News That Matters

Month: April 2021

Planit Valley: The Smartest City Never Been Built

Planit Valley: The Smartest City Never Been Built

Governance and Economy
History is filled with urban utopias. A very recent one is PlanIT Valley, a dreamed smart city in Portugal near Porto. My interest was awakened from the first moment I heard about it, despite of my skepticism of ‘greenfield’ smart cities in general, which I explained elsewhere. The people behind it – Steve Lewis in the first place – believed that their Emerald City would make the difference: Carbon neutral buildings thanks to an extensive and centrally controlled sensor-network, lower construction costs because of new building techniques and autonomous cars to enable sustainable traffic. Their dream seemed genuine, unlike similar claims from large tech-companies like IBM, Cisco, and Siemens who went for the fast money in the first place: Smart city play is a $36 billion business opportunit...
Doughnut Cities

Doughnut Cities

Governance and Economy
There is no place in the world where all residents share the same level of prosperity, or where this prosperity has been achieved in a sustainable or just manner. Therefore, the question is what kind of prosperity is achievable for citizens around the world without destroying the environment and harming the prospects for a decent life of fellow men and future generations? In this essay I will look for an answer. The doughnut principle proposed by Kate Raworth (on the photo above) is a promising starting-point, hence the title chosen. I will try to avoid the hypocrisy of a well-fed Western man who advocates a reduction in consumption for sustainability, because billions of people are hungry or poor and dream of some wealth. Moreover, they are not the main polluters. The social origin of...
Hangzhou And Alibaba; Making Public Private Partnerships Work

Hangzhou And Alibaba; Making Public Private Partnerships Work

Technology and Innnovation
Hangzhou, a city with 21 million residents in China, 170 km southwest of Shanghai is a good example of a smart city, working hard to get smarter. Hangzhou has been declared the biggest beneficiary of mobile internet social services through the Chinese government’s Internet Plus initiative for smart cities for 2016. But the city is not doing this alone, it has the help of one of the largest companies in the world, Alibaba, which has its headquarters in the city. The Chinese government is helping cities by including big companies in all their government programmes, like the creation of smart cities. Alibaba and 13 other companies are now working with the local government on public private partnerships (PPP) to create smart service delivery systems for the city. Some examples: Hangzh...
Smart Traffic Control: The Pittsburgh Example

Smart Traffic Control: The Pittsburgh Example

Mobility
The all know them, traffic jams. Cause for stress, loss of money and time, and extra carbon dioxide emissions. This is an area where smart technology really can make our lives easier. The city of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania (USA) is pioneering with smart traffic technology in combination with Artificial Intelligence. Pittsburgh cuts down travel time by a quarter and traffic jams by 40 percent using radar sensors and cameras at every light to recognize traffic activity. The data coming from the sensors is used by Artificial Intelligence to streamline the traffic in the most intelligent and optimal way by reacting to the traffic conditions in real time. The system used is called Surtrac, a startup founded by Carnegie Mellon professor of robotics Stephen Smith. As of 2016, Surtrac is instal...