Here Comes the Smart City

What’s the Latest Development?

The availability of intelligent technology will begin to differentiate cities in the coming years. Governments willing to invest in more efficient public infrastructure, and encourage their citizens to do the same in the home, will reap a healthier, happier and more financially sound population. Some essential technologies will be “ubiquitous broadband communications, smart meters for electricity and water use, intelligent transport systems, and extensively deployed monitoring and sensor technologies.”

What’s the Big Idea?

For the first time in human history, more of us now live in cities than the countryside. That could be good news, at least for the planet, since city dwellers leave a lower per capita environmental footprint than residents of idyllic pastures and plains. Still, cities contribute well over half of our species’ greenhouse gas emissions, so they must take steps to mitigate the effects of mass urbanization. Intelligent infrastructure may well become a calling card for cities and an investment they cannot afford to miss.

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