What is a Smart City?
A smart city uses Internet of Things, information and communication technology, and data to improve quality of life, efficiency in the city, and operations in the city. The main aspect of smart cities is the use of data and technology in urban areas to improve some aspect of the city. The technology could be used to help with sustainability, or pollution, or even with the flow of traffic.
There are multiple components to smart cities including smart government, smart health, smart building, and many more. I believe this is a good definition because it encompasses the two main aspects of what a smart city is: use of technology and improving the city using said technology.
What is Smart Government and Community?
My topic is smart government and community. I am going to tackle this definition in two parts: smart government and smart communities.
Smart government: Smart government is when you use technology and data to help and support you in making decisions. E-government is when the government uses the internet and other applications online to help with people getting access to government information. An example of smart government could be using AI to help the police with recognizing people’s faces such as criminals in a public area.
Having a smart government can help with the government being more transparent because they can post their information online and people can have easier access to the information and citizens can also more easily participate with any government events as they can be held on zoom or be posted online.
Smart community: A smart community is similar to a smart city but it focuses more on the citizens and smaller areas of a city. A smart community is a community that uses technology to help its citizens, businesses, and sustainability. Local governments help with implementing smart city initiatives in communities to better them.
An example of smart communities is adding a sensor to the children playing signs in neighborhoods so that the flash lights whenever they sense a child in the street so that drivers can be extra careful when driving. Having smart communities helps with having more community engagement, better sustainability, and better quality of life in those communities.
Three Smart City Projects
1. Civocracy – Civic Engagement Platform
A startup from Germany created this platform called Civocracy. On this platform people can access it online and on there citizens can post opinions, questions, suggestions, and commentary that then the government can have access to it and see what the citizens want and need. It is a way to communicate digitally between citizens and the government. This leads to more collaborative decision making and more transparency with the citizens and government. Some of the features include “city-led discussions, debates, real-time tracking, identifying their most active members, crowdsourcing ideas, and enabling multi-level administration”.
A specific example of where Civocracy is being used is in Métropole Nice Côte d’Azur. Nice is trying to be one of the first smart cities of France so they decided to implement Civocracy. Here is the link to access Civocracy Nice to see what posts have been made by citizens: https://legacy.civocracy.org/nicecotedazur/discussions/official
Objective
The objective for Nice to adopt Civocracy is to better connect with the citizens in the regions and to see what the citizens are interested in and what help they need. Another objective is to start building Nice as a smart city by implementing this smart community solution. Also, this smart city solution will make sure citizens can engage more with their local government and have their voices be heard.
Impact
One of the main impacts is that all the posts made to Civocracy are then reviewed and sent to the appropriate internal department so then those departments can see what new projects they have to take on and what the citizens are feeling need to be done or updated in the community.
The main topic that was seen being posted on Civocracy by the citizens was about sustainability so now Nice is refactoring how they will tackle sustainability and what projects they should take on for that.
Success Metric
There are certain metrics that were used to see if this smart city implementation is a success. They are the number of contributions, relevance for the region, and diversity of topics.
There were more than 280 contributions, at the time of the article being published, and those received 5124 votes. 78.5% of the posts were relevant to the Métropole of Nice Côte d’Azur. And, there were a variety of topics being discussed on the platform.
Suggestions/improvements
One recommendation that Civocracy suggests is to have official discussions led by the local government so that the citizens can engage more with the government and vice versa. I agree with this. I think that if there can be even more of a conversation than just posts on a website that would be great because it gives an opportunity to let citizens have their voices heard by real people and not just a post on a website. However, I do think that the website for posting your thoughts and opinions on the community is a great first start. It is a great way to start a conversation between the government and citizens.
2. Polys – Online Voting System
A startup in Russia called Polys created an online voting system. The online voting system they created uses blockchain technology and this leads to a very low chance of the results being manipulated with. You are able to access the voting system with SMS and smart cards and all votes are made anonymously to help with privacy. This online voting system lets citizens be more involved with their government and the decisions being made. This can lead to a higher voter turnout since people can vote from wherever they are.
Problem
A specific example of Polys being used is in Nuremberg when they had to vote for the Nuremberg Youth Council. The Youth Council needed to hold a re-election during the Covid-19 pandemic but due to the risk of spreading the sickness they canceled all in-person meetings. So, they decided to hold the voting online using the online voting system that Polys created. The Youth Council needed to have a private and secure way to vote online and since Polys uses Kaspersky, a cybersecurity provider, this made the Youth Council feel more confident in using this new way of voting.
Without Polys we could not have held our vital re-election and would have needed to postpone it until some unknown future date.
- Jonas Hofmann | Deputy Chairman of the Junge Union Nürnberg
Solution
One evening the Nuremberg Youth Council were able to do all their voting necessary using Polys and each voting phase only lasted a few minutes. The people were voted for securely, in a private manner, and quickly.
Result
By having the online voting system the voting for the Nuremberg Youth Council was able to happen even in the midst of a pandemic. The members of the Youth COuncil even said that without Polys that the voting would have to have been pushed off for at least six months. By being able to vote privately from wherever you are there was no bias and greater privacy. Also, the results would show up instantly where in the past sometimes they would start voting for the next phase while the votes for the previous phase were still being counted.
Suggestions/Improvements
A suggestion I have is that Polys should be used for all elections even after the pandemic. There are so many positives of using the online voting system. It eases the process for when there has to be a vote. The people voting can be more private about it, can do it anywhere, and there is less risk for bias. Also, the results show up instantly instead of someone having to count manually.
I think that the online voting system is a great way to get more citizens involved in their community and government. I am sure there are people who do not vote because they may not have the time to go out and vote or they may not be physically able to go vote. By having the online voting system available to everyone then people would be able to be more active in the community and even vote in elections that they normally would not take the time to. A suggestion I would have is to implement online voting systems in most local elections so that citizens can be more involved in their community. Also, considering having an online voting system for larger elections could help with voter turnout.
3. Smart Community Technology: Sea Level Rise Monitoring and Mitigation
The city of Coral Gables in Florida took on the initiative of becoming a smart community and did some projects to work towards that. One of those projects is a way to monitor and mitigate the sea level rising. This is an important project for Coral Gables since they are located near the ocean. The city decided to partner with universities and created a regional compact to help with mitigating across county lines.
Two projects they took on is “using SLOSH (sea, lake, and overland surges from hurricanes) modeling, and is creating an Interconnected Pond Routing storm water model.” One project they are doing using technology is that they created a LIDAR risk map and browser-based mapping that can be accessed on public websites. A future goal project would be to create a virtual reality experience where you could find long-term impacts from storms.
If you visit this website (https://cg-hubdev-cggis.opendata.arcgis.com/#inits ) you can see some of the initiatives that the city of Coral Gables is taking on. Two of them for monitoring the sea level rising are available to the public. There is a map of the Southeast Water Level Network Sensor Locations. There you can see what the water level is in different parts of Florida including Coral Gables. Another map available is to see different statistics of the water, such as water temperature, in different parts of Florida.
Other projects they have taken on for making sure the sea level rising does not become an issue is that they partnered with FIU and with them they are doing tidal gauge studies and sediment gauge studies. Another project they have worked on is doing a study on the infrastructure of the city to see how sea level projections will affect the existing infrastructure.
Suggestions/Improvements
I think that having these public maps available is a great step in getting community engagement since this is a problem that will affect the whole community. The maps show a great implementation of sensors since they are being used in multiple locations in Florida to capture lots of data including water level rising and water temperature.
A suggestion I have would be to take on more action in the mitigation category. It seems that there are a lot of projects and findings being placed towards monitoring the sea level rising and studies on existing infrastructure and how it will be affected by the sea level rising but not much being done with mitigation. More projects on making sure the sea level rising does not affect the community should be taken on. This will help the community feel more safe and secure.
Another suggestion I have would be to have sensors that could be placed in similar locations to where the others are placed but the new sensors could be used to see when a storm could be coming in, This could help the community plan for a storm coming and they could mitigate against there being any damage to the community or at least minimal damage happening.
Works Cited
Admin. “What Are the Benefits of Smart Governance? [Get the Answers at Byju’s].” BYJUS, BYJU’S, 24 Aug. 2021, https://byjus.com/ias-questions/what-are-the-benefits-of-smart-governance/.
Award-Winning Smart City Www.coralgables.com/It Www.coralgables.com … https://www.coralgables.com/sites/default/files/2022-07/CGIT_SmartCityInnovationPoster_2021%20-%20Web.pdf.
Civocracy, https://www.civocracy.org/nicecotedazur.
“E-Government (E-Gov).” USDA, https://www.usda.gov/ocio/centers/irmc/e-government#:~:text=%22Electronic%20Government%22(E%2D,bring%20about%20improvements%20in%20Government.
“Government Solution.” Telkom, https://www.telkom.co.id/sites/enterprise/en_US/page/government-solution-246.
Shea, Sharon, and Ed Burns. “What Is a Smart City? Definition from Whatis.com.” IoT Agenda, TechTarget, 16 July 2020, https://www.techtarget.com/iotagenda/definition/smart-city.
“Smart Solutions: Technology Serving Communities e-Book.” Icma.org, https://icma.org/documents/smart-solutions-technology-serving-communities-e-book.
StartUs Insights. “5 Top Smart Government Solutions Impacting Smart Cities.” StartUs Insights, 30 Sept. 2019, https://www.startus-insights.com/innovators-guide/5-top-smart-government-solutions-impacting-smart-cities/.
Thomas, Christopher. “What Does It Take to Build a Smart Community?” Esri, 6 Feb. 2019, https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/arcuser/what-does-it-take-to-build-a-smart-community/.
“Three Smart Community Examples (and What You Can Learn from Them).” Icma.org, https://icma.org/articles/article/three-smart-community-examples-and-what-you-can-learn-them.
“Voting for the Nuremberg Youth Council (Germany).” Polys, https://polys.vote/success-stories/voting-for-the-nuremberg-youth-council.
“What Are Smart Communities? Strategies, Examples and More.” Tomorrow.City – The Biggest Platform about Urban Innovation, https://tomorrow.city/a/what-is-smart-community.
“What Is a Smart City? – Definition and Examples.” TWI, https://www.twi-global.com/technical-knowledge/faqs/what-is-a-smart-city#:~:text=A%20smart%20city%20uses%20information,government%20service%20and%20citizen%20welfare.
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