Introduction - Smarter people of smarter communities for making smart cities - India

Hello,

Smart city! Smart city! Smart city! everywhere, whether Government or public or private forums or individual conversations, we come to see, feel and, even sense, this word, as the entire focus and attention of the Government, when it comes to urban development, seem to have shifted to creating a new world of urban dwellers looking smart in every sense of the word. In all fairness, seeing the messy conditions in urban conglomerations in India, whether small or big ones, old or new ones it makes strong sense and appeals every one. To begin with, the Government has already announced with definite commitment creating 98 smart cities in the country, giving due weightage to regional and other considerations. They have also committed budgetary allocation of required resources through planned interventions for those cities. Institutional mechanism and channels, equally important for their implementation has been and are being put in place. Even private sector involvement is being roped in to promote smart cities in the country. Needless to say, while the importance of Government, public and private participation for such an initiative can hardly be undermined, it becomes, perhaps, more important to have smart people and communities living them to realise the dreams of smart cities and truly create the world of smart conglomerations. Further, if we dream to create smart cities in urban centres, it becomes still more important with greater urgency to lay emphasis on creating smart villages also in the same spirit in order to make the urban smart cities more sustainable to avoid demographic and resultant pressures. Again, it may be recognised that creation of smart cities or villages would also warrant sociological integration of diversified and multi-polar linguistic and cultural world.

While the debate goes on and will go on, it becomes challenging as to how to make our people and community really smart to match the emerging needs and aspirations of the new urban conglomerations. Of course, this would need, among others, a participative approach to taking along the public at large and familiarising them on larger common and collective approaches and public conducts and at the same time seeking their perceptions and expectations of a smart city to make it more acceptable and accommodative.

One must not forget that India has been a nation of nations with multi-ethnicities and varied lingual and cultural identities’, sometimes leading to social maladjustments and even conflicts. The smart cities, as it is visualised and conceptualised by the planners and policy makers, would involve creating urban environment with a new socio-cultural world with collective purposes of living and leading a truly smart life. This will certainly generate a new social fabric and a new sociology conducive to living a happy and contended life at personal, family, collective and common level. The present forum seeks to make a humble effort with a modest aim to work in these directions by involving you and anybody for that matter across the globe through the world of webs and internets sharing experiences, views, comments, methodologies, and suggestions to further strengthen and improving the concept of smart cities and joining hands to create a new sociology of urban environment with constant and continued participative and interactive mechanism. To begin with, I wish to interact with you in person by sharing the following:

I am a city dweller just like you. I am here to share with you my thoughts while I interact with cities and people living here. I will not get in any technical definitions and details about what cities are and its ever emerging nature and how its growth patterns are defined theoretically in economic or urban planning terms. You can refer to Google or Yahoo to get those answers and take references. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you my experiences and knowledge in learning to become smart residents and make our own smart vigilant communities. While doing so, I look forward to learn from you too as this forum is open for participation. Mission is to spread awareness about smart city concepts and how community driven approaches can contribute in making our cities smart.

Honestly, I first thought I would formally write about all my findings and read more and write more and validate my finings thoroughly by peer reviews, etc.  But this approach becomes very lengthy. In today’s technology driven pace that we live in, it hardly allows us that much time if it’s really about our fast growing cities. Our cities call for a much more prompt and responsive approach in knowledge / information sharing, decision making, in our actions and behaviour. Though the empirical paper writing or theoretical approach or literature review writings are fantastic for authors who want to publish papers/ books and may get name and fame by their hard work and efforts, my intension here is simply to reach out to people and communicate for ideas in a participatory approach. Hence blogging becomes the best opportunity for me here and I hope this brings us all together and participate in making our smart cities beautiful, healthy and liveable in all sense.

I totally believe in giving due credits for the sweet work rendered by others.  As a step in this direction, necessary links of all such works would be provided to allow for making references or validate findings. I feel, very soon I wouldn’t have to do that either, as Google may come up with a technology that will highlight paragraphs/ texts of thoughts with its sources when copied. And who knows, the entire methodology for writing may completely transform in future.

Here in this forum we will cover topics related to various aspects of what we call ‘smart cities’ and ‘being smart residents’, mainly by giving choices and also involving in decisions we make in every aspect of life using technologies. We will talk about community driven approaches. We will discuss about various case studies in western world/ India that may set as good smart community/ city examples in Indian context. We will talk about governments / public roles in making smart cities, social and economic impacts, technologies, data and analytics, opportunities/ threats with technology shaping our cities, smart gadgets / apps that can be used for becoming smart citizens and much more. You are most welcome to share your knowledge and wisdom on any of the issues/ aspects relating to these and many more which make this endeavour more resourceful and enriching for collective use by planners, policy makers, individuals, groups, or any body working in this field. Of course, you alone will be given due credit for your information and insightful thoughts. 

Pallavi & Tej