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Essay on Smart Cities

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Introduction

Building a city with some smart innovations has some important pillars, and it requires the access and implementation of government to all the best ways or solutions for their people’s most important problems or issues (Shelton, 2015). Creative thinking and very strong leadership are needed in case of building a smart nation (Hollands, 2015). As the nation needs betterment, change, and advancement, there has to be a session for failure learning, and experimentation. To oblige and accommodate the deployment and selection of new technologies, the regulatory system or structure must be assessed and surveyed at all levels, while assuring an affected individual’s trust and protection (Benevolo, 2016). For building a smart city, one of the most important things is to bring new and advanced technology into daily life usage. For instance, using advanced technology in transportation, physical and cybersecurity, and protection. There must be a financial development of the city.

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Discussion

A smart city usually includes different and advanced technologies and electronics, which collect data and then manage and adjust the assets and services very efficiently (Hashem, 2016). This contains all the data collected from the citizens, and the devices, which is further analyzed and processed to monitor and adjust the system of transportation, power plants, networks of water supply and traffic systems, detection of crimes, schools, universities, libraries, and other services, which are used in the society or the community. The idea of a smart city incorporates, ICT and different physical devices that are connected with the system of IoT, which is used to optimize the proficiency of the nation and services and it connects with the people living there. The innovation of smart cities allows national officials or the authorities to be in contact with the citizens or the community and the framework of the city and to monitor the condition of the city and the evolution of the nation. To improve the performance or working of administration of the urban areas, ICT is used. It is also used to increase the contact between the citizens and the administration or the government (Meijer, 2016).

The applications used in smart cities

The applications used in the smart cities are usually for monitoring or controlling the flow in urban areas and it allows them to respond in real-time. Information technology is used in smart cities for making more efficient and better usage of the roads, and other physical infrastructures through robotics or artificial intelligence. On the other hand, there is some analytics of data, whose common purpose is to result in the development of economics, culture, and sociality. Simply, everything that is been done physically or offering hard work or any tolerance should be exchanged for something more efficient or advanced. For example, efficient traffic systems, which have smart street cameras, traffic lights, etc. There must be a deployment of technologies in the city to build it a smart nation.

Necessities of a Smart City

The smart city needs good and advanced technology being used by the people and the government. Different blends and contrasts of the framework of the technology come in contact to produce different types or a variety of technologies for smart cities with changing stages of contact or interaction between the citizens and technology. In a smart city, there should be an interaction system or a service to connect people and devices which includes the infrastructure of communication and revolutionary systems. There are some other points or things that should especially be used in the case of building a smart city, which is to build better paths and ways for the citizens, for example, building bridges and a more efficient traffic system. A smart city is not about the development of technology, it is about using it in creative ways, which would possibly result in betterment and development in the daily lives of the citizens (Ming, 2015). There should be an advancement in the digital infrastructure and it should expand all over the nation, and there has to be more usage of machine learning, software-based engineering, digital skills, and data analytics in a smart city.

What an advanced smart city looks like

In some of the advanced or smart cities, the government has installed different kinds of sensors and digital gadgets on the streets, which help in monitoring the air and weather quality and notify travelers about rain prediction or any other weather conditions. Many nations have claimed that smart cities are safer than normal cities. For instance, the City of Detroit has partnered up with some local businesses, which helps the country’s law enforcement to directly get access to business footage cameras in real time. After this step was taken, the crime percentage dropped to 50% in that era. More technologies allow the city’s infrastructure to work more efficiently. Such as smart parking technology and other smart transportation advancements. One example of a smart transportation application is the use of smart rail technology. Smart rail technology uses sensors and data analytics to improve the efficiency and safety of rail transportation. This includes advancements in rail engineering, traction, and rolling stock. Moreover, there is an increase in autonomous vehicles or self-driving cars.

Gadgets used in Smart cities

In a smart city, there should be always equity in digital technology and gadgets. Every citizen should have access to high-speed internet, and the devices people can afford. There should be a public WI-FI hotspot system all over the city for every resident. The government of the city of Seattle has planned on providing skills classes to the citizens and providing reliable and low-cost WI-FI connections (Scotney, 2015). There is another very beneficial usage of advanced gadgets, which helps in not wasting any resources, such as electricity or water. Some of the smart cities have installed safety gadgets or advanced sensors, which notify the user about any leakage from the pipelines or any loss of electricity through any wire or connection. These gadgets are really helpful in saving natural resources and in reducing the waste of them. There are smart water meters in Cape Town, South Africa, which collects all the usage data from every individual’s house and provides a bill individually daily. This has already led to around 40-60 percent drop in the extra consumption of water supply. All gadgets like this have shown a great solution to consume resources in an efficient way and quantity.

Conclusion

Smart cities are not only about new and advanced technology but the correct and creative usage of those gadgets is the most important thing or the base to build a smart city (Anthopoulos, 2015). Many countries have worked on this and they are facing a positive change in their cities and the lives of citizens. Some cities have installed smart traffic gadgets, such as there is some kind of sensors on the traffic lights, which show the current condition of the weather to travelers, and notify them about any rain forecast or a bad weather prediction. Then there are smart parking gadgets, which help the driver park the car more safely and if someone hits or causes any damage, they automatically charge the fee for causing damage. After that, there are self-driving cars and other vehicles (Monzon, 2015).

References

Shelton, T., Zook, M., and Wiig, A., 2015. The ‘existing smart city’. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy, and Society8(1), pp.13-25.

Hollands, R.G., 2015. Critical interventions into the corporate smart city. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy, and Society8(1), pp.61-77.

Benevolo, C., Dameri, R.P., and D’Auria, B., 2016. Smart mobility in a smart city. In Empowering Organizations (pp. 13-28). Springer, Cham.

Hashem, I.A.T., Chang, V., Anuar, N.B., Adewole, K., Yaqoob, I., Gani, A., Ahmed, E., and Chiroma, H., 2016. The role of big data in the smart city. International Journal of Information Management36(5), pp.748-758.

Meijer, A., and Bolívar, M.P.R., 2016. Governing the smart city: a review of the literature on smart urban governance. international review of administrative sciences82(2), pp.392-408.

Li, Y., Dai, W., Ming, Z., and Qiu, M., 2015. Privacy protection for preventing data over-collection in the smart city. IEEE Transactions on Computers65(5), pp.1339-1350.

Li, Y., Dai, W., Ming, Z., and Qiu, M., 2015. Privacy protection for preventing data over-collection in the smart city. IEEE Transactions on Computers65(5), pp.1339-1350.

Gaur, A., Scotney, B.W., Parr, G.P. and McClean, S.I., 2015, January. Smart city architecture and its applications based on IoT. In ANT/SEIT (pp. 1089-1094).

Anthopoulos, L.G., 2015. Understanding the smart city domain: A literature review. In Transforming city governments for successful smart cities (pp. 9-21). Springer, Cham.

Monzon, A., 2015, May. Smart cities concept and challenges: Bases for the assessment of smart city projects. In 2015 international conferences on smart cities and green ICT systems (SMARTGREENS) (pp. 1-11). IEEE.