What makes for a smart city?
On May 24, 2016, Lucknow was selected by the central government of India to be a part of the Smart City initiative. Lucknow was among the 13 cities selected in the second round. In the first round, 20 cities were selected, and a total of 60 cities will be selected in the current financial year. The remaining 40 will be selected subsequently, completing the list of 100 cities that India strives to make “smart”.
It is important to note that there is no universal definition of a smart city. The word ‘smart’ has passed into common usage to describe the use of digital technology.
It has come to be applied to cities as a whole in policy documents and promotional literature produced by hi-tech corporations, as an aspirational concept, which has a strong focus on the use of digital technology in particular to improve various aspects of the functionality of city systems.
The government of India states that the definition will vary across geography and polity, depending on the level of development, penchant for reform, resources available and the requirements.
It says that in the approach of the Smart Cities Mission, the objective is to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of ‘smart’ solutions.
The British Standards Institution (BSI) defines a smart city as one where there is “effective integration of physical, digital and human systems in the built environment to deliver a sustainable, prosperous and inclusive future for its citizens”.
China, on the other hand, does not have any set criteria for smart cities. With its booming economy and huge funds at its disposal, it has initiated an extensive smart city programme.
Burdened by a surging urban population, the ministry of housing and urban-rural development is keen to use new technologies such as the ‘Internet of Things’ (IOT) through computers and cloud computing to boost information sharing and coordination within a city.
Japan calls its programme the SMART Community initiative, which is supported by the ministry of economy, trade and industry. From South America to Africa, we are seeing examples of smart cities being developed. Rio de Janeiro has implemented an Intelligent Operations Centre, bringing together data from over 30 agencies and services in a command centre, while Kenya is developing the ambitious Konza Techno City near Nairobi.
The United Nations makes significant mention of the needs of cities in the 17 sustainable development goals announced this year. It highlights the need of urban development, putting forward compelling statistics. These include -- Half of humanity ie 3.5 billion people live in cities today; by 2030, almost 60% of the world’s population will live in urban areas; 5% of urban expansion in the next decades will take place in developing world; 828 million people live in slums today; the world’s cities occupy just 3% of the Earth’s land but account for 60-80% of energy consumption and 75% carbon emissions.
According to the ministry of urban development, GoI, around 32% of our population (377 million people) is urban. This means around 91 million people have added to urban areas over the last decade (Census 2011). It is expected by 2030, urban areas will have 40% of India’s population. This rapid expansion has put pressure on existing infrastructure and thus the need for efficient solutions for utilisation of resources.
Governments all over the world are using customised criteria for selecting urban areas for smart city projects.
The government in India launched the Smart Cities Mission in June 2015.
The plan is to develop 100 smart cities between financial year 2015-16 and FY 2019-20. The SMART CITY implementation will be through the creation of special purpose vehicles. It would be financed by the Centre, State and additional sources viz. central infrastructure bonds, municipal bonds, user fee collection, debt, loans from financial institutions, external borrowing through bilateral and multilateral sources and private sector through public private partnerships.