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Vangelis Angelakis · Elias Tragos
Henrich C. Pöhls · Adam Kapovits
Alessandro Bassi Editors
Designing,
Developing,
and Facilitating
Smart Cities
Urban Design to IoT Solutions
Designing, Developing, and Facilitating Smart
Cities
Vangelis Angelakis ⋅ Elias Tragos
Henrich C. Pöhls ⋅ Adam Kapovits
Alessandro Bassi
Editors
Designing, Developing,
and Facilitating Smart Cities
Urban Design to IoT Solutions
123
Editors
Vangelis Angelakis Adam Kapovits
Communications and Transport Systems, Eurescom GmbH
Department of Science and Technology Heidelberg
Linköping University, Campus Norrköping Germany
Norrköping
Sweden Alessandro Bassi
Alessandro Bassi Consulting
Elias Tragos Juan les Pins
Institute of Computer Science France
Foundation for Research and Technology—
Hellas
Heraklion
Greece
Henrich C. Pöhls
Institute of IT-Security and Security Law
University of Passau
Passau
Germany
v
vi Preface
with the practical aspects behind enabling the technologies for city
smartification.
• We allowed the authors, who are experts in an interdisciplinary range of fields,
to provide in-depth inside to their views on the topic from their different dis-
ciplines and backgrounds; our goal was to transport this expertise rather than
trying to achieve perfect homogeneity, but we have attempted to make the
different chapters of the book as coherent and synchronized as possible.
Intended Audience
We have attempted to design the overall structure and content of the book in such a
manner that makes it useful for all learning levels. The book is written to primarily
target students, of a broad spectrum of disciplines. This includes students of senior
undergraduate and graduate levels, in the broad range of skills employed towards
turning a city smarter. A secondary audience for this book is the researcher and
practitioners’ community, in academia, the ICT and IoT industry, and city planning.
To this end we have taken into consideration the need for getting insights not only
of the practical significance of the topics, but also need to discover how this scope
of knowledge and the ideas are relevant for applications and technologies enabling
for smart cities.
Acknowledgments
We are deeply thankful to the 70 authors of the 14 chapters of this book, who have
worked hard to bring this unique resource forward for helping the students,
researchers, and smart cities community at large. We note that as the individual
chapters of this book are written by different authors, the responsibility of the
contents of each of the chapters lies with the concerned authors.
We would like to thank Springer and Ms. Mary James, Senior Editor, who
worked with us on the project from its inception, for her professionalism and
support. We also thank Mr. Brian Halm, who tirelessly worked with us and helped
us in the publication process.
Part II Technologies
5 Designing Secure IoT Architectures for Smart
City Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Elias Tragos, Alexandros Fragkiadakis, Vangelis Angelakis
and Henrich C. Pöhls
6 Privacy and Social Values in Smart Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Leonardo A. Martucci, Simone Fischer-Hübner, Mark Hartswood
and Marina Jirotka
7 Security and Privacy for the Internet of Things
Communication in the SmartCity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Ralf C. Staudemeyer, Henrich C. Pöhls and Bruce W. Watson
8 IoT Communication Technologies for Smart Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Matteo Cesana and Alessandro E.C. Redondi
ix
x Contents
xi
xii Contributors
Alessandro Bassi
The concept of “smart city” is often used implying that the reader has a clear and
common notion of what it means. However, in the current literature it is very hard
to find a precise definition. What is even more interesting, it is not so easy to find a
precise definition of what a city is.
In France, the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Research
(INSEE) uses as a criterion the number of inhabitants: a City is an agglomeration
of 2000 or more people. As all arbitrary numbers, this one is not exempt by critics,
as just a growing number of inhabitants allow to pass from rural to urban zone,
while they are clearly two different realities. Furthermore, every country has different
limits: while in Denmark, for instance, an agglomeration of 250 people is enough,
in Egypt we need 11,000 people, while in Japan 30,000. In the United States the
number set is 2500. The United Kingdom has a different way to define a settlement
in a city: only the King (or Queen) has this power, and the appellation is given without
a specific criterion, although usually it matches the diocesan cathedrals.
In some cases a different concept is used. The definition of urban unity is based
on the habitat continuum, not more than 200 m between 2 constructions and at least
2000 inhabitants.
The definition of Urban or Industrial Zones respond to a deeper concept that takes
into consideration the level of daily migration between workplace and home, the
percentage of the population not involved in agricultural work and the number and
size of industrial, commercial, and administrative buildings. The dynamics of these
spaces is linked to the proximity of one or more urban areas.
It is possible to notice, therefore, that the notion of city itself does not have a
unique administrative definition. Furthermore, the concept of city goes beyond its
A. Bassi (✉)
Alessandro Bassi Consulting, 3 Avenue de Cannes, 06160 Juan les Pins, France
e-mail: [email protected]
mere administrative domains, and evokes a way of living which is typical of a cer-
tain amount of population living in close proximity. We would then use the adjective
urban rather than the word city in order to avoid the administrative definitions and
rather concentrate on the lifestyle and way of living typical of a large number of
people living in proximity. In this context, urban refers not only to the mere admin-
istrative facts but, more important, to a specific culture and mentality.
The urban population is growing constantly. Looking at simple numbers [1], it’s easy
to get convinced and to understand the amplitude of the phenomenon. In 1960, the
population living in cities was around 1 billion; in 1986, it doubled, and in 2005
was 3.2 billions. The increment of urban population is growing constantly, and con-
stantly quicker. Following this pattern, our planet will see in 2030 5 billion urban
people, leaving rural areas more and more inhabited, as the world population growth
is estimated around 1 % per year, while the urban population is growing at a rate of
1.8 %.
According to UN data, the percentage of population living in urban environments
cross the 50 % in 2007. It is interesting to notice that the strongest part in this evo-
lution will happen in the regions of the world which are currently underdeveloped.
Within these zones, in 1975 there were 815 urban areas, while in 2005 the number
grew to 2252. In the same time period, in the more developed areas, the growth has
been limited (from 701 to 898). In percentage, we have 2.2 yearly for the first ones
and 0.5 for the second one.
In Europe, the urbanization trend is very important: more than 75 % of the global
population lives in towns, using 80 % of resources and contributing 85 % to the Euro-
pean GDP. Demographically speaking, when we refer to Europe as the old continent,
we can see that the expression is rather correct: in 2009, the median age of the pop-
ulation was 40.6 years, and forecasts show that it should reach 47.9 in 2060.
From a macro-economic point of view, the EU 28 region is the world first eco-
nomic power. The GDP of EU countries generated more than 16 Trillions USD in
2008, with an average GDP per person above 30,000 USD. However, these indica-
tors hide huge disparities. The GDP can vary by one order of magnitude, between
Estonia and Germany for instance. Differences between EU countries can be found
at any level of economic dimensions, from unemployment rate to public deficit or
inflation rate.
1 Looking at Smart Cities with an Historical Perspective 5
Growth of the European population (in the EU 27 countries) grew by 100 mil-
lion, from 400 to 500 million, between 1960 until 2009. Until the eighties, the demo-
graphic growth was mainly due to the rate of natural increase. However, the ratio is
constantly decreasing since the 1960s, and the lowering birth rate and increasing life
expectancy will directly translate into a sensible increase of the average age of the
population. It is possible to observe, though, that starting from the nineties, inter-
national migrations became the main cause of population growth. This factor can
be a solution against the average aging, with particular regards to issues related to
the workforce, as most migrants are young adults. In 2010, 9.4 % of the population
living in the EU was born outside Europe, and by 2060 it is expected that at least
one third of the EU population will have an ancestor born outside Europe, while an
even bigger percentage will constitute the active part of the society. While the 2015
migrant crisis showed that the EU countries are still struggling to integrate important
migratory trends, demographic shows that the smooth integration into the workforce
is likely to be the only viable solution to keep a certain level of prosperity and social
benefits.
The European cities are all different; but they are facing similar challenges and are looking
for shared solutions [2].
A domain where the research is particularly active during this past few years is at the
crossing between technology and society. The current world situation calls for a pro-
gressive but radical change. This evolution has been smoothen by the policies of the
European Union, but today we see a quick acceleration of tis trend because of eco-
nomical and environmental concerns. Therefore, the future of our towns is dependent
to the way we will manage to work out the economical, social, and environmental
developments in synergy.
Within this context, it seems interesting to state the ambitions of the EU for the
coming decade. The strategy called “Europe 2020 [3]” aims to revive the economy
and is the development of a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. These priorities,
which are mutually reinforcing, must allow to the Union and its Member States to
ensure high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion. This should
happen by relying on greater coordination between national and european policies.
In other words, each Member State will be required to follow the European directives
and support the common objectives through an harmonization of local legislation.
Given the growing euro-skepticism, the adoption of common policies by member
states might not be obvious.
The main actions are the following:
∙ Smart growth, developing an economy based on knowledge and innovation.
Between now and 2020, an estimated 16 million more jobs will need a high level
6 A. Bassi
All these measures should allow the creation of 1 million jobs in Europe. These
objectives are linked and, at least theoretically, they are reinforcing each other.
Progress in education matters will improve the capabilities of the labor pool, reduc-
ing the risk of impoverishment. On top of it, the increase in the average skill level
will fuel the growth of a knowledge economy based on innovation, research and
development. The European economy will have the chance of improving its com-
petitiveness, creating wealth and jobs, closing a virtuous circle—at least, on paper.
Furthermore, all these improvements will bring the opportunity to develop a fully
“green economy,” making our societies more environmental-friendly, and therefore
more profitable, as the side effects of a development not following environmentally
sustainable practices are likely to result in very expensive containment measures.
One of the themes which is common to all these dimensions is technology. Much
of the progress made in the recent past in the field of Information Technology and
Communication (ICT) allow an holistic design for the city of the future, which is
often linked to the concept of Smart City. Within the huge number of essays on this
topic a few elements are recurring. They will serve as a basis for identifying key
concepts of urban form of the future.
In general way, the conceptualization of Smart Cities follows from what we
explained earlier on. The economic and technological changes that relate to global-
ization constitute the fabric of this domain. Cities find themselves facing the need to
combine economic competitiveness and urban development, in a sustainable manner
and style, preserving—or by creating—an outstanding quality of life. The concept
of Smart City brings together all major current concerns.
1 Looking at Smart Cities with an Historical Perspective 7
However, there is a specific issue while studying this theme. The literature on this
new city concept comes for the most part from engineers or urbanists. In general, for
humanities and social sciences this theme does not seem to resonate, and it is not
yet a common object of research. As a matter of example, the diagram in Fig. 1.1,
quite popular, is from the website “European Smart Cities.” The research team was
constituted by members of the Regional Centre of Science of the Vienna Univer-
sity of Technology, the Institute for Research on housing and urban mobility of the
Technical University of Delft and the Department of Geography of the University of
Ljubljana.
The basic model, found in many publications, promote a taxonomy with 6
domains, 31 sub-groups, and 74 indicators.
The result is a rather technocratic vision of the city, which is -at best- hard to apply.
While it can represent an idealtypen, it is hard if not impossible to apply in the real
world. It is a holistic approach that pretends to understand everything and explain
and master everything through a mathematical formula. However, understand and
manage are two very different things: although knowledge and reason are the foun-
dation of the modern world since the eighteenth century, this taxonomy goes too far
in the direction of the Reason.
Science and its applications are supposed to give The Answer to everything. This
assumption might not be fundamentally wrong if science was replaced by knowl-
edge and wisdom; however, it is impossible not to notice the return of a positivist
conception with regards to analysis of the world aspects. The point is not to con-
test the importance that scientific observation and factual analysis can bring; but one
thing is to base the reasoning on the facts, one is to develop a research as a disci-
ple of A Comte (1798–1857). It seems like the “hard science,” where everything
can be quantified, and that define social laws as immutable, is taken as the corner-
stone of every discussion and possible development. In this vision, the smart city
concept goes between Supreme Theory and Abstracted Empiricism, two derivatives
that CW Mills attributed to the sociology of the 1950s. The Supreme theory claims
that purely formal studies can provide an analytical framework to the study of soci-
ety. The abstract empiricism suggests that knowledge production is not based on a
8 A. Bassi
solid methodological basis, but on statistical results or surveys. This conceptual atro-
phy leads to forget or underestimate fundamental reflections that are sometimes the
very essence of the studied object.
A similar density is missing from the concept of smart city itself. The basic model
lies on a theoretical vision of the society and its relationships. The characteristics
that constitute the smart city essence, according to the model above, are the reflec-
tion of what is considered the best in all different domains. However, this vision is
clearly biased. In a constructivist paradigm, all social activity—including, obviously,
sciences—are elaborated in a particular historical and cultural context. The scientific
domain is not a collection of data on real world, which can be applied at any time
and anywhere. Rather, it is a discussion built on a certain number of actors (the
“scientific community”) in a precise historical, technical, political, social, economi-
cal moment.
As a consequence, while the scientific origin of a concept is a socially valid
assumption, it needs to be put into perspective. We cannot agree more that an
absolute relativism, that postulates that all knowledge, scientific or not, has the same
level of importance and truth, is truly negative, but we sustain an approach that can
keep a different perspective on the same objective data. While the notion itself of
smart city is the result of ICT research, based on certain economic assumptions,
nothing is stopping from considering human and social sciences to bring a strong
contribution to this subject and feed it with a different set of considerations. Under-
standing the cities of the future with a socio-historical approach will definitely help
in fixing some epistemological shortening. This allows, from one side, to define the
borders of the current urban shape, on which the future cities will be built. On the
other one, to draw attention on the social and logic relationships that are character-
istic of the urban way of living. Without the full understanding of these perspective,
any theoretical and practical construction in this domain is bound to fail, as it would
be a mere exercise of style.
“urban violence” has roots in these areas. A good number of social problems are, first
of all, spatial problems. Ideally, it would be better to avoid building such areas, that
tend to be segregated from the rest. Social integration of a town has to go through a
mix of activities and spaces, and therefore be the opposite of Corbusier’s functional
town. The zoning and independence of areas should be replaced by a more organic
vision of quarters where different spaces would be inter-dependent and multifaceted.
As Jacques Donzelot [4] says, “that social problems are concentrated in certain parts
of the urban fabric prove that there is a problem in the town but not of the town.”
In any case, the vision of the “urban issue” as explained above is not new, as the
heart of that analysis is based on the wrongdoings of the functional urbanism. Urban
issues are linked with the loss of quality life following the submission of the urban
fabric to the logic of production.
In general, social issues in town are perduring even in our post-industrial economy,
not based any longer on production of goods. We have therefore to upgrade the classi-
cal urban social issues, linked to the industrial town context. It is though very impor-
tant to refresh this classical conception before moving beyond it.
Both process of industrialisation and urbanization are to be considered. Western
towns are developed around an administrative and commercial center. Max Weber
conceptualised in a very clear way the genesis of the urban shape in the western
world. According to this german sociologist, the emergence of the urban phenom-
enon goes hand in hand with the advent of legal rational power, based on a bureau-
cratic apparel. His taxonomy of towns is based on five factors of urban cohesion.
The first and foremost of these factors is the economy: the heart of towns is the
marketplace. A town does not exist if there is not any regular exchange of goods,
and those are an essential part of the habitants existence. Weber distinguishes the
towns where the production or the usage of goods is paramount; respectively, they
base their income on industry on one side, and on services and commercial activities
on the other. This distinction today seem anachronistic, as the European economy is
mostly post-industrial, and the highest part of the value creation is on activities linked
to the tertiary sector and not any longer to the production of goods.
The second factor is the security. Any town, as a marketplace, would be insignifi-
cant if it could not assure protection. The ideal kind of transformation of the western
town is the “fortress town.” This unified continuum of a safe, secure and commercial
place guarantees both the commercial and the military peace, which are necessary
conditions for the long-lasting of this organizational form.
A third factor is freedom. Weber also believes that the city air makes people free.
This freedom is first of all applicable to properties.
The forth point is the brotherhood. Any city inherits from the city state ideal.
This has five characteristics: fortifications, market place, a tribunal, specific laws
10 A. Bassi
Yet, very soon it became evident that these kind of habitat had several problems.
In 1973, for instance, France stopped all construction of large housing sets, as they
were considered far from the expectations of the inhabitants and promoting an active
segregation, as this housing complex were build in the outskirts of large towns.
Several researches showed that a relatively heterogeneous population changed
within a few years, reducing to a mainly low-income one. This is mainly due to the
distance from the urban center and the difficulty of getting there: whoever could, left
the suburbia for relocating in a more convenient place, and the low cost of housing
drove the ones that could not afford to be in a more central location. When the first
issues with unemployment rose, these areas were the worst hit, as the population was
composed almost exclusively by low-qualified workers.
Therefore, the majority of urban issues in the western world are linked to this
historical trend to separate the different classes, and a fortiori of the segregation that
follows.
The concept of “civil society,” bearing its own power separated from the state,
rises from social movements which are the effect of the tensions due to the separa-
tion. The process of industrialization and urbanization led to the creation of “urban
society” which, according to H. Lefebvre, draws its essence from key elements of
the historic city: the centrality, the public space, the street. Praxis—or practice of
the city—that is an effect of it, cannot be assimilated to other perspectives. On the
contrary, it takes all these different viewpoints and transforms them all. Through this
and the “right to the city,” Lefebvre argues that urban society can survive and reverse
the industrial era that created it. According to his work, urban planning hides the cap-
italist strategy in which the user of a city disappears in favor of its market value; the
user is therefore marginalized vis-a-vis of a consumer. The mercantile vision, though,
would necessarily lead to the extinction of sociability in favor of market exchanges.
This eminently political perspective is clear from this text: “[...] We had to denounce
urban planning both as a mask and as instrument: mask for the State and political
action, instrument of interests hidden in a precise strategy. Urbanism does not seek
to shape the space as a work of art, neither for technical reasons. Urbanism shapes a
political space” [5].
From a larger perspective, the urban problems covers not only what happens in
a city but “a set of actions and situations typical from everyday’s life strictly the
progress and characteristics of which are depending by the general social organiza-
tion” [6].
In other words, certain life or social conditions are intrinsically urban. As well,
social practices such as the culture or the consumer habits are at least in part explain-
able by the social position of a person.
Now, how these problems have an impact on the development of new technolo-
gies, or, conversely, how the technological development can help in mitigating the
outstanding issues that the urbanization is developing since centuries?
12 A. Bassi
The phenomenon described beforehand is not new and even less unheard of. If we go
back to feudal times, social and spatial separations are flagrant. The political, eco-
nomic, administrative, and military kernel is concentrated in the fortress. Around it,
there are the market towns which, in exchange for a relative military and merchant
peace, can grow and prosper. While this example may seem too distant to be use-
ful, things did not really change in our era. During the industrial revolution, housing
estates were carefully built on the margins of bourgeois cities, as mentioned ear-
lier. Today, popular residential areas follow the same spatial logic. Whether we look
at ghettos in the US, banlieues in France, favelas in Brazil or periferie in Italy, all
countries are facing these social and spatial relegation.
But if the phenomenon is historically and geographically recurrent since cen-
turies, why there is a problem today? The answer is not in the forms of housing in
itself, but in the global society in which these forms are realized. Indeed, the polar-
ization of urban housing highlights a first problem of poverty and social exclusion.
To avoid getting lost in the maze of a comparative approach that would not bring
much to the analysis, we will develop briefly the French case. As already mentioned
above, in France urban problems are often related to the theme of the banlieues.
These habitat areas usually cover suburban complex and multifaceted realities. We
will not focus on the “typical” and recurrent trends, as the goal here is not to make a
case study. But in order to draw a general picture, without distorting reality, we need
to identify the elements that make these neighborhoods particular spaces. First of all,
these are areas of spatial concentration of social inequalities. This goes back to what
we have already mentioned on the polarization. Yet, other variables must be added.
Apart of the lower income, compared to other neighborhoods, banlieues concentrate
a younger than average population. In addition, there are more employees and work-
ers than elsewhere. Finally, the unemployment rate is often higher than the national
average. As an added statistical fact, there is a higher presence of immigrants, or
people that are culturally and/or by birth foreigners to the perceived French “ortho-
dox values.” This series of factors combined are leading to a delicate situation that
the French state is struggling to manage. Indeed, it is an aggregation of structural,
social, immigration, and urban planning problems, to the point that it became hard
to say if it is more a people’s problem or a spatial one. Anyway, it is a fact, sadly: the
situation is deteriorating. The concentration of social unrest in these places make the
ones who can, to leave these neighborhoods, weakening the diversity and its inher-
ent dynamics. According to Pierre Bourdieu, there is a close link between places and
social position. “The structure of social space is shown in the most diverse contexts,
in the form of spatial oppositions, the living space (or appropriate) working as a kind
of spontaneous symbolization of social space” [7].
In any case, this covering by the social to the spatial domain is more or less blurred
by an effect of naturalization. In other words, historical and social phenomena can
be understood as implicit in the very nature of things. Yet, this physical show of
social logics contributes to objectify these struggles among different social groups.
1 Looking at Smart Cities with an Historical Perspective 13
As well, conflicts are often linked to specific places, as different kind of profits are
associated with them. These can be about the location (close to scarce goods such as
cultural infrastructure, health, education …); position or rank (prestigious address
…); occupancy (size of the owned space). The social dimension permeates the rela-
tionship with the space. Indeed, possession of capital—economic, cultural, social,
or symbolic—determines the ability to dominate and own space, either physically or
symbolically.
Moreover, the stakes in terms of location is part of a twofold logic of being close
and moving far away. On one side, the search for proximity to rare and desirable
goods and services; and secondly with the distancing—or exclusion—of people and
unwanted things. Constitution of homogeneous groups based on spatial difference
became the norm, helped by the state and its politics.
This segregation is strengthened by a particular phenomenon, that J. Donzelot call
“affinity urbanism.” First of all, it is possible to observe an increasingly widespread
suburbanization. This implies that the city grows outside its historical functional lim-
itations. Second, as individual mobility increases, the link between a territory and a
population gets more loose. The weight of the neighborhood decreases and the resi-
dence becomes selective. The places where people choose to live are not functionally
related and prescribed as in the old industrial city. This process is gearing towards
a phenomenon, where the distance is chosen and selective, based on considerations
relating to lifestyle, entertainment or security. Clear examples of this trend are the
gated communities, where individuals benefiting from certain economic and social
resources choose to live in a “among-pairs-group” away from the global society,
often in a spatially separated area. For instance, in some countries, such as Brasil or
South Africa, it is common to see estates protected by concrete walls and security at
the entrance.
Without getting to this extreme point, the current problem of cities is to be split
between these antagonist ghettos logic. The result is a double polarization: towards
the “low-end,” where new forms of marginalization and inequalities take place, and
towards the “high-end,” where the cultural, economical and political powers tend to
unify and separate from the larger population.
The usage of digital technologies to enhance the quality and attractiveness of the
city, to provide services to the inhabitants and tourists and to improve operational
costs became a mainstream trend in this decade. In the recent past, there has not
been a single city that did not use the word “smart” for labeling some of their ini-
tiatives. However, how can the use of digitalisation impact the life of citizens, given
the sociological and historical perspective illustrated above?
14 A. Bassi
1. Aspects that do not change, or evolve with a speed which is by far slower than
human life. It is the case of history, for instance, or geography, or climate. The
Coliseum is in Rome; the Statue of Liberty in New York. The average rainfall
in Tokyo in November is 100 mm; Marseille is on the sea, Stockholm is on an
archipelago, and Paris is on the Seine river. Now, while in course of centuries
this can change (Pisa, when founded, was on the sea, while today it is around 10
Km from the coast because of sediments brought by rivers), the pace is extremely
slow and we can consider these parameters are “stable.”
2. Aspects that change slowly, and require a lot of effort and commitment. Cultural
aspects, for instance, or major urban modifications. Jordaan district in Amster-
dam, for instance, was a few decades ago a working-class neighborhood; nowa-
days is arguably the most expensive area in Netherlands. Detroit population
dropped by 60 % since 1950, and 25 % since 2000. Always in Amsterdam, the
construction of the north-south underground line started in 2002, and it is sup-
posed to be finished not before 2018. Therefore, while these characteristics are
often slow to move, specific trends can have a strong impact on those, in particu-
lar social and economic trends tend to draw a different picture depending on the
historical period.
3. Aspects that can be changed easily. These aspects, which are often “cosmetic,”
may nevertheless have an impact on the quality of life in a specific town. Use of
NFC payments for public transport, for instance, or specific traffic restrictions,
or else laws allowing (or disallowing) specific behaviors like smoking in pub-
lic places. However, these hardly modify the structure of society and the spatial
issues as described above.
As discussed earlier, any city is a economical and social product. Urban spaces are
often conceived as a functional organization in which different areas have specific
functions (residential areas, commercial ones, industries, . . . ). This politic, however,
does not necessarily lead to good results. The city peripheries (hinterlands) are often
de facto on the margins of the city social and economical dynamics.
It is important to notice is that Smart City projects as they are often advertised are
addressing only the third category. A common example is a service which seems to
be widely used to indicate the smartness of a city: parking sensors with a dedicated
app showing the available space at real time. While the usefulness of such devel-
opments can be debated, and even positively argued, it does not tackle any of the
city issues at its roots, but rather promote a further digital divide exacerbating the
existing separation between different realities within the same city.
On the same line, some advertisement of these smart city projects are even clearly
showing their beliefs and their intentions. When we read headlines like this
Our Cities are rapidly becoming both more populated and more complex. Because of this,
people’s security needs are constantly changing. That’s why Hitachi is developing solutions
to keep people safe in their communities [8].
1 Looking at Smart Cities with an Historical Perspective 15
References
Katherine Harrison
Much hyped and funded to the tune of billions of dollars annually, smart city
projects claim to solve a range of contemporary urban problems including “air
pollution, traffic congestion and assisted living for the elderly” [20], thus providing
cleaner, safer, more energy-efficient cities of the future. Local and national gov-
ernments, technical companies and researchers are keen to emphasise how the
integration of various kinds of technologies (for example, big data analysis, Internet
of Things, wireless sensors and cloud computing) are key to tackling the challenges
posed by an ever-increasing urban population. The mission statement from the
recently created Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Smart
Cities Initiative, for example, reads:
we see an opportunity for IEEE to assist municipalities in managing this transition to
urbanization. This would include raising awareness of the benefits and downsides of
technology and help guide the appropriate uses of technology [23].
However, at the same time, smart cities have also been criticised for not taking
into account the needs/customs of local inhabitants or for increasing social divides.
This latter critique has been directed particularly at brand-new smart cities. Laveesh
Bhandari, for example, talking about the push to create more smart cities in India
such as the currently-under-construction Gujarat International Financial Tec-City
(GIFT), argues that such cities will potentially create “special enclaves” where only
the economically secure will be “enjoying the privileges of such great infrastruc-
ture” (quoted in [18]. Much of the current debate about smart cities in both popular
media and the social sciences thus centres round the role of the inhabitant. To what
K. Harrison (✉)
University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
e-mail: [email protected]
K. Harrison
Lund University, Lund, Sweden
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