The first-ever workshop on the Smart City Mission hosted for mayors and commissioners on 3rd September, 2015 raised many questions related to smart city financial model, issues with land acquisition, structure of smart city in terms of size, services and infrastructure etc. The discussion led to a notion that it becomes essential to have land bank for creating smart cities and the same shall spread on minimum of 500 acres[1]. It appears that our existing cities have not cried out loud in being heard for more urgent need of smart city planning schemes. Our cities probably need to worsen even more to grab everyone’s attention on the urgent need for improvements in all sense...
An important question is, smart is a quality that we want to attribute to our cities by all means of technically advanced solutions in all sectors for growth and development of our 'Cities' and make it liveable and people centric. All people living in cities are part of it. A ‘city’ has a physical size, population size, administrative boundaries etc (Please check for definitions). I wonder where we are heading in actually understanding the basic concepts of smart cities and implementing the same for betterment of citizens. We are forming new separate smart cities, encouraging private developers and stake holders to make their small or big development projects and calling it smart cities. Everywhere and everything that we are associating is the catchy word smart… With so much of smart cities everywhere in our country, sounds like quite an opportunity...To think about it, are we even getting the right meaning of smart city concepts in our developing country context? Do we need to check examples in other countries that are getting it right better than us, may be... Masdar City laying between the Abu Dhabi International Airport and Yas Island in Abu Dhabi is an eco urban project. The city includes an area of about seven square kilometres and will accommodate ninety thousand people (forty thousand living population and fifty thousand floating population)[2] Population growth of London from 2011 to 2021, was estimated to increase by a million. Smart city planning is adopted in existing city of London to meet with the needs of growing population increase so that the quality of life for citizens does not deteriorate. Approach is deploying technology to maximise opportunities for people with all services, facilities and infrastructure and thus cope with this growth while making city more efficient, beautiful and liveable. Mobilizing people in taking decisions related to growth of city is important in this context to the Mayor.[3] There are many more examples that can be looked up online to get our definitions and understanding of smart cities on better lines.
Pallavi. P
[1] Jeelani, Mehboob. "Smart City has to be compact: experts." The Hindu Today's Paper, National, 09 04, 2015.
[2] Buletti, Nora. “An analysis of Masdar City’s communication strategy Using speech act theory to go beyond the corporate façade.” Lausanne, 2011
[3] Greater London Authority. "http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files." London.gov.uk. 2011. http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/smart_london_plan.pdf (accessed 09 17, 2015).
2 comments:
Smart cities are those where public issues are resolved with the help of technology and make it an efficient and progressive place to live. Example : technology used for proper waste management to improve hygiene of a city and eliminate diseases related to it. Sensors used to detect any illegal activity like gun shot at the light post, energy efficient lights on the street. Well planed roads to accommodate current and future growth of population, etc.
Hopefully India will get there soon someday!
You have very precisely stated the actual basics. Unfortunately people are getting very strange ideas in our country and people's interest are not seen much...
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