Smart Industry 1/2019

Smart COMMUNICATION Smart Cities Need Intelligent Infrastructure
Smart Cities Need Intelligent Infrastructure
Smarter Communities
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Everything urban is now getting connected – from healthcare to education,
government services, buildings, physical security systems, and much
more. Cities embracing these emerging tools will be leading the future.
n By Gordon Feller
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City governments don’t have a
reputation for moving quickly.
However, if you’ve been
paying attention to your local
government, there is a good chance
significant, tangible changes have
happened over the past couple of
years. You may have noticed changing
traffic patterns, such as car lanes converting
to bike lanes; maybe there are
new forms of transportation zipping
around town, such as bicycles, scooters,
or even autonomous vehicles; you
may even be benefitting from using
a mobile app for some, or all, of your
city-center parking. These and numerous
other changes are increasingly
visible signs that many of today’s cities
are changing and changing rather
quickly in some dramatic cases.
What’s behind all this? In part, it comes
down to the pressures resulting from
growing city populations and to increasing
competition between cities.
According to United Nations’ demographers,
the world is rapidly becoming
more urbanized. In 2016, an estimated
54.5 percent of the world’s population
lived in urban areas. That number is
expected to rise to 60 percent by 2030.
As more people start living in the same
geographic area it creates numerous
challenges. One of the main questions
is how we can keep the city clean, safe,
and appealing under the added strain
of a larger population. Having more
cars on the roads isn’t an attractive
option for anyone, so one of the first
changes we’ve seen is cities reworking
their streets to support alternative
forms of transport. They also need to
handle more trash, more cellphone
use, potentially greater air pollution,
and other strains on the infrastructure.
In addition to growing populations,
cities are also changing in the face of
growing competition. As more people
and businesses seek cities to call