MEDIA WEEK, MOSCOW

THE SMART CITY DISCUSSION

It’s an extremely long video, but an excellent introduction to some of the current debates within the smart cities debate.

Speakers include: Adam Greenfield  (UrbanScale), Michal Writh  (IBM), Anton Make (The Village) , Alexander Dorzhiev (Altergeo)

In short a few points can be made by Adam Greenfield from Urbanscale on the Urbanistic approach:

1.       1.   Over 50% of the population now live in an urban environment where digital media is pervasive, but difficult to identify and are sometimes considered to be an emerging rather than existing place.

2.       2. The Big technological companies, IBM and Siemans etc are not planners or city lovers and their approach is controlled and based on administrative governance and surveillance.

3.       3. Spontaneous order from a bottom up approach where technology responds rather than leads the smart city approach is a way the go.

4.       4. Smart cities approach should be renamed as ‘networked cities’ because a city is not just a geographical defined space, but a social space which is sociologically constructed. Therefore technology needs to be used to improve networks.

And a few points from Michael Writh from IBM on the digital urbanisam approach:

1.       1. Technology media is pervasive and the amount of data that can be gleamed is extremely usefully in the planning of urban cities.

2.       2. The digitalisation of the city should be used to increase surveillance, not just because it helps us behave better but it also helps us improve our productivity at work, in governance, health, education and transportation.

3.       3. The digital urbanism approach can also be used to tackle future challenges facing society in relation to water and oil use, as well as other limited resources.

4.       4. We live in a globalised world and governments can no longer solve urban and social problems by themselves. International leaders and business input is all required.

Some interesting questions that the overall smart cities agenda raises:

1.       1. How do you prepare people living in a smart city?

2.       2. How do you prepare and plan for older people and increasingly elder population?

3.       3. How can our privacy be protected?

4.       4. What if you don’t live in a smart city- how do you play a role within it?

5.       5. What if you live in a smart city and don’t want to be a part of it, will you be excluded?