Smart Cities, for us or not?
Smart cities are cities which have embedded information and communication technologies, such as sensors, throughout the city which can monitor or measure traffic levels, city service usage, energy transport, and possibly even crime. Newer technologies available to us today, we are able to gather and process more data. Which reveals useful information, patterns, and phenomenon to us, this will make it possible for people’s actions and behaviour to be analyses. This can either lead to great benefits for residents of a city or result towards a bleak situation similar to the book, 1984.
Smartphones are known to collect locational data which Google records and handles, however, one can continue on with their day without the use of a smartphone. So it is possible to live without being tracked. Even though one might turn off the location services on their phones, users can still be tracked since smartphones records other types of data which can be used to extrapolate the location of its users [3]. Turning off location services does disable Google from increasing users’ timeline history but it doesn’t completely turn off the location of android users. If the current situation is this, imagine what the outcome would be if users could be tracked with cameras using smart technology. It would make for a very probable reality of being constantly tracked within a smart city. In parts of Baltimore and South Korea’s Songdo, constant monitoring and recording of people’s actions could lead to ill intentions. Songdo monitors data in real time and houses massive camera infrastructure that is used to record certain activities. What if this monitoring is not motivated by increasing standards of safety and efficiency but rather the monetization of people’s actions? Targeted advertisements that we see on our phones which feel personally intrusive could very well find its way onto our streets when passing by a smart billboard. The thought of monetizing residents’ data is something that has crossed the minds of people who are in charge of monitoring data collected by the smart city, Songdo [1]. At the moment, Google targets android users using geographic locations so it might not be a stretch to see it applied in smart cities in a similar fashion [4].
Songdo and other smart cities are present today but what could the smart cities that are yet to come going to be like? What new features would they monitor? A scary proposal could be monitoring people’s behaviour and implementing a social credit system. Social credit refers to the reputation of a person, for example, if one is seen causing a scene in public by being rude could affect their financial status. This is done so that banks could deny loans to a person with low social credit, or in some instances deny travelling abroad altogether [2]. With the widespread web of cameras in cities, people could be recognized easily and tracked to see if they cause any offences which can then lead to financial repercussions.
But on the bright side, monitoring and analysing data present in a city might open new doors in optimizing traffic, improving efficiency, and energy consumption. Smart metering typically implemented for measuring electricity was used to measure water in Cape Town. The results of measuring water were that people’s home in Cape Town reported around 40% to 60% reduction in water usage [5]. This type of technology would be implemented in smart cities to improve their environmental impact. The biggest benefit is probably the connected infrastructure of transport vehicles and services. Using advance traffic management systems, smart parking and other methods, traffic congestion can be easily removed [6]. This would be a great incentive to invest in smart cities since congestion can be very expensive, according to a figure by CityLabs, in 2017 congestion totalled to around 305 billion dollars. This figure and phenomenon of congestion may very well be eliminated in the future of smart cities.
As with anything in the universe, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. With new technology, it is the intentions behind the use of the technology. If used properly smart cities can help propel us to lead more efficient, safe, and environmentally lives, but, when used for the wrong reasons it can be used to monitor and spy on a city’s residents. Smart cities are likely to be the future of cities and with this change brings benefits and costs. Before thinking about the most efficient method for implementation or how much money could be saved from creating smart cities, designers and engineers should take a step back and focus on how the people who live in cities might react. To be transparent is essential when it comes to building technology that affects peoples’ lives to such an extent as smart cities will do.
References
1. Huge, Katie. Pau, Justin. Songdo: The World’s Smartest City? Clean Tech Blog. 08.06.2019. <https://ie.unc.edu/clean-tech-post/songdo-the-worlds-smartest-city/>
2. China bans 23m from buying travel tickets as part of ‘social credit’ system. The Guardian. 2019. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/01/china-bans-23m-discredited-citizens-from-buying-travel-tickets-social-credit-system>
3. Collins, Keith. Google collects Android users’ locations even when location services are disabled. Quartz. 21.11.2017. <https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locations-even-when-location-services-are-disabled/>
4. Google. <https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2453995?hl=en>
5. Booysen, MJ (Thinus). How smart meters can save water in drought ridden Cape Town. The Conversation. 03.09.2017. <https://theconversation.com/how-smart-meters-can-save-water-in-drought-ridden-cape-town-83238>
6. Smart Transportation: Benefits And Real Life Examples. HERE mobility. <https://mobility.here.com/smart-transportation-benefits-and-real-life-examples>
7. Schneider, Benjamin. Traffic’s Mind-Boggling Economic Toll. CITYLAB. 07.02.2018 <https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/02/traffics-mind-boggling-economic-toll/552488/>
