Smart(er) Cities

What is a Smart City? One definition is from Mark Deakin (2013) as one that utilises ICT to meet the demands of the market (the citizens of the city), and that community involvement in the process is necessary for a Smart city.” Now in most definitions, they ignore the biosphere and focus on the technology. We need to the biosphere as a fundamental part of urban life. The other is with the word smart itself. Why not use the word Smart(er) as a way we design, plan and run our cities?

Just like the push to work smarter, shouldn’t our cities be smarter too? By just changing this one word it allows us to explore avenues that the word smart blocks. Try it the next time you are writing something or designing future technology? Words are important.

Now to our latest work. We are part of the advisory board for the Climate KIC funded network, Adaptive Cities through Nature-based Solutions. Why is this important, and how will it make an impact?

We have written about this before and the advent of the reconnecting to the natural world and the value to soft-infrastructure over energy-intensive civil projects. We are part of the natural world whether we like or not, and we should embrace the need to connect with, work with and learn from the natural world to create more resilient and functional places. Nature isn’t always efficient, but many species and systems are adaptive and resilient to shocks. 

Why combine SMARTER city technologies with the natural world to benefit the entire biosphere. Now wouldn’t that be exciting?

If you are interested to know more about nature-based solutions, you know what to do, contact us now!