Smart City: origins to future | The Future Of

The Smart city artifact is about ten years old, and It emerged at the crossroads of two independent trends: on the one hand the gentrification of city centers, by the so-called creative class; on the other end the technological push of IT companies, aiming at selling the so-called smart solutions to city administrators.

In a nutshell, the smart city is a by-product of technological push supported by the idea of modernization of city centers. Nevertheless, the artifact evolved, and it is becoming more and more focused on the user, which includes both citizens and visitors. The most evident effect of the smartification of cities is probably in the mobility space, where two separate trends are emerging. On the one hand, users are now able to monitor public transport in real time so that they can make route decisions in the most convenient and timely way. While at the same time, new forms of mobility have developed like shared bicycle services, which users can pick up and drop in dedicated stations around the city while managing them through a dedicated app on their phones.

But mobility is not limited only to the direct offering of the city. Uber and the emergence of taxi-booking apps contribute to the renewed mobility ecosystem of the smart cities. As much as up-and-coming solutions like shared scooters: Lime-S is an electric scooter sharing, whose main differentiating point, is the lack of urban docking stations, and, therefore, can be picked up and parked anywhere in the city (very annoying!). (NB: if you are interested in mobility we recommend joining this mailing list: https://thisweekinmobility.com/)

Beyond the origins

Beyond its origins, looking at the future of smart cities, the most evident paradigm shift is the evolution from technology for the sake of technology, to technology conceived around the needs of users. Carlo Ratti’s latest whitepaper for the World Economic Forum highlights how smart cities are becoming agile, by using technology to modify themselves around the needs of the users. The same Ratti has developed for the Agnelli’s Foundation HQ in Turin, a concept where each visitor is free to modify key environmental settings (e.g., light, AC, Temp) for its staying in the building. And the structure, literally follows the user journey through the premises, by updating the lighting and heating conditions around each user (Download our free report on the Agile City).

Moreover, it is important to highlight, that, building future scenarios in Smart Cities, has an extra degree of complexity because most vectors are intertwined: they are not independent of each other. As a matter of facts, AI and Big Data are critical engines of all aspects of smartification of the city: mobility, infrastructure, energy, and lighting depend on data and connectivity for their future development. In addition to that, big data is vital for the personalization of services, and access to user-level settings often is a pre-condition to the combined digital and physical offering. But that is where our security and privacy vectors originate. This is unique, but also consistent with a by-product of Industry 4.0: the convergence of non-adjacent industries. This trend stands-out for bringing previously unrelated industries on the same battleground: for example mobility is becoming a marketing platform for — and a connected service to — retailers, while retailers are also transforming themselves in healthcare providers, while healthcare providers rely more and more on remote healthcare, and transport hubs are becoming pivotal centers for healthcare diagnostics, especially for all those analyzes which cannot be affordably executed at home through connected and smart devices.

In conclusion

In conclusion, the concept of Smart City originated as a commercial effort of tech companies, has evolved to become a notion of tech at the service of citizens and travelers, and is poised to grow towards a less tech-centric destiny, becoming a platform for social wellness. In the words of the author of our report on the Future of Smart Cities:

“One cannot ignore the social and cultural relevance of the [Smart City] concept itself, as it evolved through the years to include social innovation, citizen participation and the constant questioning of the urban paradigm.”

Originally published at blog.thefutureof.report on April 2, 2019.