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Do the benefits of smart cities outweigh potential problems?

Are Smart Cities Really That Smart?

By Colby Conway on Sep 22, 2017

If you have never heard of smart cities, you might already be behind the technological eight ball. Smart cities are as worrisome as they are fascinating. The value they can provide is undeniable and mind-boggling, in a good way, but ethical considerations and other problems leave you disconnecting your technology-enabled devices. Smart cities are rising, and the interconnected society that you may think only happens in the movies could turn into reality in the coming years.

In short, a smart city is a way to improve a city’s efficiency through information and communication technology and the recently trending Internet of Things. Nearly everything is connected and the primary initiative behind the smart city is to improve efficiency of numerous services and amenities.

Andrew Borchers, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cases on Information Technology, pointed out a few key areas of daily life that smart cities can enhance and they are as follows:

Traffic - Rather than focus on building more roads, software can help optimize the flow of traffic on existing roads.
Emergency services - Data from Smart City applications can help emergency services identify and respond to emergency needs.
Crime - Systems can help police optimize their crime fighting efforts.
Utilities - Smart cities can optimize the use of utilities (such as water and electricity).
Environment - Smart cities can help identify and respond to environmental problems - both emergencies and long term.

However, a smart city won’t work to optimum levels of success just because everything is interconnected. Connecting everything could be useless if the members of that city aren’t in tune with the developments. Yassine Maleh, contributor to the International Journal of Mobile Computing and Multimedia Communications, explains that the success of a smart city is dependent on three things.

“The success of an intelligent city depends on 1) The widespread deployment of all ICT components, 2) Transparent, efficient and client-centered governance, and 3) Informed, engaged and connected people,” says Maleh.

Furthermore, the ethical considerations and potential pitfalls with smart cities is undeniable. With great power comes great responsibility. Do you think cybercrime or cyberbullying was on the mind of Charles Babbage when he invented the first computer? The original smartphone was made to provide the user with virtually everything at his/her fingertips. Was hacking, or cyberbullying or jailbreaking a smart phone on the mind at that time? Of course not.

While optimizing traffic routes would be a plus from the implementation of smart cities, it could become a problem, says Borchers.

“Any sensors that collect data that is personally identifiable are of great concern,” says Borchers. “For example, traffic cameras that are essential to optimize traffic flow could be misused to watch individuals.”

Smart Cities, technology, Internet of Things

Additionally, privacy and privacy governance are at the forefront of potential problems with smart cities.

“Collecting information related to the activities of its residents from various sources, privacy is an important concern,” says Maleh. “Cities need to create privacy governance policies that clearly lay out what data can be collected and stored, who can view which information, and what data rights and protections are afforded to the various parties involved.”

Furthermore, with all the cyberattacks occurring lately, including the Petya and WannaCry attacks, security is a major concern with a smart city that is interconnected to this extreme.

“Not only does the system require network firewalls, but every end-device needs to be protected from attacks that could lead to data theft or malfunctions,” says Maleh. “Telecom providers, therefore, need to ensure that there are robust security policies in place, including risk management framework to continually assess risks, security controls, security analytics, and vulnerability management frameworks to push security patches to networks and devices.”

Addressing privacy and security concerns are important, but there’s a fine line between ensuring the networks are accessible for all, but secure enough to prevent unethical hacking. Borchers addresses this below:

“To enable valuable applications, cities need data on a wide number of items – vehicle and pedestrian traffic, water levels and weather, for example. These networks have to be reliable and secure against tampering. Further, these networks need to be accessible to all so that applications (such as ones on cell phones) can access the data. At the same time, these need to be secure so that hackers can’t become imposters and introduce inaccurate data.”

Urbanization is rapidly increasing and who knows, smart cities could be a normality across the world within the next 50 years, or even sooner. The smart city discussion isn’t going to go away anytime soon, especially with technology increasing and the desire for interconnectivity.

“The promise that the connected deployment of new technologies in the urban environment can optimize all aspects of everyday life and solve the urban problems faced by local government can only seduce in a context of austerity,” says Maleh. “It is therefore not surprising that large cities have embarked on a race for intelligence, even though we do not have enough time to evaluate the promises of such innovations.”

Popular cities like Singapore, London and Barcelona are popular smart cities, but just how long will it take until larger cities in the United States undergo this expansive, technological innovation? In the United States, San Francisco is arguably the most popular smart city, implementing a system to improve parking in the packed city. Other cities like Boston and Seattle have embarked on the smart city trend, particularly with their respective implementations of the Innovation District and Complete Streets.

Just how elaborate can these smart cities become? Who knows exactly, but technology won’t stop evolving and expanding. There are concerns, particularly with security and privacy, with smart cities, but the benefits they provide are undeniable and can have positive impacts on society.

By 2035, will your hometown be a smart city, interconnected and productive? What do you think?

IGI Global would like to thank Andy Borchers and Yassine Maleh for contributing their thoughts on the benefits and potential problems with smart cities.

Newsroom Contact
Caroline Campbell
Promotions Assistant
ccampbell@igi-global.com
(717) 533-8845, ext. 144
www.igi-global.com/

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