jueves, 15 de mayo de 2014

Cities in a smarter world

An urbanizing world is the scenario where smart technologies will show their value. This is why smart cities have become a major topic as a framework to face the challenges of the future in terms of new forms of democratic procedures, enhanced public management tools, environmental sustainability goals, efficient infrastructures and so on. We are still trying to figure out how cities will be reshaped thanks to a wide array of digitally-enabled solutions that seek to integrate in how cities work.

It is not a future issue, indeed. Smart cities comprise different types of projects, strategies and visions, and most of them tend to set their promises in yet to come technologies and deployments, particularly those related to large investments and physical infrastructure upgrading.



This is just one part of the equation: smart cities as a promising mean for advanced public services and urban management to ease integration, efficient use of public budgets and better decisions for policy makers. But smart cities are mostly about how urban life everyday experience changes for individuals, communities and organisations. In this sense, smart cities can be thought in present tense, as a transformation that is already happening.

Urban media (from mobile technologies to Internet of things) determine the way we enjoy cities, the way we move around and the way we engage with others to share our lives. It happened as a silent revolution and societies have embodied new ways to design public services, to create digitally-enabled solutions for local needs, to build new platforms for social collaboration. This entails a smarter society exploring new forms of social interaction, engagement and ownership in its dawn, but already happening.

This is a short article Universitat Oberta de Catalunya asked me some weeks ago. It has been posted  on their blog Open Thoughts 2013 and especifically in their series Ready for a smarter world? 

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