In a similar way, over the past decade digital technologies have begun to blanket our cities, forming the backbone of a large, intelligent infrastructure. Broadband fiber-optic and wireless telecommunications grids are supporting mobile phones, smartphones and tablets that are increasingly affordable. At the same time, open databases—especially from the government—that people can read and add to are revealing all kinds of information, and public kiosks and displays are helping literate and illiterate people access it. Add to this foundation a relentlessly growing network of sensors and digital-control technologies, all tied together by cheap, powerful computers, and our cities are quickly becoming like “computers in open air.”

The vast amount of data that is emerging is the starting point for making efficient infrastructure programmable so that people can optimize a city’s daily processes. Extracting information about real-time road conditions, for example, can reduce traffic and improve air quality. In Stockholm’s road-pricing scheme, cameras automatically identify license plates of vehicles entering the city center and charge drivers’ accounts up to 60 kronor ($9.50) a day, depending on where the cars go. The system has reduced the waiting time for vehicles traversing the central district by up to 50 percent and has reduced pollutant emissions by up to 15 percent. Similar technologies can help lessen water use (one example is being used by the Sonoma County Water Agency in California) and provide better services to citizens.

Two recent projects devised by the Senseable City Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology illustrate the intelligence that is possible. Trash Track reveals how garbage flows through a city’s waste-management system, indicating how to create a more efficient “removal chain” (as opposed to the supply chain). Electronic tags that transmit information over cellular networks are attached to pieces of trash to see where the items go. In one Seattle test the lab tracked more than 2,000 items, including recyclable materials such as glass, metal and plastic; household hazardous waste such as rechargeable batteries; and electronics such as monitors. Some items traveled across the U.S. (one printer cartridge went 6,152 kilometers!). Some ended up in legally compliant destinations, and some did not. The results reveal ways to minimize carbon dioxide emissions by transporting waste more efficiently. And Seattle could use the information to promote behavioral changes among its citizens, encouraging them to recycle more or to properly dispose of hazardous materials.

The second project, LIVE Singapore, uses real-time data recorded by the myriad communications devices, microcontrollers and sensors found in our urban environment to analyze the pulse of the city, moment to moment. The results suggest new ways to understand and optimize the city, ultimately to help people experience it like never before. LIVE Singapore’s open-platform software allows people to develop different applications in a collaborative way. Work has begun on apps that tell commuters how they can reach their homes fastest, how residents can reduce their neighborhood’s energy consumption and how inhabitants can get hold of a taxi when a rainstorm is crossing the island and the vehicles all seem to have disappeared.

The potential for developing more of this kind of efficient infrastructure is vast—and a good fraction can be unleashed through smart systems. It is thus no surprise that many large corporations, such as IBM, Cisco Systems, Siemens, Accenture, Ferrovial and ABB, are setting their sights on the urban space.

Lessons from the Networked Past
It is fitting that Cairo has become a modern model of urban transformation because the ancient world holds the key to understanding what makes cities thrive. The invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago begot the first fixed settlements. As farming produced more food than was needed for survival, towns and villages developed specialized labor forces and institutions. Markets, temples and palaces created social networks organized for commerce, worship and government. Over time the interactions within these networks became more layered and complex. It turns out that sociability, not efficiency, is the true killer app for cities.

2 Comments

1. 1. forsender 03:41 AM 12/9/11

   Congrats for the ground-up alternative!
   But as far THEY are in command and if in Cairo they just overslept the use of IT by the enslaved population that's rather the exception, not the rule. Police control in and on social networks is vast - our taxes subsidize now DEPARTMENTS for not just surveillance but 'official hacking' - trimming of our cyber activity. The shut down covertly communication to large audiences - your messages don't reach wider world without you even knowing it. It's a misuse of power misusing bumming technologies. So till we don't harness power the few controlling it will harness us. Smartly.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

2. 2. Simon1986 11:12 AM 12/21/11

   "creating even smarter cities in which people become the agents of change"
   
   Granted, New media and networked technologies have the ability to accelerate the process of change, altering the ways in which "we" create sentiment and derive influence. However the article in general seems to create an assumption; the assumption that the majority decision is always the right decision. And while this is arguably true in the case studies cited (Arab Spring), is this always the case?
   
   While the current processes by which society generally instigates change can be cumbersome and lengthy (such as physical democratic ones), these do grant "us" time to consider carefully the decisions "we" are making and who exactly is making them.
   
   While arguably the ability to speed up decision making and instigate social change without barriers is an attractive notion, we must first consider the effects of allowing social change to be controlled by populist decision making processes/structures; processes that can occur rapidly and without much consideration and rely on "sentiment".
   
   Should decisions be made by "experts" or should we rely on a model (potentially increasingly autonomous) that reflects the wants of the majority. For example if the interests of the majority (on twitter) were currently reflected in the content of Scientific American then we'd all be reading about:
   
   #2011was
   #Replacea1Dsongwithsanta
   Alex Day
   John Terry
   Dominick The Donkey
   #ThingsNotToDoAtChristmasParty
   Forever Yours
   Oliver Twist
   What Makes Santa Beautiful
   
   Thats not to say these topics aren't interesting (according to twitter they clearly are), but perhaps they aren't the best recipe for positive social change.
   
   One must also consider the "overseer"; the one who administers the network, defines it structures and provides us with the framework for decision making and communication. It would be foolhardy to assume that any such network (and its users) would be free of influence. Just as naive to assume that those who create and influence popular social networks (Facebook / Twitter) have a diminished ability to influence the very way in which we communicate by making small changes to their systems.
   
   The power of the few will likely always have the ability to influence the many; we see this day to day online and via social networks just like we do in everyday life. Core nodes or points of influence online could be likened to Prime Ministers, Presidents and Dictators with more influence than the average citizen. So has anything really changed? Or has it just got faster?
   
   

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this