World Urbanization: Are Smart Cities Really The Thing of The Future
It is evident that we are heading towards a completely tech-dependent lifestyle, but will that bring us to the creation of smart cities? As a matter of fact, we already lead a technology-dependent life and we cannot imagine our every day without artificial personal assistants, applications, smartphones, etc. The proposed idea of smart cities would supposedly lead to a more efficient society, but is it really something that expects us in the future?
The Internet of Things as an Answer
The ultimate goal of the smarts cities of the future is to combine the technology with infrastructure in order to facilitate the life big cities. By adding the tech factor to the city’s infrastructure, it could possibly help the people improve their interactions with the urban surroundings.
The everlasting question is still how can that be achieved? Some see The Internet of Things as an answer, as it can allow various gadgets and things to communicate via the internet. With this kind of smart interaction among the objects, there are innumerous ideas of how to incorporate it into a city’s infrastructure.
The Efficiency of Smart Cities
Not only would such technological innovations make life in big cities easier, but it would also reduce the costs in everyday life, due to its precise calculating. Implementing smart technologies in public spaces is big nowadays.
There is an example of Barcelona, where the city provided high-speed WiFi by spreading the network of optic fibers throughout the whole area. This system supports the Internet of Things and together with smart lighting, smart water, and parking management, it helped Barcelona save €75 million.
There are more similar examples in Europe, such as the Netherlands. In this country, in the city of Amsterdam, energy, traffic, and public safety are controlled and regulated based on real-time data and the IoT. We also have similar models in the USA, in cities such as Boston, smart trash cans are a crucial part of the sanitation system. Based on how full the cans are, the system will determine the pick-up priority.
So, is It a Thing of Tomorrow?
The technologies are definitely developing and more and more innovations are coming our way. The spreading of urban grounds is also progressing fast, and it is only a matter of time when will such “smart city” systems be integrated into the infrastructure.
In some parts of the world, it is already happening. In the UK, future urbanization plans include integrating smart technology to upgrade the infrastructure of the whole country. It could have a great impact on the UK’s economy.
Overall, smart cities could have a great impact on public service systems, which could further result in better life quality and lower living costs. This way, the whole human race would get better interaction with the environment and less wasted resources.
