The city is built layer by layer. There are many attributes separated in many features of the city singularly considered smart” and not holistically. Giffinger et al. (2007) identified four fields of realization of a “smart city”: industry, education, participation, and technical infrastructure.

The structure and nature of the city are ever changing throughout its history. From the first city to modern day city there are many avatars of the city. Although we want the planned city today it was not always possible. Often, they were a natural outcome of the process. The fact is evident if we trace the history from the Zigurrat  of Ur to today’s modern and smart city.

A recent project conducted by the Centre of Regional Science at the Vienna University of Technology identifies six main “axes” (dimensions) along which a ranking of 70 European middle size cities was made. These axes are the smart economy, smart mobility, smart environment, smart people, smart living, and smart governance. These six axes connect with traditional regional and neoclassical theories of urban growth and development. In particular, the axes are based -respectively -on theories of regional competitiveness, transport and ICT, natural resources, human and social capital, quality of life, and the participation of society members in cities.

Dimensions of a smart city-related aspect of urban life

• Smart economy is manifested in industry
•  Smart people are  because of the efficient education system
• Smart governance is ensured by e-democracy
• Smart mobility is introduced through better logistics & infrastructures
•  The smart environment is represented by efficiency & sustainability
• The key to smart living is in better security & quality

The term “smart city” is often used to discuss the integration of ICT in modern transport technologies. Smart systems improve urban traffic and inhabitants’ mobility. Smart city integrates technologies, systems, infrastructures services, and capabilities into an efficient organic network. The role of technology in smart city initiatives stresses the integration of systems, infrastructures, and services mediated through technologies. Technology is a means to the smart city, not an end. IT is for creating a new innovative environment, which requires the comprehensive and balanced integration of creative skills, innovative organizations, broadband networks, and virtual collaborative spaces (Komninos, 2009). The smart city development should focus on people rather than rather than blindly believing that IT can automatically transform and improve cities. Positive approaches to awareness, education, and leadership offer services that are accessible to all of the citizens, get rid of barriers related to language, culture, education, skills development, and disabilities.

The smart city concept has also been viewed as a large organic system stressing the fact that the organic integration of systems and the interrelationship between a smart city’s core systems make a smart city. A smarter city weave information in physical infrastructure of the city to improve conveniences, facilitate mobility, add efficiencies, conserve energy, improve the quality of air and water, identify problems and fix them quickly, recover rapidly from disasters, collect data to make better decisions, deploy resources effectively, and share data to enable collaboration across entities and domains (Nam and Pardo, 2012). However, infusing intelligence into each subsystem of a city, one by one is not enough to become a smarter city, as this should be treated as an organic whole (Kanter and Litow, 2009).

Link(s):

Four Pillars of City Sustainability

Resilience and Sustainability

First Urbanization In India