What is smart city

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Recently, many cities have upgraded their infrastructure, using sensing technology and data analytics to manage better urban assets such as public transit, wastewater systems, and roads. This connected infrastructure vision comprises what is known as physical assets networked via sensor technology that generates streams of valuable data from smart parking meters, streetlights, and even trash receptacles.

For cities that have yet to progress along the smart city journey, this is still a powerful vision. Connected sensors that collect data can help cities optimize their physical infrastructure performance and are a key part of what it takes to build a smart city.

Today, however, we are beginning to see the dawn of the next generation of urban evolution as some of the more progressive cities have started to move beyond mere infrastructure, tapping the wisdom of their residents and visitors. Ultimately, the smart cities of tomorrow will involve:

  • Not just the government but citizens.
  • Visitors.
  • Businesses in an intelligent, connected ecosystem built on a sensor-based physical infrastructure.

Beyond improving infrastructure, it focuses on enhancing the citizen experience by operating at the intersection of the data, digital, and human-centered design. The goal is to enable better decision-making by using data for all stakeholders government, business, and residents.

In the drive to smarter cities, city governments can foster the creation of environments in which ecosystem innovators, including government, businesses, social entrepreneurs, and individuals, can thrive. Governments help build platforms, recruit an ecosystem of partners, hold partners accountable for targeted outcomes, attract new investment, open up services to choose from, and manage crowdsourced campaigns and competitions. That requires them to assemble an ecosystem of partners across government, established businesses, start-ups, the academic sector, and the nonprofit world.

Because they unite a diverse ecosystem of stakeholders, smart cities require clearly defined governance. City leaders, regional governments, transportation districts, corporate and nonprofit partners, and, depending on the funding model, state and federal agencies may all participate in establishing and executing a smart city vision. Stakeholders should articulate their responsibilities and ensure that appropriate information flows to the right decision-makers. Setting accountability upfront and creating mechanisms to drive timely decisions are also critical.


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