The Innovative Approaches for the Development of Smart Cities

Abstract

The growing problems in the cities, caused by the overpopulation, increased economic growth, the loss of natural resources, are creating the necessity of decision-making referring to the different economic, social and environmental issues. In the twenty-first century, the world faces such challenges, which has made people and city governances more concerned about ensuring the high quality of life and sustainable development of the urban systems. There are different definitions for smart cities, but the universal one is that a smart city is the city which satisfies the needs of people and meets different challenges. The ‘smart cities’ is a new concept and it measures not how smart the city is, but the city’s efforts to make itself smart—sustainable development, sound economic growth, and when the urban system adapts itself to the users’ needs. The smart city concept incorporates good urban planning, use of digital technologies, networks of technologies, networks of people who work together well, a change in the way of thinking, the transformation of the city governments for successful smart cities and applying the participatory approach. That’s why in order for to make a city smart, it is necessary to apply different innovative approaches and solutions and to use information and communication technologies. Smart cities utilize IoT (Internet of Things) sensors, actors and technologies to connect different components across the city from the air to the streets, to the underground. Cities have similar problems—traffic-stricken streets, poor public transport, air pollution, etc., but some of them are successfully managed to solve these problems. In this report, we will discuss good practices and experiences from different cities, which use technologies and communications to become smart, such as sensors for free parking spots, smart traffic lights, the use of energy-saving solutions, online platforms for creating solutions, bicycle lanes, smart waste management. The city will be considered as a living laboratory for experiments, some of them successful, other necessary and yet other still looking too abstract at the moment. The reason will be sought how some cities can use new technologies to make them look more efficient, competitive, functional and livable for citizens. This report is presented in 4 sections, including the foregoing introduction. Section “What is the concept for Smart Cities?” introduces the concepts for smart city innovations. Section “Good practices for Smart Cities” exposes the cases of development of smart cities in Barcelona and others. Section 3 discovers how some cities can elaborate and develop innovative approaches for a smart city, but others cannot. This section will reveal incentives and tools for the development of smart cities. Section 4 is for conclusion and aims to show how policy makers, NGO and citizens to identify cities which can be developed as smart cities and different solutions and practices how cities can become smarter through appropriate tools.