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The Smart City concept is constantly growing in popularity as more and more solutions and features move from design to implementation stage and have an actual impact. A glance at ten of the “best” (according to Business Matters) existing smart cities from around the world can demonstrate the ways in which technological solutions are improving citizens’ lives.
The H2020 project NEWBITS (New Business Models for ITS) supporting the initiatives and actions of the Directorate General MOVE, upon invitation of the Projects’ Officer Mr. Georgios Tzamalis, had the opportunity to present NEWBITS research results to eleven members of different departments of DG-MOVE at a lunchtime conference in Brussels on 30th of November 2018.
Smart City projects are moving from planning to implementation, with projects gaining traction, delivering concrete results, and knowledge and good practices spreading. As dozens of Smart City projects are underway around the world, ranging from relatively minor interventions to brand new cities built from scratch, it is worth taking a look at the current state of play in the field.
NESTA just published its annual predictions for 2019. One of them refers to one of the global races which might be on to build ‘City Brains’. According the post the concept of a “smart city” has been around for several decades, often associated with hype, grandiose failures, and an overemphasis on hardware rather than people. NESTA points out that various technologies are now coming of age which bring the vision of a smart city closer to fruition. China is described to be in the forefront, investing heavily in sensors and infrastructures, and its ET City Brain project shows just how far the country’s thinking has progressed.
This paper reviews the literature about the Smart City paradigm in terms of culture, metabolism and governance and proposes a theoretical framework around it. This framework adopts a citizen-centered and outcome-oriented approach rather than a technology-based, corporate-driven solution. This approach applies smart infrastructure to each of the three fundamental values of a city in order to show how smart culture, smart metabolism, and smart governance can be created.
This paper Smart Cities at Risk!: Privacy and Security Borderlines from Social Networking in Cities written by Moustaka, V. Theodosiou, Z. Vakali, A. and Kounoudes A., deals with the impact of Online Social Networks (OSN) privacy and security risks on the social dimensions of smart cities and attempts to investigate their interaction. Moreover, it introduces the issue of children’ privacy and security and proposes a relationship model of security and privary threats.
Battery powered e-bikes and e-scooters have been becoming increasingly popular worldwide, from Tel Aviv to Los Angeles, and major companies like Ford, GM and Uber and jumping on the trend. Smart Cities, eager to become cleaner, reduce traffic, and improve urban life, can find some potential in such vehicles, but their smart and efficient use depends on several factors.