Basis for Humane Smart Cities
Imagine cities becoming computers that harvest data from its citizens also known as users. Every user of the city is monitored by multiple cameras to ensure safety and track people flow. The city sells the harvested data to companies that now can target their marketing and sales to the right target group. New technology implementations are made continuously in order to make more services digital and collect more data from different aspects. This helps decision making in the city. The described is a direction some smart cities are heading. To most people this sounds like a city one would not want to live in. Smart cities try to implement technology into cities to make them more efficient by optimizing its services. This transformation can be made technology and business aspects first or people-centrically.
Humane smart cities aim to create smart cities that are optimized, efficient and still stay humane and are created together with its citizens. The main idea of a city as a communal environment which is a good place to live, work and have interactions with others should not be changed at the expense of technology. Technology and smartness should only be tools for addressing people and their needs. Humane smart cities can be described with three basic ideas that can include seven different fields of study: smart living, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment, smart economy, and smart social inclusion (Almeida et al, 2018; Costa & Oliveira, 2017).
First of the three basics is planning the city sections in a way that it serves its habitants living, working and hobbies in the sense that in caters for different people’s wishes and needs (Almeida et al, 2018). Including services such as schools, clinics, supermarkets, and restaurants. In addition, cities should also provide work in different fields. Surroundings and services creating a place where tourists and locals can share experiences and different income levels of society mingle without much class tension or racial hatred (Costa & Oliveira, 2017). Everyone should have the same possibilities for services despite their wealth or origins.
Second, is focusing planning on citizens’ wishes and needs and not on technology alone (Almeida et al, 2018). With technology governments can create better services but this should be done only after defining the benefits for the local citizens. The city should be open about the data harvested by digital services and emphasize that the data belongs to its habitants creating trust in the city governance. This is something that differs in the culture for example in China people are more agile towards personal data and privacy with cameras always surveilling the streets than in Finland where people give high respect to their own privacy. Another important aspect is to ensure people to be heard in the public affairs by participating them in the decision making. The cities should be people-centric, and changes made from bottom-up.
Third, is questioning our industrialized thinking (Almeida et al, 2018). We don’t all need private cars and we should have smart mobility with less cars and pollution. Good public transport saves time from traffic jams and decreases pollution. The environment like lakes and greenery should be taking care of. By making smart cities the environment does not need to made into industrial efficient systems.
If citizens are not taken into account while developing smart cities the environment might become inhumane lacking warmth created by the human touch on things. People just live their everyday life efficiently but without the freedom and joy of urban cities. This way making the nightmare in the first chapter the future of all smart cities.
References:
Costa, E. M. and Oliveira, Á. D. 2017. Humane Smart Cities. The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinary, Second edition, chapter 17.
Almeida, V., Doneda D. and Costa, E. M. 2018. Humane Smart Cities: Need for Governance. IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 22, no. 2, p. 91–95.
