SMART CITY AND URBAN SUSTAINABILITY

Abstract

The statistics speak for themselves. The world's population is urbanising and expanding faster than ever. By 2050, well over half the planet's estimated nine billion people will be living in cities or urban centres. If we don't "smarten" up our urban infrastructure, daily life could slowly ground to a halt. This in turn means we cannot afford to live the way we are living today, especially in urban areas where resources are already constrained. This is a threat in itself but at the same time an opportunity too to face the challenges through a plethora of initiatives. In the recent literature, the concept of “smart”, “intelligent”, or “cognitive” cities has gained increasing attention as an approach for addressing the challenges of urban management. The premise of a smart city is that by having the right information at the right time, citizens, service providers and city government alike will be able to make better decisions that result in increased quality of life for urban residents and the overall sustainability of the city. It is, therefore, stipulated that information resulting from a smart city implementation has a two-fold impact: first, it shifts the social behaviour of citizens towards a more efficient and sustainable utilization of city resources (bottom-up) and second; it allows service providers (such as utilities and transit companies) and city government to provide more efficient and sustainable services (top-down). There is an explicit need to understand the impact of smart cities on urban environmental, social and economic sustainability from a holistic perspective, especially in a country like India where cities are characterized by dense population, bleeding infrastructure, lack of basic amenities and existence of slums.