Designing More Than Human Smart Cities

Drawing from existing theory, policy, practice and speculative design about how cities may evolve, the book illustrates key concepts using case studies that respond to the complex relationships between human and non-human others (such as animals and plants, as well as soil, rivers, data and sensors) in urban space.

Climate change, rapid urbanisation, pandemics, as well as innovations in technologies such as blockchain, AI and IoT are all impacting urban space. One response to such changes has been to make cities ecologically sustainable and 'smart'. The 'eco smart city' for instance uses networked sensing, cloud and mobile computing to optimise, control, and regulate urban processes and resources. From real-time bus information to autonomous electric vehicles, smart parking, and smart street lighting, such initiatives are often presented as a social and environmental good. Critics, however, increasingly argue that technologically driven, and efficiency-led approaches are too simplistic to deal with the complexities of urban life. Sustainability in the smart city is predominantly performed in limited ways that leave little room for participation and citizen agency despite government efforts to integrate innovative technologies in more equitable ways. More importantly, there is a growing awareness that a human-centred notion of cities, in which urban space is designed for, and inhabited by, humans only, is no longer tenable. Within the age of the Anthropocene - a term used to refer to a new geological era in which human activity is transforming Earth systems, accelerating climate change and causing mass extinctions - scholars and practitioners are working generatively by acknowledging the entanglements between human and non-human others (including plants, animals, insects, as well as soil, water, and sensors and their data) in urban life. In Designing More-than-Human Smart Cities, renowned researchers and practitioners from urban planning, architecture, environmental humanities, geography, design, arts, and computing critically explore smart cities beyond a human-centred approach. They respond to the complex interrelations between human and non-human others in urban space. Through theory, policy and practice (past and present), and thinking speculatively about how smart cities may evolve in the future, the book makes a timely contribution to lively, contemporary scientific and political debates on genuinely sustainable smart cities.

Within the most recent discussion on smart cities and the way this vision is affecting urban changes and dynamics, this book explores the interplay between planning and design both at the level of the design and planning domains’ theories and practices. Urban transformation is widely recognized as a complex phenomenon, rich in uncertainty. It is the unpredictable consequence of complex interplay between urban forces (both top-down or bottom-up), urban resources (spatial, social, economic and infrastructural as well as political or cognitive) and transformation opportunities (endogenous or exogenous). The recent attention to Urban Living Lab and Smart City initiatives is disclosinga promising bridge between the micro-scale environments, with the dynamics of such forces and resources, and the urban governance mechanisms. This bridge is represented by those urban collaborative environments, where processes of smart service co-design take place through dialogic interaction with and among citizens within a situated and cultural-specific frame.

This book discusses how smart cities strive to deploy and interconnect infrastructures and services to guarantee that authorities and citizens have access to reliable and global customized services. The book addresses the wide range of topics present in the design, development and running of smart cities, ranging from big data management, Internet of Things, and sustainable urban planning. The authors cover - from concept to practice – both the technical aspects of smart cities enabled primarily by the Internet of Things and the socio-economic motivations and impacts of smart city development. The reader will find smart city deployment motivations, technological enablers and solutions, as well as state of the art cases of smart city implementations and services. · Provides a single compendium of the technological, political, and social aspects of smart cities; · Discusses how the successful deployment of smart Cities requires a unified infrastructure to support the diverse set of applications that can be used towards urban development; · Addresses design, development and running of smart cities, including big data management and Internet of Things applications.

Smart Cities and Artificial Intelligence offers a comprehensive view of how cities are evolving as smart ecosystems through the convergence of technologies incorporating machine learning and neural network capabilities, geospatial intelligence, data analytics and visualization, sensors, and smart connected objects. These recent advances in AI move us closer to developing urban operating systems that simulate human, machine, and environmental patterns from transportation infrastructure to communication networks. Exploring cities as real-time, living, dynamic systems, and providing tools and formats including generative design and living lab models that support cities to become self-regulating, this book provides readers with a conceptual and practical knowledge base to grasp and apply the key principles required in the planning, design, and operations of smart cities. Smart Cities and Artificial Intelligence brings a multidisciplinary, integrated approach, examining how the digital and physical worlds are converging, and how a new combination of human and machine intelligence is transforming the experience of the urban environment. It presents a fresh holistic understanding of smart cities through an interconnected stream of theory, planning and design methodologies, system architecture, and the application of smart city functions, with the ultimate purpose of making cities more liveable, sustainable, and self-sufficient. Explores concepts in smart city design and development and the transformation of cities through the convergence of human, machine, and natural systems enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI) Includes numerous diagrams to illustrate and explain complex smart city systems and solutions Features diverse smart city examples and initiatives from around the globe

We expect a lot from our technology. More and more products are created not only to perform multiple complex functions, but also to react to stimuli, patterns and information in a way that solves problems. Cars are being designed with systems that can detect a collision and automatically apply the brakes. Nest's thermostat learns your schedule and programs itself. Our phones are smart. Our TVs are smart. Since upping the ante is kind of "our thing" as a species, smart cities were the next logical step in trying to create a better, brighter, more sustainable and economically sound future. In this eBook, Designing the Urban Future: Smart Cities, we take a good look this relatively new concept, starting with Section 1, "Cities of the Future," which tackles what makes a city smart. In broad terms, smart cities encourage sustainable economic development and promote a high quality of life, and several stories elaborate on the trend toward urbanization and the qualities needed for a city to survive and thrive. Two articles by David Biello examine issues of sustainability in both new and existing cities. In "Street Talk," Michael Easter and Gary Stix ask urban leaders to name the top innovation would make any city more livable. Section 2, "Drivers: Innovation and Creativity," delves into how cities can and do make the most use of their best resource: human capital. Carlo Ratti and Anthony Townsend argue that people and their creativity will drive development in "The Social Nexus." Section 3 looks at readying cities for climate change, including a piece entitled "Chicago Goes Green" which examines Chicago's forward-thinking plan to eliminate a significant amount of its greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. In the same vein, the Section 4 covers "efficient" buildings, and opens with two pieces that discuss the pros and cons of LEED certification, respectively. In "Castles in the Air," Mark Lamster analyzes the green rebirth of the skyscraper and why building of these behemoths has increased in the post-9/11 world. Subsequent sections break down other characteristics of smart cities: making power more renewable, transportation more sustainable, and water cleaner. The last section tackles urban public health, and one piece details the use of a program called EpiSims to answer the question: What if smallpox struck Portland, Oregon? In short, while the definition of "smart city" might still be murky, the purpose is clear. If we want to address ongoing issues of climate change and water shortages; if we want to create more livable cities for all classes of people; if we want to encourage sustainable economic and social development; then making cities smarter IS the smartest thing we can do.

"This book provides a practical perspective on the rapidly growing field of smart cities from a user-experience perspective. More than half of the world's population is now living in cities and predictions suggest that this number will rise to two-thirds by 2050. This means that more people than ever before will share the same urban infrastructure, leading to a plethora of challenges. In order to prepare for this, governments around the world are heavily investing in smart city technologies. At the same time, thought leaders and scholars argue for a movement towards smart citizens and more participatory approaches to city making. In Making cities smarter, Martin Tomitsch focuses on an often-overlooked aspect within the smart city discourse-- the design of the interface between citizens and smart city systems."--Page 4 de la couverture.

The term "smart city" defines the new urban environment, one that is designed for performance through information and communication technologies. Given that the majority of people across the world will live in urban environments within the next few decades, it's not surprising that massive effort and investment is being placed into efforts to devel