“Mapping” Smart Cities

ABSTRACT

Smart cities are designed to use data to optimize resources, maintain sustainability, and improve people’s quality of life. While many urban technologies are employed to make cities “smart,” one constellation of technologies has been less examined in the academic literature—digital maps and the spatial data infrastructure. This paper is an attempt to systematically review the functions and evolution of digital maps and the spatial data infrastructure, with examples from Asia and beyond, in supporting and making smart cities possible. Based on the conceptual framework and empirical case studies, four major research directions of smart mapping are identified to better support smart city initiatives.     

The Smart City as Global Discourse: Storylines and Critical Junctures across 27 Cities

Despite its growing ubiquitous presence, the smart city continues to struggle for definitional clarity and practical import. In response, this study interrogates the smart city as global discourse network by examining a collection of key texts associated with cities worldwide. Using a list of 5,553 cities, a systematic webometric exercise was conducted to measure hit counts produced by searching for “smart city.” Consequently, 27 cities with the highest validated hit counts were selected. Next, 346 online texts were collected from among the top 20 hits across each of the selected cities, and analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively using AntConc software. The findings confirm, first, the presence of a strong globalizing narrative which emphasizes world cities as “best practice” models. Second, they reveal the smart city’s association—beyond the quest for incremental, technical improvements of current urban systems and processes—with a pronounced transformative governance agenda. The article identifies five critical junctures at the heart of the evolving smart city discourse regime; these shed light on the ongoing boundary work in which the smart city is engaged and which contain significant unresolved tensions. The paper concludes with a discussion of resulting implications for research, policy, and practice.     

Towards Post-Anthropocentric Cities: Reconceptualizing Smart Cities to Evade Urban Ecocide

ABSTRACT

This short piece acts as a coda to this journal’s special issue on “Smart Cities and Innovative Technologies.” First, it provides a retrospective view of the origins of the smart city concept. The paper, secondly, presents the most recent perspectives on the new interpretations of the smart city notion. It then provides a commentary on the potential directions for a better reconceptualization of smart cities to evade a most likely urban ecocide. Lastly, the short communication concludes by asking two critical questions: (a) Will urban scholars, planners, designers, and activists be able to convince urban policymakers and the general public of the need for a post-anthropocentric urban turnaround? (b) How do the public, private, and academic sectors along with communities pave the way for post-anthropocentric cities and more-than-human futures?     

Green Cities and “IT839”: A New Paradigm for Economic Growth in South Korea

The Korean government, like many in Asia, is actively building green cities from scratch—the most famous being Sejong, Songdo, and Cheongna. All these are considered models of green cities and are characterized by similar networked smart technological systems. This research builds on recent scholarly discourse by Anthony Townsend on smart technologies and urban planning, and Sofia T. Shwayri and Simon Joss on the “ubiquitous-eco-city” phenomena in Korea. In particular, it aims to extend Shwayri's hypothesis that the model is developed for export by uncovering the goals of the green city model actors. By tracing the national government's economic growth ICT strategy—“IT839”—and its key industry stakeholders, KT Telecommunications, this paper illuminates how Korea's green city model is being driven by an agenda of horizontal technology transfer in which the government has aimed to extend its traditional markets, and create a new paradigm for economic growth.     

城市地下空间智慧规划研究综述

合理规划城市地下空间是确保其高质量发展的关键。近年来,随着大数据、云计算、人工智能等技术与实体经济的深度融合,城市地下空间正在走向“智慧化”,但针对城市地下空间智慧规划的研究还较少。文献数据分析发现,我国城市地下空间智慧规划领域起步晚、发展慢,亟需进一步研究。笔者总结了国内外现有的研究内容,将城市地下空间智慧规划所需的技术分为基础技术和智慧规划技术。基础技术包括辅助规划系统架构、数据管理、建模仿真、资源评价、规模预测、协同规划技术,智慧规划技术包括动态模拟、智能交互、CIM平台技术,分别梳理了各类技术的研究现状。最后分析了现有研究中存在的问题,提出了未来该领域可能的发展方向。     

Electric Vehicle Mobility-as-a-Service: Exploring the “Tri-Opt” of Novel Private Transport Business Models

Three distinct trends have emerged that have disrupted the dominance of privately owned, combustion-powered car transport in the United Kingdom. First, the electric powertrain has emerged as an affordable means of transport, addressing various existing environmental concerns; second, new models of car ownership are developing, particularly in urban areas; third, the growth of “smart city” thinking emphasizes capitalizing on increased connectivity and data availability to create value. We define the combination of these three trends as the “tri-opt” of private transport—three disruptors that should not be considered in isolation but as interacting, an inflection of the “Energy Trilemma.” This paper applies systems thinking and a mixed methodology of workshops, interviews, and systems modeling to the UK city of Bristol’s Smart EV Transport Hub project to identify concepts that positively combine two or more of these three “opts.” We demonstrate that there are many synergistic overlaps and that combinations potentially create significant value, with use cases that the current literature has explored the least are of the greatest perceived value. We thus recommend that public–private sector collaboration in private transport—particularly at the intersection of electric vehicles, smart cities, and mobility-as-a-service—is prioritized for further investigation.     

City profile: Guwahati

Guwahati, which enjoyed a strategic position throughout history due to its geographical location along the mighty Brahmaputra River and its defensive topography, has an ancient tradition of urbanisation. The city saw its periods of growth and decline from being an important cultural, religious, economic and political centre to mere a war site. It was rebuilt during the colonial period and within a century, grew from a swampy settlement of 12,000 people (1911) into a vast urban agglomeration of nearly 1.26 million population (2011). Today, while this ancient “City of Eastern Light” has regained its importance as an urban centre, intense growth has led to physical, social and environmental vulnerabilities regardless of numerous planned efforts engaged in city building including adoption of city Master Plans since 1960s. Despite this, Guwahati has been the focus of little research in terms of its morphology depicting both, historic planning paradigms and modern urban visioning to reflect the city's ongoing story. Based on secondary data, this city profile, narrates the growth and morphological evolution of Guwahati from mythology to modern period. It then critically examines the city in its present form and concludes that a convergence between emergence and planning may be a necessary renaissance for Guwahati as it seeks to transform itself into one of the most admired, smart and sustainable cities in India. The theoretical narration is supported with strong visual atlas which provides an empirical strength to this profile.     

智慧城市解读与未来城市发展的思考

随着信息时代的到来和城市问题的日益突出,智慧城市作为新的城市发展理念迅速成为当前全世界范围内城市发展与规划关注的焦点领域。本文在解读智慧城市的发展起源、内涵和特性的基础上,根据国内外智慧城市的发展态势,总结了自上而下和自下而上两种智慧城市发展模式。同时智慧城市理念的探索和实践对未来城市发展产生了意义深远的影响,对城市数据系统的整合性、城市规划的协调性、开放式数据库的建立以及对市民的参与鼓励都提出了更高的要求。然而,由于对ICT技术的依赖性,我们仍要清新认识到智慧城市发展过程仍有可能带来的问题和风险。     

Smart Cities and Mobility: Does the Smartness of Australian Cities Lead to Sustainable Commuting Patterns?

ABSTRACT

Smart cities have become a popular concept because they have the potential to create a sustainable and livable urban future. Smart mobility forms an integral part of the smart city agenda. This paper investigates “smart mobility” from the angle of sustainable commuting practices in the context of smart cities. This paper studies a multivariate multiple regression model within a panel data framework and examines whether increasing access to broadband Internet connections leads to the choice of a sustainable commuting mode in Australian local government areas. In this case, access to the Internet is used as a proxy for determining urban smartness, and the use of different modes of transport including working at home is used to investigate sustainability in commuting behavior. The findings show that an increasing access to broadband Internet reduces the level of working from home, public transport use, and active transport use, but increases the use of private vehicles, perhaps to overcome the fragmentation of work activities the Internet creates. How to overcome the need for car-based travel for fragmented work activities while increasing smartness through the provisioning of broadband access should be a key smart city agenda for Australia to make its cities more sustainable.     

智慧城市技术对未来城市空间发展的影响

大数据、人工智能、移动网络、云 计算等新技术的发展,正在引发一场全球新 一轮的技术革命。智能技术的发展不仅成 为国家经济、社会发展的创新动力,而且也 对城市的运作和发展产生了深刻的影响。智 慧城市在这样的大背景下,正以比我们想象 得更快的速度在城市的各个领域展开,如智 慧交通、智慧能源、智能通讯、智慧政务、智 慧医疗等等几乎涉及了城市运作的各个层面 和各个方面,这些智慧技术的应用已经对城 市生活产生了巨大影响,那么它将对未来城 市空间格局产生什么影响,对城市设计带来 怎么样的机遇和挑战,或者反过来说,我们 可以利用智慧技术在城市设计领域做些什 么,值得我们进一步思考。本文将通过对国 内外智慧城市研究领域前沿研究的分析,揭 示智慧城市技术对城市各个方面产生的影响 和潜在机遇,并提出未来城市设计利用智慧 技术将面临的新的课题和值得关注的研究 方向。     

重塑城市形态:美国空间形态管制的演变特征及控制实施体系研究

20世纪80年代末,传统以土地用途为核心的区划因无法预测城市空间形态而遭到批判,同时新城市主义、可持续发展及精明增长等新理念逐步兴起,提倡重塑步行空间和新邻里规划的回归。在此背景下,美国空间形态管制应运而生并逐步发展完善。本文阐述美国空间形态管制的背景缘起,梳理其内涵体系及演变脉络,并探索美国空间形态管制实施的地方化模式。之后,归纳评析其先进经验,为增强我国城市特色和空间形态提供思路。     

DOWNTOWN REDEVELOPMENT AS AN URBAN GROWTH STRATEGY: A Critical Appraisal of the Baltimore Renaissance

ABSTRACT: Since the early 1970s, Baltimore has been heralded as a model of how declining, older U.S. cities can be revitalized Baltimore's economic development strategy has hinged on the creation of a “good business climate”; the linchpin of the strategy has been the redevelopment of downtown into the “corporate center” of a new Baltimore economy based on advanced services and tourism. Despite the favorable publicity accorded Baltimore's transformation, systematic analysis of social and economic trends suggests that corporate center-business climate redevelopment has done little to boost aggregate levels of prosperity in the city. Moreover, the Baltimore strategy has generated uneven patterns of growth and exacerbated urban dualism Baltimore has become “two cities”: a city of developers, suburban professionals, and “back-to-the-city gentry who have ridden the downtown revival to handsome profits, good jobs, and conspicuous consumption; and a city of impoverished blacks and displaced manufacturing workers, who continue to suffer from shrinking economic opportunities, declining public services, and neighborhood distress. The article explores three main reasons for these results: (1) business domination of Baltimore's public-private “partnership,” (2) the absence of explicit mechanisms linking downtown redevelopment to the revitalization of low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, and (3) the inherent pitfalls of building an urban economy on downtown-centered corporate services and tourism. The article concludes by briefly examining the implications of the Baltimore case for the general problem of how to generate equitable, sustainable economic development in older U.S. cities.     

A framework for the future of urban underground engineering

A special and holistic approach is needed that captures aggregate attributes and emergent behaviors of the complex system of infrastructure systems in a region. Effective management of the impacts of future population growth, urbanization, and risks arising from continued evolution of our natural, physical and human/societal systems will require a systematic exploration and characterization of the urban subsurface, including much improved understanding and assessment of geologic risks. With recent cost escalations for underground construction projects, incentives are needed for the underground construction industry to develop and implement innovations in methods and technology, and smart integrated planning is needed to reduce costs both during construction and with life-cycle engineered design and operation of our subsurface facilities.The needed framework requires investigation of potential metrics that reflect the performance of aggregate functions of an urban environment so that we can holistically study system performance response under “normal” and “stressed” operation. Such a metric can support a cross-disciplinary exploration of urban resilience, and build knowledge as we develop and test theory and models that explore resilience of complex socio-technical systems. Econometrics with spatial and temporal granularity will help to understand the integrated functionality of our cities and to establish appropriate policies that will drive continuous improvement in the quality of urban life while providing natural, human, and physical urban environmental resilience. The underground in urban regions can become an important component of managing the increasing complexity of our physical systems, and can also make more significant contributions to improving the robustness and resilience of our future cities.     

“粗明累进”的概念及其讨论

城市向郊区蔓延作为美国当今的城市发展模式存在不少问题，因此提倡精明累进已成为全美城市发展的一种新潮流。本文介绍了精明累进概念的提出背景、主要内容及基本实践特点，并探讨了一些与之相关的问题。     

The Tyranny of Small Decisions. Unsustainable Cities and Local Day-to-Day Transport Planning

Though new goals for sustainable cities and transport systems have been developed, decisions and planning at a local level often fail to achieve these ambitions. The purpose of this article is to analyse the factors in local decision-making and planning practice that conduce to urban sprawl and increased car traffic. The article analyses how the conscious application of so-called “day-to-day decision-making and planning”, results in a diminution of planning's role as a strategic tool, in concealment of the environmental impact of increased traffic, in the deprioritization of environmental goals in favour of growth, and in the “tyranny of small decisions”, where the need to make many individual decisions distracts from the achievement of sustainable city and transport systems. Day-to-day decision-making and planning are analysed and described in a case study centring on retail trade on the outskirts of the Swedish town of Örebro.     

精明收缩理念下城市空置问题的规划响应与启示——基于德国、美国和日本的比较

受金融危机冲击与产业经济转型的影响,我国部分城市出现了以人口减少为标志的城市收缩现象。如何处理和应对由于城市收缩引发的空置问题是当前空间规划和城市治理值得研究的课题。精明收缩提倡的"更小的用地范围内、更少的人口规模"的规划理念已经引起学界的广泛关注,但由于制度背景和规划文化的差异,不同国家所采取的政策态度与应对策略存在显著区别。本文通过梳理德国、美国和日本典型收缩城市形成的背景与动因,结合关键时间节点,分析这三个国家在应对城市空置问题的态度和演变,重点讨论不同政治文化背景下政府、社会组织、市场、公众等角色的作用。本研究有助于厘清精明收缩理念在我国城市规划领域的适用性,并为我国城市如何合理应对人口收缩下的城市空置问题提供经验启示。     

后新冠肺炎疫情时代城市的加速智能化

Governments, developers and big-tech companies have become enamoured with the possibility of the smart city: an efficient, convenient (and profitable) “smart” metropolis to help accommodate and optimize rapid urban growth. While it is tempting to wash renders of future cities with the typical smart city visions of drones, segways, and shiny reflective glass towers—the reality is that good (smart) cities incorporate a bottom-up messiness and urban vitality which is fundamental to the overall thriving of the city. In Hassell’s competition winning scheme for the Xinqiao District in Shenzhen—the design team explored the ideas that a smart and innovative city that first and foremost uphold—a place which fosters inclusivity, diversity, collaboration, and resilience. Now through times of ongoing uncertainty in the COVID-19 era, Hassell’s design team expects an even greater adoption of smart cities rhetoric as a form of necessary urban surveillance and to manage and support communities and the containment of the COVID-19—building urban resilience against big disaster events, enabling adaptive environments that can re-calibrate, reorganize, and evolve in real-time as needed. Can urban designers go beyond resilience to imagine cities which thrive and grow out of disaster events?     

Smart cities with big data: Reference models,challenges, and considerations

Cities worldwide are attempting to transform themselves into smart cities. Recent cases and studies show that a key factor in this transformation is the use of urban big data from stakeholders and physical objects in cities. However, the knowledge and framework for data use for smart cities remain relatively unknown. This paper reports findings from an analysis of various use cases of big data in cities worldwide and the authors' four projects with government organizations toward developing smart cities. Specifically, this paper classifies the urban data use cases into four reference models and identifies six challenges in transforming data into information for smart cities. Furthermore, building upon the relevant literature, this paper proposes five considerations for addressing the challenges in implementing the reference models in real-world applications. The reference models, challenges, and considerations collectively form a framework for data use for smart cities. This paper will contribute to urban planning and policy development in the modern data-rich economy.     

大上海都市计划：从规划理想到实践追求

作为二次大战后中国大城市编制的第一部现代城市总体规划,“大上海都市计划”对上海的城市规划和建设带来深远影响,也对我国城市规划学科发展以及城市发展具有重要意义。从规划导向、规划理念、规划方法、规划组织与决策、实施与支撑角度具体阐述了其影响以及对当今规划特别是上海新一轮总规编制的启示作用。“大上海都市计划”作为众多先辈垒砌的基石,将启发我们如何思考与规划“上海的2040”,将支撑我们不懈地脚踏现实,面对未来,追求梦想。