Abstract
This chapter focuses on a systematic and integrated approach to managing cities using multidisciplinary and technology-based approach and drawing on integrated knowledge from different fields. The chapter aims to discuss and analyse issues in an organic and holistic approach. It explores theory and combines praxis, applications, and futuristic conjectures. Emphasis is placed on issues of ethics, human rights, environmental friendliness, sustainability, and compliance with the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While the chapter has considerable input from existing scholarship, it adopts a narrative that is innovative and creative and engages with novel ideas and propositions for future progress. It also charts the breakthrough in transportation, commerce, medicine, education, the world of work, and contemporary health, with particular emphasis on issues relating to safety, confidentiality, privacy, facial recognition, city policing, crime detection, monitoring and evaluation, forecasting, and future of AI.
TopIntroduction
This chapter discusses the broad issues and opportunities offered by intelligent cities, also known as smart cities. It takes a multidisciplinary and technology-based approach to issues of concern affecting smart city environments and living and working therein. The chapter is organised into sub-headings to give form and structure to the content. The author employs ideas and concepts in Economics, Geography, Social Sciences, Management, Public Administration, Psychology, and Business Communication, among others. Therefore, the discussion in this chapter is drawn from many knowledge fields.
The concept of an intelligent city has become a buzz term in the era of other contemporary terminologies such as globalisation, climate change, smart technologies e.g. ICT, social media, converged platforms, Internet, cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning and artificial intelligence, among many others. The word convergence means coming together and its opposite is divergence. Convergence in this discussion means having multiple media on one platform such as the use of a smart-phone which enables the owner to watch TV, read newspapers, communicate via Twitter, get on Facebook to comment on people’s walls or use messenger to engage in interactive messaging or Skype chat, view picture postings on Instagram, and to upload content on Youtube, among a variety of diverse online applications. This helps not only in cost-saving, but it is also extremely convenient for producers and consumers or prosumers (a combination of the terms producers and consumers).
There is, therefore, a lot of integration and convergence in online activities which are based on the concept of interoperability. Motta et al. (2019) define interoperability as the ability of things to interact and act as one for a specific purpose or objective. Modern manufacturers of gadgets and industrial products such as Microsoft, Huawei, Tesla, Space-X, Apple, and Samsung, among others ensure that their offerings are not just stand-alone gadgets but that these gadgets can talk and interact with other such devices embedded in other systems and environments; all done for the convenience of the end-user. However, a few companies and competitors are not too keen on interoperability as they want to lock their customers in to their niche markets for their customer retention and maximum benefits. However, this behaviour of some firms which do not want their gadgets to be interoperable with other gadgets cannot hold much longer in the future; for in the long run, consumers determine what is produced and owned by them.
The concept of intelligent cities has come about because of the realisation that, by the year 2050, 75 per cent of human beings will be living in cities (UN, 2008). It is also because there is a need to optimize efficient use of resources in the face of growing population and dwindling natural resources. While natural resources are decreasing in size, human population keeps increasing rapidly, especially in the developing countries of the world (Bavel, 2013). According to Chakravarty et al. (2009) cited in Bavel (2013), 50% of the world’s carbon emission is caused by less than 18% of the world’s population. There is therefore an urgent need to avoid wastage of global scarce resources in order to arrive at equilibrium. There is also greater need now to ensure that urban dwellers enjoy excellent living conditions; that urban workers enjoy leisure whilst working, and that smog in mega-cities such as Beijing, New Delhi, Mumbai and many other places is minimised by improving air quality for city dwellers (Reuters, 2018).
Other hazards encountered in cities include: emission of greenhouse gases (GHG), increase in garbage, traffic congestion, poor drainage and sanitation in slums, increase in urban crime and anti-social vices, outbreak of communicable diseases, increased pressure on social amenities such as potable water supply and electricity, and increases in injuries from domestic and industrial accidents.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Artificial Intelligence: This is machine recognition or thinking ability which is based on pre-determined data input or machine learning.
Anthropocentric: Anything which is human-centred or meant for the good of humankind is said to be anthropocentric.
Technophobes: These are people who fear to embrace new technology.
Smart City: Also known as intelligent cities, this refers to a new vision for urban development, using IoT-based technologies and tools, to integrate and effectively manage a city’s resources and processes (e.g., transportation, healthcare, commerce, utilities, city’s e-government functions), to improve the quality of life of citizens.
Data Analytics: It is the analysis of big data to convey user-friendly information on trends embedded in the data.
Primate Cities: This is a city which is twice as big as the next largest city and which is predominant a commercial hub.
Green Cities: These are eco-friendly cities consisting of eco-friendly systems with minimum amount of carbon emissions.
Crowd Sourcing: It is the ability to either carry out massive online survey or collect data from millions of people online at minimum cost.
Cloud Computing: Cloud computing refers to a remote server which is used to store large amounts of data which is safe and available at all time; the environment provides all kind of software, hardware and computing platforms that consumers can provision on a pay as you go basis.
Machine Learning: This is the ability of machines to learn and store knowledge that then enables them to act and think like humans in solving problems.
Technophiles: These are people who like technology-based devices and embrace technology in their daily life to solve problems and make life easier and more comfortable.
Sustainability: This is where an on-going activity is capable of being continued for a longer period of time into the future.
Big Data: This refers to large amounts of data from different sources; it is made up of all kinds of data (e.g., photos, music, text, figures and numerals, voice recording, videos, and a jumble of electronic data), which needs ordering in order to convey meaning to end-users.
Infrastructure: This refers to buildings, roads, rail, and other concrete structures that work together to aid in business transactions or other functional systems.
Netiquette: Netiquette refers to etiquette or polite behaviour which is expected from online users towards other online users by avoiding vulgarity, irritation, racism, impiety and use of offensive language; it requires that online users are always courteous to other online users at all times.
Cognitive Cities: These, sometime also referred to intelligent cities, are modern cities which have many interconnected smart devices which communicate to each other to provide intelligent services to city residents and help them take intelligent decisions.
Interoperability: It is the ability of electronic smart devices to communicate with each other in a seamless manner to perform operations to achieve common objectives.
Internet of Things: This is a vision in which ICT based smart devices are connected to automatically perform the required operations to makes living easier; Intelligent cities and autonomous cars are just two examples of IoT.
Peri-Urban: The is the suburb or outlying area of a city, also called the urban fringe or city outskirt.
Truck Farming: This is where small scale farmers in heavily populated cities cultivate in urban fringes and suburbs, providing for city dwellers; they use large vehicles to ferry their produce to markets as they usually have perishable goods such as vegetables and fruits, among others.
Urban Implosion: When two big urban settlements or agglomerations come together to form a sprawling settlement such as Lagos in Nigeria or Mumbai in India, this process of coming together is referred to as a conurbation or urban implosion.
Drones: These are mobile computers with artificial intelligence; generally flying objects to perform actions, either controlled from remote locations by human operators or they are automatically operated by using machine learning or artificial intelligence.
Prosumers: Here, the terms ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’ are combined into one to refer to both.
Urbanisation: It is the process whereby towns and villages grow to reach the rank of cities in terms of population size, area size, and complexity of the functions performed for their outlying areas and inhabitants.
Megacities: These are large modern-day super cities which have millions of inhabitants and generally centres of commerce that have characteristics of intelligent digital cities.
Intelligent Cities: These are smart cities, often referred to as cognitive cities or digital cities.
Architecture: This is the science of building design, and designing structures which are fit for purpose and which can stand the test of time.