The smart city
‘Smart city’ has become a popular jargon in recent times among the politicians, big companies and policy makers. Politicians might be using it to attract votes, companies to expand their business while policy makers to appear themselves more advances and ‘smart’. There’s little known to the general people about what this exactly mean.
As the discourse become fiercer, I dragged myself to dive into this unknown sea in an attempt to have the basic understanding in case I ever need to live in such a city in future. I needed to be self prepared to adopt the change and be part of the wider culture. There’s no option to accepting the technological advancement and social transformation.
What does smart city gives us? An Australian government website says, ‘It is a plan for supporting productive, accessible, liveable cities that attract talent, encourage innovation and create jobs and growth’.
Should these be the only primary objectives for a smart city? Not certainly. All cities always have these agenda in their plan and strive to achieve them. The utopians of this idea must prove the services ‘smart city’ gives are exceptional and phenomenal.
Last year Google affiliate Sidewalk Labs announced to turn part of the Toronto City into a smart city. The proposal was to transform the communication process and lifestyle of the residents. The company proposes it controls all infrastructures from its technology lab – monitoring traffic, air quality and flushing toilets among others.
Will that change the way people live? Yes definitely it will. However, will that bring smile in their face? Not certain. There are already concerns about companies controlling individual’s private life. This is against the fundamentals of democracy and personal freedom. Sales of personal data by big companies like Facebook and Google have already made people freak of the existing culture in multi-nationals.
If companies control the infrastructure, services and the governance, why do we need an elected government? We would be moving from elected-government to dictating-government.
The tussle between companies investing their interest and government maintaining distance in making profit out of essential services will continue to rise as we move towards commercialised society. This would get diluted within the interest of the political stalwart who rely on big companies for their future. Then the primary objective of making people’s life easier would turn into companies making more profits.
It all depends on how the discussion and engagement of local residents are incorporated and how locals pursue their welfare agenda against company profits. The concepts floated so far have focused on making economic growth and technology tests. The proposers claim such advancements would make people’s life easier and comfortable.
Though the profit focused development agendas have brought in economic and technological growth but the life has become more complicated and technocratic. The migrations culture from country to cities continues to spread. The demand for place to live and work continues to grow. The happiness and harmony have disoriented. As the population concentrates, complexities and difficulties will get multiplied. We will be living in concrete jungles.
The smart city, in reality, must bring in happiness and vigour of real life back. The humanity must get revived. The people living in smart city must be ‘smart human being’ not ‘mechanised expert’. The complexities must end and nature’s green must return to our life in smart city.