Planit Valley: The Smartest City Never Been Built
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...