The story of human civilisation is simply the story of the ‘city’. In this current chapter of human history, society is witnessing the next generation of smart cities.
These modern metropolitan areas are about intelligence – not just in a city’s transit, safety and utilities, but in its capacity to optimise for sustainability and equity.
Consider the housing crisis. Home to nearly 2m people, Vienna, Austria, is projected to add 200,000 new residents in the next five years. City leadership envisioned a new pattern of neighbourhood planning, retaining the classical urban structure of old Vienna.
A reclaimed 800-acre brownfield area is being redeveloped to accommodate over 25,000 people and 20,000 workplaces by 2030. Called Aspern Seestadt, it has emerged as one of Europe’s most dynamic planned communities and an incubator for smart city initiatives.
This ‘Lake Town’ even contains a swimmable artificial lake that is its own circular economy. A plant converts gravel from the lake excavation into road base and aggregate for concrete. To date, 1m tonnes of recycled material has been delivered. Keeping the material on site has saved 280,000 truck trips and 6,000 tons of emissions.
Aspern Seestadt also aims to meet a greenhouse gas-neutral economy by 2040, with high efficiency buildings, maximum use of renewable energy sources, e-mobility and extreme heat mitigation in the summer.
Behind the scenes on every initiative, city planners use geographic information system (GIS) technology to help with their projects. The technology consists of maps and data that provide comprehensive location intelligence to achieve a unique balance of sustainability and liveability.
Planners rely on a GIS-powered digital twin to model and simulate the future and adjust the plan accordingly. The twin also provides a record that lets planners change tactics in new parts of the development based on lessons learned from earlier phases.
Sustainable urban development in Sweden
A similarly urgent movement to add housing is now under way in Sweden. City planners in Uppsala, the country’s fourth largest city, are designing a new district with 33,000 housing units to accommodate 50,000 residents by 2050.
Fast-growing Uppsala attracts residents based on its reputation as a research centre and its ambitious sustainability policy. The city’s green approach became world leading over the past decade with a pledge to be fossil-fuel free by 2030 and climate positive by 2050.
Uppsala planners are concentrating on a sustainable urban model that adds to residents’s quality of life, doesn’t subtract from biodiversity or degrade the environment and cuts carbon emissions. Planners use a GIS-based digital twin to visualise, iterate and present ideas.
The new Uppsala district will be built on forest land owned by the city. Many of the trees will stay within green corridors. The blocks have been designed so that large groupings of trees can occupy courtyards with houses built around them. There’s also an emphasis on leaving habitats intact and maintaining natural systems such as groundwater flow.
Hallmarks of a smart city
Smart cities across the globe share certain commonalities. It’s in the use of real-time information on the conditions of neighbourhoods, blocks and buildings; and it’s also in making critical information available to city managers, police, fire, transit workers, healthcare providers and residents.
In a smart city, anyone can know where street repairs are containing a water main leak, where electric power use is surging, where air quality is declining, or where planned development will throw a beloved park into shadow.
Smart city leaders use technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and GIS to streamline workflows and business processes and locate resources for maximum benefit. They leverage data from mobile devices, imagery and sensors embedded in the city’s infrastructure, and vehicles and buildings – all analysed with AI.
They engage communities from the start, identifying resident priorities, empowering groups with special concerns and needs. They plan with human-centred design, using 3D models and digital twins to anticipate and minimise shocks and stresses, whether economic, environmental or social.
Cities and their systems showcase how society has concentrated its collective creativity, community and enterprise. With more advanced technologies in place, communities can reinvent those systems to achieve a smarter, more equitable and more sustainable world.
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Quelle/Source: Financial Times, 18.12.2024
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