Evolution of SMART CITIES

The word “Smart” has its roots in the Old English word “smeart,” which in its early form meant “causing of pain” and had nothing to do with its present meaning. However, with time, the word took on many additional meanings before it began to be used about social intelligence. By the late 16^th  century, the adjectival “smart” was being formally used about “intelligence” or “shrewdness” but it was the evaluation of a new technology of the mid-20^th  century that was going to make smart, real “SMART”.

This technological breakthrough was the invention of the transistor in 1948, which led to the rise of semiconductor industries, making devices compact yet with exceptionally high computational powers. The word “Smart” increasingly started to appear in our daily lives, defining the better & improved state of affairs/ things all across us. Yet it had to wait till 1992 when IBM launched its first Simon Personal Communicator better known as “First Smart Phone,” when probably for the first time the word “Smart” was used to showcase an advanced product way ahead of its all existing counterparts. Then came the launch of the first iPhone in 2007, which completely changed the meaning of “SMART”. It was the defining moment for the two dramatic events – first, it changed the way people saw & used the phones & second, a tectonic shift in the understanding of the word “Smart”, which became “SMART” in a true sense. Then onwards this word was to be used so extensively that nothing in human life would remain untouched by its impact and hence when the idea of “SMART CITY” was floated in 2005, it immediately caught the imagination of people across the globe.

However, the term “SMART CITY”, also reminds of famous old writing of Shakespeare , “What is the city but the people?” So, when we talk about “SMART CITIES”, which involves its residents, who must understand their strengths & weaknesses, needs & greeds, comforts & luxuries, essentials & non-essentials, necessities & disposableness to contribute to managing the cities “Smartly”. By understanding these differences, they must smartly use the resources available while using the infrastructure so efficiently that they put the least impact on nature. When society becomes this smart & learns to maintain a real balance with nature only then the society and the related city can truly be said a “SMART CITY”.

Evolution of Present Day “SMART CITIES”: Recalling the invention of the Steam engine in 1776, when the present-day society started mechanizing itself and machines started to become an integral part of our daily lives (currently called Industry 1.0/ Society 1.0). The industrialization process, as it is known progressed overtime to reach the present day’s avatar of Industry 4.0 (Society 4.0) and now is forecasted to evolve into a much advanced & complex version being called Industry 5.0 (Society 5.0), a futuristic society in which humans & robots/ cobots will be coexisting and would be working in tandem, a system which is expected to be much more productive, safe and yet would retain human-centric approach in all aspects.

With this background, the beginning of present-day “SMART CITIES” can be traced back to 1974 when the first urban big data project, known as “A Cluster Analysis of Los Angeles” was initiated by Los Angeles. This project supposedly was the first step in visualizing the concept of a “SMART CITIES”. Yet it took another 20 years for the next step when in 1994 Amsterdam created a virtual digital city of itself, which is now called the “First SMART CITY of Present Times”. With the miniaturization of electronics, increase in automation, the rise of the internet, increased connectivity as well as the advent of EVs & CAEVs, clubbed with IoT/ IIoT, the idea of a more complex, self-sustaining “SMART CITIES” started to pick up the pace. Ideally, it is a concept, which awakens its society to operate with a “Cradle to Cradle” utilization approach of its resources and uses green energies with various live tracking, consumption monitoring and has systems for efficient utilization of resources .

Knowing the highly toxic impact of rampant exploitation of natural resources in the last 100 years of industrialization, this new concept of “SMART CITY” was found so charming that in 2011, the inaugural SMART CITY Expo World Congress was held in Barcelona, which has now become an annual event charting the course of “SMART CITIES” development.

Understanding the “SMART CITIES”: Though it looks simple yet defining a “SMART CITY” in concrete & measurable terms remain the most challenging & difficult task for anyone, because of many underlying reasons, and as of now there is no global/ standard definition of a “SMART CITY”.

First, being a comparative word, “Smart” can only imply a superior state of urban development and life, for as such who would want to live in a city which might be labeled as “DUMB CITIES” (if it is not a “Smart City” it would only be termed as “Dumb City”. And that’s what was precisely done by two corporations, IBM (2005) and CISCO (2008), when they coined these symbolic terms to indicate their point of view of an idealized city with various connectivities and automation  and which was projected to be much superior to any of the existing cities of the time.

Secondly, the cities are a product of interactive life forms, they have multi-pronged dimensions involving people and other life forms, with dynamic interactions. Due to such dynamics and the complexity of ever-changing interactions, smart cities cannot be bound by anyone’s definition to state. Also, the conditions, requirements & situation in every city would be different based on its socio-economic culture, living conditions, and complexities of its inhabitants & their interdependencies.

With such complexities involved, no one can come out with a universally acceptable definition of “SMART CITIES”, and this has led to a situation where these so-called “SMART CITIES” are labeled with different names in different countries depending upon their technological advancement, social infrastructure, and level of acceptance by its residents. Some of these alternative names are given below:

Given above, every country has evolved its own definition of a “SMART CITY”. Yet in simple terms, a “SMART CITY” is understood to be “Smart” by its technological advancement with an intention to provide a better quality of social life for its occupants using many/ any of the following systems/ technologies:

Higher the level of technological integration in the city for improving the lives of its residents & their welfare, maintaining its environment – more advanced would be the level of “SMART CITY”, moving up the complexity ladder – a ladder with no top end block as with each passing day & each technological advancement done, more & more steps are always getting added in the ladder making it longer by day, always keeping an ideal “SMART CITY”, a utopian city.

Present Day “SMART CITIES”: Smart urbanization is an increasingly common way for cities to innovate in the 21^st century. Smart technologies related to ICT are frequently promoted as universal, rational, and apolitical solutions to create any SMART CITY without focusing on all the dimensions of “SMART CITIES”. However, any application of ICT can only address issues of resource efficiency, surveillance, and security, while social factors like citizenship and participation, policymaking, behavioural change, and social cohesion, would need a different level of soft & long-term smart systems. A society can still be called smart even if by using older technologies, it is able to bring continual improvements in the life of people.

Despite all these complexities, if one has to define any present-day “SMART CITY” in simple words, then it can be defined as a geographical area that can effectively manage its resources (natural, human, equipment, buildings, and infrastructure) using green energies to provide comforts to its residents, using latest technologies while effectively recycling its wastes; and is self-sustaining, can maintain harmony with the environment. Such a broad definition of Smart cities will be requiring many of the following technical & non-technical ideas to merge:

Future “SMART CITIES” would be developing as a result of merging of many new generation technologies and solutions across all sectors of society with the regular expansion of their range, continually evolving, altering with times, as many newer technologies may evolve with time creating new goals and challenges. The cities & societies will remain Smart as long the new challenges are met & goals are achieved by the new technologies else they will be eliminated.

Depending upon the current challenges, long-term goals, and level of smartness expected with other requirements of society, there are many ways of integrating the new age technologies with that of the city’s existing system forming matrixes for better undersetting their interdependencies. Such matrixes once made will certainly help understand the intricate mesh of various socio-technical factors & associated challenges for making things move in real execution. Some of these matrixes are given below for city planners to understand (yet there can be many more).

Development & Making “SMART CITIES”: From this perspective, we can only create “SMART CITIES” when we identify their current & future needs/ requirements as well as the technologies and skills needed for their future architectures and future needs to make the residents’ social life a notch better. For execution, the well-known PDCA (plan, do check, and action) Deming cycle along with DSTA (Draw-See-Think-Arrange) cycle must be used to retain the focus on the goal. While the PDCA approach is well known and very well understood, let us try to understand the DSTA cycle which is a critical prerequisite to start planning the “SMART CITIES”:

Draw: Assess the Present Situation for Internal SWOT: While initiating the work on SMART CITY, a clear vision of this ideal SMART CITY of future needs to be created with an open mind visualizing the future as well as an update from other better cities across the globe, yet keeping in mind the local architecture, heritage as well as local historical & religious values.

See: Recognize The Reality: Once the ideal SMART CITY of the future has been visualized with achievable parameters, analyze the current situation using the following methods:

Assess the current situation of the City through the Reality Principle of “Going to the actual place”, “Knowing the
actual situation” and “Being realistic” for the changes planned/ proposed.

Note down the Actual situation and do a gap analysis of the present situation w.r.t. visualized changes.

Evaluate the situation of the future if things are left as they are now.

Do a SWOT Analysis as identified through comparison with competitors.

Think: Consider What Needs to Be Done: Once the level of the gap between the ideal SMART CITY & the existing city is clear, the ideas to cover it up must be collected from all the stakeholders of the city and recorded. Once done, they must be evaluated and assigned the possible completion time frames depending upon various complexities and funds requirements which may vary from in few months to a few years. If parameters for the ideal city can be expressed numerically, then they must be specified.

…To be continued

Prabhat Khare possesses a BE (Electrical) degree from IIT Roorkee (Gold Medalist). Now,
he is the Director of KK Consultants. He is also a BEE Certified Energy Manager and a Lead
Assessor for ISO 9K, 14K, 45K & 50K.