What are smart cities

We begin this article defining the concept of intelligent city or Smart City. While there are different points of view, we can usually define a city as intelligent when the following characteristics are given:

• The infrastructurethe Communicationshe human capital and the investment socialThey coexist in harmony with economic development that is completely sustainable.
• All of the above is based on the use of New Technologies (ICT).
• As a result we have a better quality of life and a sensible Natural Resources Management. We tell you what is the importance of natural resources, here.
• To achieve this, the stake and the commitment of citizens.
• The improvement process is constant, since there are older and more best technological advances.

Smart cities are the consequence of the need increasingly accused of redirecting our lifestyle towards sustainability. Since it is estimated that the population will add 2,000 million inhabitants for the year 2050 and that these inhabitants will live mostly in cities, they will have to take forceful measures so that population and economic growth do not have an excessive environmental impact.

From a comprehensive or multifactorial perspective and using innovation, infrastructure and technology, we can reduce energy consumption and consume natural resources more efficiently. In this way, we can also reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

We leave you the following article about what environmental and social sustainability is so you have more information on the subject.

Almost everything that surrounds smart cities are advantages. Next, we break down the entire variety of improvements or advances that are pursued for our benefit.

• Urban Video-Vigilance.
• Devices that determine in real time what is the occupation in public parking lots: as well as places where to rent bicycles or cars.
• Measurement of air and water pollution levels In real time: thus being able to generate alerts to the population. Discover more about air pollution: causes, consequences and solutions and types of water pollution, here.
• Devices that measure in real time Traffic on different paths: In order to warn drivers what are the best routes and save fuel. Also recommended for urbanization policies.
• Increase security by coordinating health services with those of the Police.
• Instant geolocation: Public transport vehicles to know with certainty the time of arrival to the different sites.
• Encourage the use of private and public electric vehicles.
• Systems of public lighting That they enjoy of LED technologies that adapt to consumption: reducing luminosity and saving energy if people are not detected on public roads.
• Intelligent and automatic irrigation of gardens that allow efficient use of water.
• Instruments that measure the filling levels of garbage containers, to allow optimization in collection.
• Telecare, Telemedicine and AERTES TO EMERGENCY SERVICES automatically when required in older or disabled people.
• Applications to improve tourist visits: such as consumption and leisure guides.
• Measures in real time for alert some dangers With enough time: such as fires, storms, floods or hurricanes.

While there are few disadvantages or inconveniences that may arise in smart cities projects, we can mention some:

• Could fall into a overvaluation of economic aspects to the detriment of other equally important urban development factors.
• Some technological solutions could generate rejection among the different inhabitants If they do not integrate enough with the existing technology.
• Focusing on the development of novel network technological equipment could lead to Do not value possible negative effects enough that could occur.

Finally, we bring you the most representative intelligent cities in the world. There are many intelligent cities projects today developing and most try to adapt current cities to be Smart Cities, although some smart cities have been built from scratch.

Built from scratch

We tell you about three smart cities initiatives built from scratch. They seek to establish solutions that can later be scaled to other existing cities:

• Tianjin (China): Its objective is to create an ecological city, with low levels of coal and where water, energy, soil and a good transport system are efficiently used.
• Songdo (Korea): In this case the objective is more opt for technological development, businesses and commerce, in addition to the best services in education and health. In addition, it is a city without cars.
• Paju (Korea): It pursues a balanced local development, pioneer in education and transport.

Transformed cities

The cities transformed into smart cities or in the process of being the majority. Three of the cities cataloged as smart cities are the following:

• Singapore: It is considered the most intelligent city in the world. In order to face climate change, poverty and demographic increase, radical changes were made. For example, in education, information and communication technologies (ICT) were considered basic skills comparable to language use.
• Curitiba (Brazil): This city always saw the need for structured planning of the city and create an environment conducive to the industry. He changed his economic activity to adapt to climate change.
• Luxembourg City: Here a series of measures oriented to the increase in coverage and Internet access were made and sustainable development is practiced with social, economic and environmental development.

There are many other cities that have characteristics of Smart Cities. The most prominent are:

• Dubai
• Copenhagen
• Boston
• Oslo
• London
• New York
• Barcelona
• Amsterdam
• Hong Kong

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