around to appreciate the vast ways in which computing technology supports their environments.
As this revolution progresses, the cost of computing and storage drops, more devices get connected, software grows smarter, richer data becomes available, and the entry barriers to wild ideas is lowered.
Soon it won’t be just a question of whether humans can create some ground-breaking innovation, but rather a question of whether we should create it.
No doubt, this revolution becomes the basis for building smarter cities.
The fourth industrial revolution
Even while the third industrial revolution unfolds, you can now see evidence of yet another revolution. As examples, on the streets of several cities self-driving cars are carrying people to their destinations, drones are delivering packages, experimental flying cars are zooming across the sky, and any number of services, such as surgery and caregiving, that were once the exclusive purview of humans are being augmented by robots and artificial intelligence. The third and fourth revolutions will overlap considerably, just like the first and second industrial revolutions. The fourth industrial revolution will be powered by the convergence of new technologies, new scientific breakthroughs, emerging behaviors, changing demographics, and global economics. It’s my view that this revolution is when the vast majority of smart cities will emerge. (I discuss this specific topic in greater detail in Chapter 8.)
In Figure 1-2, I’ve summarized the timeline and some of the major breakthroughs in each of the four industrial revolutions.
FIGURE 1-2: The core characteristics of the four industrial revolutions.
Responding to population growth
Check out Figure 1-3. The truly striking aspect is that, for most of human history, the population of people on Planet Earth was low. It remained well below a billion for a very long time. Population growth is based on the difference between birth and death rates. Poor nutrition and environmental conditions, the absence of healthcare, and other dangers contributed to short life expectancy and high death rates among babies and infants. As a consequence of the eventual positive outcomes of the Renaissance, the scientific revolution, and the subsequent industrial revolutions, birthrates increased and premature deaths decreased.
Data source: United Nations
FIGURE 1-3: Population growth since the 1700s.
Living in cities, despite often terrible conditions in the first and second industrial revolutions, actually made the largest positive contribution to growing population rates.
By 1800, the world’s population passed 1 billion, and in just over 100 years, it reached 2 billion. From the 1920s onward, the rate of population growth began to skyrocket, increasing from 2 billion to 3 billion in just over 30 years and then adding another 3 billion by 2000 to reach 6 billion. The world is now approaching 8 billion humans. It is estimated that almost 10 percent of all humans who have ever lived are alive now!
However, this rapid population explosion won’t continue. The rate of growth has begun to slow and may, in fact, peak at around 11 billion and then begin to decrease. A primary driver of population decline is the increasing number of women receiving an education in developing nations. As women get more education, they have fewer children.
Some experts suggest that global population decreases in the future might be humanity’s biggest challenge. This is because a declining population cannot sustain economic growth and an aging population has less labor to innovate and support productivity. There’s certainly a role for robots here, but that’s a discussion for another book. Population decline seems counterintuitive, considering that we spent most of the 20th century worrying about the challenges of a population explosion.
Comprehending and responding to population growth and demographic shifts is vital to planning for the future of the world’s cities. Urbanization is clearly a product of rapid population growth. It’s probably not lost on you that the smart city movement is partially motivated by unmanaged population increases and the attendant dysfunction that has ensued.
The increase in the number of humans is all happening in cities, powered by better healthcare and living conditions and by the recent unprecedented migration of humans from rural to urban areas. It is estimated that as many as 3 million people now move into cities each week. By midcentury, that number will likely result in an increase of 2 billion people living in an urban setting.
A smart city strategy for a given city must accommodate population and demographic trends.
Though for many cities this strategy will reflect projected increases in populations (see my discussion on megacities later in this chapter, in the section “Building megacities”), many cities in developed nations could see challenges emerging from population declines. In both scenarios, the use of technology and new approaches to problem-solving will be essential to future community success.
Urbanizing the Planet
I’m hoping that you’ll pick up on three essential ideas in this chapter. First, the scientific era is a recent development. For 199,000 of their 200,000 years on this planet, nothing much changed for humans, and life was a miserable experience. Only since the 1300s has the human condition radically shifted in a positive direction. Second, during the first 199,000 years, the population of humans on Earth remained low. The population passed 1 billion in 1800 and added 5 billion in the 1900s — in just 100 years. Finally, until the 1800s, most cities remained relatively small. For example, during the time of the Roman Empire, with the exception of Rome and a handful of other areas, many Italian cities ranged only from 5,000 to 15,000 people.
The conclusion? The nature of cities today is a recent phenomenon. Big, dense urban areas are a product of just the past few decades. (See Figure 1-4.)
China, for example, has undergone a dramatic urban transformation that began in the latter part of the 20th century and continues to this day. Today, over 160 cities in China have a population of over 1 million.
Major global urbanization has occurred over the past 200 years, but at different rates and time periods. Though the regions of Europe, North America, and Australia and others were early to urbanize at a gradual rate, Southeast Asia, China, India, the Middle East, and parts of Africa have progressed later but more rapidly.
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Graph by https://ourworldindata.org
FIGURE 1-4: Share of population living in an urban setting over the past 500 years.
For example, in 1966 Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was a cluster of small settlements. Today, it’s a glistening modern city with a population of over 3 million.
From 2000 to 2010, Shanghai, China, grew by 7.4 million inhabitants, from 16.4M to 23.8M. This has created a stunning, sprawling, and chaotic megacity. In fact, China’s urbanization has been the most notable. In 1960, about 110 million Chinese lived in cities. By 2015, the number was closer to 760 million (about 56 percent of the country).
In Africa, the migration to cities continues at a rapid pace. By the 2040s, it’s estimated that African city dwellers will increase by 400 million. Today, cities power 80 percent of the global economy. By 2025, it’s projected that just 600 cities around the world will generate 60 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the planet.
In the United States, just ten cities alone are responsible for generating one-third of all GDP.
I am hard-pressed to think of another human achievement that has defined the world more than the urbanization of the past 100 years. With more than half of humans living in cities and billions more joining over the next 50 years, the future belongs to cities.
Changing landscapes resulting from urbanization
Imagine for a moment what Manhattan must have looked like before New York (or what used to be called New Amsterdam). Let’s go way back, before there were any buildings and infrastructure. It’s a rocky, hilly island covered in chestnut, oak, and hickory trees. There are streams, swamps, salt marshes, and grasslands inhabited by turkeys, elks, and black bears. It’s a beautiful, rich ecosystem of life.
Fast-forward to today, and, well, Manhattan looks a just little different.
Urbanization has forever changed the planet. An estimated 3 percent of the world’s land has been paved over. Cities are now dense areas of human activity, knitted together with a mix of concrete and asphalt, roads and pathways, wires and pipes, tunnels and bridges, industrial areas and housing, parking lots, apartments, stadiums, warehouses, skyscrapers, and more. They are beautiful and ugly, messy and clean, organized and chaotic, modern and historic.
Humans have built a variety of systems to connect their urban areas — from roads and canals to airports and seaports. Few mountains or other natural obstacles have limited the urban sprawl, as humans have built over them and as they have dug deep tunnels under their feet and through the hills.
Cities have created more opportunities, more prosperity, and a longer life span than any other human invention. But they’ve also enacted a toll on humanity, from creating bad health conditions to radically altering Earth’s climate. Urbanization is accelerating the effects of the Anthropocene, the period of Planet Earth’s history that continues to this day, when humans became responsible for altering the environment and climate.
Humans are now responsible for the cities we’ve created, and we could argue that we didn’t fully anticipate their massive success and great challenges. Either way, humans now have to deal with the consequences, both good and bad. Many costs were not considered, and now we’re faced with the obligation to act.
Without a smarter approach to delivering cities, many communities face a daunting future.
Building megacities
In many countries, fire marshals insist on enforcing maximum occupancy regulations for commercial rooms. For example, you’ll see placards in hotel meeting spaces or movie theaters that state the limit of how many people are allowed to occupy the space. It’s wise, because with too many people in a defined area, the possibilities of problems increase.
However, with a few exceptions, no such limitation exists for cities.
That’s right. In most instances, people can move into cities with no consideration of population size, housing availability, job opportunities, healthcare options, or other support systems. It means that, as long as no constraint is imposed, popular cities will continue to see their populations increase and be burdened with the responsibility of responding to the potential crisis this creates.
Curiously enough, though, large, growing cities are often more successful than smaller ones. Increasing populations generate economic and employment activity that benefits everyone. Larger tax yields enable better public services. Diversity creates richer cultural experiences. More people often result in a larger number of social services. Many of them have the resources to prioritize their smart city initiatives.
Today, I’m encouraged that so many of the world’s biggest cities are prospering. However, not to get to too far ahead of myself, the challenges of managing a big city are significant and severe. I discuss many in this book.
The future growth of cities, including population and geographic areas, will follow one of these three patterns:
No growth:
Stable and consistent population size with varying economic outcomes
Declining growth:
Shrinking communities and budgets sometimes resulting in almost complete abandonment
Increased growth:
Significant changes as city immigration and natural growth (more new babies than deaths) continues unabated
Though the first two patterns clearly have challenges, the biggest urban phenomenon of the next few decades will be the last one — the rapid growth of many cities. While recognizing the many positives of large urban populations, the demands of cities that exceed a million occupants will continue to challenge the ability of city leaders to deliver. But these cities will begin to pale in comparison to the emergence of an increasing number of cities that exceed 10 million people. These are the megacities! Today, there are almost 50 of them on the planet.
If the 20th century human experience was defined by population growth, the 21st century will be defined by the power and footprint of megacities. These massive urban centers will demand completely new systems of support, green energy options, sustainability strategies, economic diversity, alternative transportation, and much, much more. In the future, it will be successful megacities that ultimately define the notion of smart cities.
Figure 1-5 lists the top ten megacities in the world, as of 2019:
FIGURE 1-5: The top ten global megacities.
That so many of these cities succeed despite their size and complexity is a testament to human ingenuity.
Chapter 2
Defining Smart Cities
IN THIS CHAPTER
Seeing what makes a smart city
Understanding the motivation for building smarter cities
Comparing the “smart” needs of large and small cities
Illustrating two smart city examples
There’s no globally agreed-on definition for the term smart city — which is surprising, given the increasing importance and maturity of the topic. Fortunately, some consistent themes can be found in smart city strategies from around the world that are in use by city leaders. This chapter describes common concepts accepted by the smart city community, and it covers misconceptions in order to help you understand what a smart city is not. I help you explore the motivation for building smart cities as well as the different needs of both large and small cities, and then I conclude the chapter by comparing two examples of smart cities.
Identifying Smart Cities
In my view, there’s really no such thing as a smart city. Wait — what? That’s certainly an odd comment from the author of a book about smart cities. Okay, let me explain. What I really mean is that there’s no such thing as a completed smart city. I can’t think of an example where all the work has been finished and the designers and implementers have, after completing their tasks, washed their hands and said, “We’re done. Voilà! Here’s your smart city.”
Nope. Doesn’t exist. After all, is a city ever completed?
With a few rare exceptions, cities are in a constant state of change. Whether they’re being updated and improved or expanding upward, downward, and outward (or all of these), our cities are living, evolving entities. Cities are a work in progress. They are shaped by (among many factors) community needs, by societal trends, by crisis, and by better ideas. They shrink and expand, they decline and are reborn, and they are destroyed and rebuilt. They are never finished.
