What exactly is a smart city ? In essence, a smart city that combines technology with information to improve the quality of life, reduce energy costs and the environmental impact on the planet.
Why are they necessary?
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities and, according to the United Nations Organization forecast, 70% of human beings will live in urban centers by 2050, warning that “the increase in the population of cities may become in a real problem unless harmony is maintained between the spatial, social and environmental aspects of the localities, as well as between their inhabitants “. This is where smart cities come in.
Everything emerges as a natural evolution as our devices start to get smarter, something that inevitably leads to a smart city: an entire city that uses electronic products to keep the area running with high or maximum efficiency.
Its advantages?
Smart cities improve urban planning and the environment. More and better green areas or peripheral areas; The expenses that a property, electricity, community can entail are reduced …
Some of its strengths would be good regulated lighting to reduce energy consumption, smart cards for citizens, such as health IDs, transport cards …, self -parking vehicles capable of finding free parking spaces for users , mobility systems based on shared bicycles, a wide variety of applications to interact with the city, intelligent water supply, intelligent energy management (public lighting, etc.) and much more efficient waste management, among other things.
What economic benefits can they bring to society?
Automation saves costs. The goal behind automation is to decrease human engagement in a specific task, thus reducing both its cost and errors. Simply automating certain city resources, such as water or electricity using IoT, is already a big step.
Ensuring efficiency is another of its values. Increasing efficiency may seem like a daunting task, however it translates into reducing losses. That’s what smart city sensors work for and, unlike humans, they don’t require any breaks. They can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, monitoring, collecting data, and communicating with another system to ensure that a city’s resources are used without loss, bringing greater efficiency to global level.
Thus, well-planned, compact and connected cities can increase productivity and increase the competitiveness of a city; improve livability by providing access to land, housing, transportation, and services; and protect the natural environment . Global evidence further shows that, if well managed, cities can stimulate economic development by boosting investment incentives through greater economic density and proximity, to support business clusters, and to more efficiently connect cities. workers with jobs and opportunities.
