Technologica lintelligence, which only makes sense if it benefits people and makes life easier, is only part of the intelligence we need.
Smart cities
Today a smart city is synonymous with a connected city, conceived for sustainability and energy efficiency, but also oriented towards effective knowledge transmission. The future of our cities will inevitably be smart, but we cannot ignore the uncertainty hanging over this new world. At the same time that cross-cutting smart policies are emerging, we hear critics calling for a democratic model for smart technologies.
Nowadays you do not touch a city, nor do you smell it. You live a smart city through your mobile phone. Smart cities are advancing unstoppably towards a not-too-distant future thanks to the development of apps that help the public to understand their environment.
The City Protocol Society is under way. After just over one year of preparation, the international consortium that promotes the so-called City Protocol – a set of agreements and standards that can be shared all over the world for the development of smart cities – was formally established in California in October 2013. Barcelona is playing a leading role in this process.
How do smart solutions figure in a city’s culture? How are technology and science combined to create a show the audience changes each night? Can companies and government open innovation environments to the public? The BarcelonaLab project brings together a good number of examples that answer these questions.
The port’s smart dimension is starting to turn every movement into valuable information. It is more than fifteen years since the port of Barcelona first applied the pioneering initiatives that have enabled more efficient and competitive services with reduced environmental impact. Better mobility planning through smart technologies is also one of the current challenges for the metropolitan transport manager.
Chronic illnesses account for between 70% and 80% of the cost of public health in OECD countries. New communication technologies will enable improvements in care and a reduction in expenses.
In the field of smart urban technology, Barcelona is moving from the testbed to real on-the-ground implementation. In this article we examine the immediate horizon and the challenges facing the city.
This article is clearly provocative. Underlining the risk of smart cities does not mean amending the entire idea, but is rather an attempt to draw attention to some of the shortcomings already evident in the urban application of intelligent technologies and processes.
There is a need for a story about the smart city that puts the social and political challenges on the table, and can ask critical questions about our cities. We have to widen the concept so that it can represent the experience of citizens’ daily lives.