Blog post 6: Smart Cities

A look at some technological cities of the future

By Yves Wienecke
February 16, 2019

“Technology is the answer, but what is the question?” [0:59, 1].

The radical influence that digital technology has on how people in a society view one another is obvious. Smartphones allow face to face conversation between two people on opposite ends of the Earth with almost no lag - there is absolutely no way that digital technology has not changed societies. However, something that is not quite so obvious is the manner in which digital technology shapes the way that people view and interact with the city.

Cities are theatres - there is always life, drama, or some type of spectacle occuring at all times. People come to the city for opportunities, anonymity, career growth, finding themselves - and so many other reasons associated with positive growth. But as more people flock into the city for a new life, the city becomes more and more crowded, skyrocketing prices for everyday amenities, transportation, and housing. A deficit of space to accomodate city immigrants gives rise to the phenomena of urban sprawl, which is unplanned urban growth over a large area.

\1. The Los Angeles urban sprawl seen amidst a haze of smog [6].

City planners always struggle with the question of properly accomodating large numbers of residents. A large city requires sophisticated and well thought-out transportation, whether that be in the form of public transportation or roads. As rich immigrants occupy city centers, the people who are worst impacted by urban sprawl are low income residents, who are forced to move further and further away from their jobs and cultural centers. The unplanned nature of urban sprawl means poor or non-existant public transportation, causing an enormous percent of city space being allocated to roads and parking for private transportation. Horrible traffic is an inevitability, and the creation of more roads or lanes has shown to not improve the situation.

Most concerning is the ecological footprint that cities have on the environment. Emmissions from cars, littering, energy and water usage, and destruction of natural space for more land is leading humanity and all life to extinction. The effects of climate change are devastating, and marine life especially suffers from the amount of trash and plastic that ends up in the ocean. Rather than accepting this terrible fate, many urban planners, enterpreneurs, and a small amount of politicians are looking into ways of implementing technology in cities to mitigate pollution and resource consumption.

This is the basis for the creation of the smart city. By using technology and proper urban planning, cities can be structured and organized in the most energy efficient manner. These cities focus on properly using sensors and digital technology to make cities eco-friendly, increase urban density, and promote a culture that values and respects the envornment. Rather than a city of concrete and steel that exults itself as a feat of mastery over nature, urban planners embrace nature in their smart city designs.

Let’s look at some examples of smart cities around the world and how successful they are at accomplishing this goal.

Singapore

First and foremost, Singapore is considered to be one of the most successful modern cities at achieving the smart city dream. A city-state in the Malay peninsula that is half the size of metropolitan London and houses over 5.7 million people [3:04, 7], 23% of Singapore is built on land that was reclaimed from the ocean [5:00, 7]. Having achieved massive economic growth since its separation from Malaysia in 1965, Singapore is a densely populated city-state that is planned to be perfect for citizens.

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\2. A view of Singapore from across the water [8].

Buildings are built to make best use of the tropical breeze [5:00, 7], there are complex systems of underground infrastructure for transporting water and materials, highways, public transportation, and walkways [7:00 7]. Additionally, the city uses new technology to innovate urban agriculture and reclaim water from rain and the ocean [13:00, 20:00, 7]. Singaporean innovators are looking at utilizing air space and drone technology to streamline delivery systems for mail, groceries, and other goods [9:38, 7].

The city is built in a way that takes nature into consideration and local laws prevent behaviors that cause harm to the environment. There are a number of green corridors around the city that combine nature with the urban environment and mobile apps that encourage users to discover and document local wildlife and flora [41:05, 7]. Littering can lead to a $1,000 fine for first time offenders and up to $5,000 fine for repeat offenders, as well as obligatory community service [4]. The cost of cars in Singapore is based on five factors that make a $17k car cost over $100k [3]. Clearly, the city is serious about its eco-friendly practices!

Being eco-friendly, clean, and perfect for business means that this city values money over all. Low income residents struggle to live in the city and houseless individuals try to hide themselves from scrutiny by others. 25% of houseless folks actually do have apartment spaces and about 2/3rds are employeed, but public transportation does not run early in the morning and low income residents are only able to live far from their workplaces in the city center, making it impossible to support a family without sleeping on the streets of the city[11].

Let’s look at a similar smart city created on on reclaimed land that was built on the same smart city principles as Malaysia, Songdo.

Songdo 송도국도시

In South Korea, Songdo is a smart city, or, through the korean term - ‘u’ or ‘ubiquitos’ city (u시티). This city, where technology is ubiquitous, is situated 2 hours from Seoul and was said to reach completion in 2015, and then 2018, and now 2022 [12]. Despite the ever-changing completion date, this smart city boasts a sophisticated garbage collection system that involves the usage of trash chutes to a centralized processing facility, energy efficient homes and buildings and a plethora of pedestrian and bicycle lanes [19:00, 10].

\3. A skyscrapper in the center of Songdo. [12]

As some residents are keen to note, the current state of the city is perhaps not exactly what urban planners had in mind when designing Songdo. Although the city is beautiful and a landmark in applied technological innovation, it pales in comparison to the success of Singapore. Views of the wide highways and open business centers showcase extravagent, efficient architecture, but there is just one thing missing - the people. Songdo is designed to support up to 300,000 residents, yet the population fails to reach even half that amount [12].

Empty plots in the city are overtaken by residents of the city, who use the space as farms and garderns [29:30, 10]. These pockets of unused land remind residents of city’s relatively young age. Songdo is a city that certainly lacks a culture and does not house a sizeable population [30:30, 10]. Nevertheless, it is a city that is still developing - 10 years is not enough time for the city to develop to a point where residents can view the city as their own city, their home.

\4. A fleamarket in Songdo, hosting many people [5].

Being in such an international city produces a familiar feeling, as if the city has been seen somewhere already. In conjunction with the newness of the city, this can create the feeling that the city doesn’t compare culturally to its counterpart cities that do have a history and set of traditions. On the otherhand, to artists and musicians, this is a blank canvas - a space where people can project their creativity and form the city into what they want it to be [31:00, 10].

Songdo implements another feature that is commonplace to most, if not all smart cities: smart urban surveillance through the usage of CCTVs. These monitoring systems can not only capture crime and protect citizens - that would not be enough for a smart city. CCTVS in smart cities also act as sensors that monitor and inform about various conditions around the city, such as temperature, humidity or traffic. In this new city, concerns about privacy and data security are worth the sacrifice for the sake of convenience and the ability to better monitor one’s own property [26:00, 10].

The main critisisms towards Songdo - lack of culture and small population - can all be explained by how quickly the city was built and how long it has existed. The culture is slowly but surely growing in Songdo, with residents adding their own pieces of culture to the city. In terms of population, it takes many years for a socal ecosystem to be established in one area of a city, let alone in the entire city itself [17:00, 10]. Songdo is referred to as a ghost city, yet it was built in just ten years and is still in development. As Wade Shepard states, “the reaction from the outside should probably be that of amazement, rather than … ‘yeah, but where’s all the people’” [13:00, 10].

Songdo is an intriguing city that makes usage of technology to reduce its ecological footprint. Yet there are many steps that politicians and business owners must take if the city is to become a successful model for other cities. For instance, littering is a common occurance due to the lack of trashcans as a result of a centralized garbage collection system [21:00, 10]. Creating a centralized garbage system, in my opinion, does not address the issue of how many products are packaged with sometimes ridiculous amounts of plastic. Rather than focusing on the root of the problem - garbage production from consumerist packaging - the city places a temporary, reactive solution that creates other problems - littering, rather than fixing the problem with a more proactive solution, like changing the rules for how comapies are allowed to package and distribute products.

Additionally, this city is inaccessible and not feasible for low income residents. I’m not sure how well the city accomodates residents with disabilities, but this business district is made specifically for upper middle and high class residents. Rather than bringing people together, maybe this city will only further separate people on the basis of economic status and only hides poverty rather than dealing with it headon. Nevertheless, I am interested to see how scalable this city is and whether or not it will succeed in the future.

Finally, let’s once again shift our attention to a different smart city located in the heart of Central Asia - Astana, Kazakstan.

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is a relatively new city - just over 20 years old - that was created where a small village was once situated. This rural area was the hometown of the current president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, and was created on his birthday. Although this city touts itself to be a technologically innovative paradise using smart city techniques, it certainly did not appear that way when I visited this past summer.

\5. Astana, Kazakhstan - the ‘city of legos’ [2].

Astana was built in the middle of a desert, where grass had to be imported and is watered on a regular basis. Walking on grass could lead to trouble with the police and a fine. In contrast to the bustling, culturally rich old capital Almaty, Astana is the new capital and a business city. Many consider this city as the president’s city due to the nature of when it was built and some of the references in the city to the young democratic country’s only president for the past nearly 30 years.

The city is very open and seems to be in a large sandbox. What I mean by this is that one feels extremely small in a city with so many strange and uniquely designed buildings - truly a playground for architects. All of the city is located on a single strip that allows tourists to basically see the city in only one day. However, this openness and feeling of being small echoes back to a central question in relation to Songdo - where is everybody?

While there are a considerable amount of CCTVs in the city, it seems like the city is not using any of the typical technologies seen used in other smart cities - there is no recycling, public transportation options are small, there is no such city-wide free wifi in all spots of the city, and the city is not densely populated at all. While many articles online state the opposite and many journalists praise the innovation of the city, I believe that Astana is a long ways away from being smart. If anything, it’s a way of trying to bring investors and foreign business owners to the city in an attempt to make Kazakhstan - and Astana in particular - the next Singapore.

With that dream comes a harsh reality of how the rest of Astana is. While the Astana that everybody sees and refers to is prim and proper, the other, older half of the city to the right of the river that every news article and blog post fails to mention is much more similar to the old capital. In this part, there are many low to middle income residents who make the trip every day across the river to do service jobs like cleaning or city tours. So much money and resources are poured into the rich part of the city that is sucked away from not only this old part, but also from the rest of the country.

Conclusions

I have much hope for the future of urban planning and technology. Nevertheless, my first experience in a smart city like Astana is reason for my skepticism of smart cities - they are honorable in the aspirations to create an emmision free future, but I feel like it has become a sort of buzzword in a world dominated by capitalistic interests. This means that over all eco friends practices and systems, it is not nature that is held in first place, rather, that place belongs to money.

These cities that feel so strangely familiar and are devoid of culture are made to attract an elite group within the rich elite. This elite is composed of super rich international business owners and investors that have control over taxation policy, land use, and business practices that impact the rest of the localpopulation in every country in which they say. Technology is used to standardize cities to make them more comfortable for foreigners, much like how a starbucks in Seoul, South Korea produces the same feeling and looks the same as a starbucks in Seattle.

Of course, building such innovation and introducing eco-friendly practices to a society that is fixed on an older way of living requires a lot of time, resources, money, and devotion. I’m not sure that building a completely new city in the middle of nowhere or reclaiming land from the ocean and putting it 2 hours away from the capital city is the right move. Perhaps urban planners and politicians should look at the problems that existing cities face and spend their resources on producing innovation in those cities, where the people live, rather than starting from a blank page.

World renowned Russian author Pushkin writes in his short story “Queen of Spades,” that “two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two bodies can occupy one and the same place in the physical world” [9]. In the same logic, morals of saving the environment can not coexist with morals of making money and developing business, creating the more and more extravagent without regarding poverty. Software written by programmers with stable jobs in the middle to upper social class ignores the needs of lower class citizens and the efforts of many non-profit organizations. As a human being on this planet that will inevitably have to live in one of these smart cities for career development, I hope to see a larger focus placed on the social structure and intersection of races, identities, abilities, and socio-economic statuses.

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Sources

[1] Boyson, Oscar. “THE FUTURE OF CITIES.” Youtube, 8 Dec. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOOWk5yCMMs.

[2] Carrington, Daisy. “Astana: The world’s weirdest capital city.” CNN, 13 Jul. 2012, https://www.cnn.com/2012/07/13/world/asia/eye-on-kazakhstan-astana/index.html.

[3] Ho, Timothy. “No Nonsense Explanation On Why Cars In Singapore Are So Expensive.” Dollars and Sense, 7 Apr. 2016, https://dollarsandsense.sg/no-nonsense-explanation-on-why-cars-in-singapore-are-so-expensive/.

[4] James-Civetta, Gloria. “Littering & Jaywalking.” Singapore Criminal Lawyer, 9 Dec. 2018, https://www.singaporecriminallawyer.com/littering-jaywalking/.

[5] Kim, Jae-won. “Songdo flea market promotes culture of sharing.” The Korea Times, 21 Aug. 2011, http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2013/08/123_93234.html.

[6] Mizuleva, Georgia. “The Impressive City Of Angels - Los Angeles California U S A - Urban Sprawl And Smog.” Fine Art America, 25 Dec. 2015, https://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-impressive-city-of-angels-los-angeles-california-u-s-a-urban-sprawl-and-smog-georgia-mizuleva.html.

[7] National Geographic. “City of the Future: Singapore – Full Episode | National Geographic.” Youtube, 24 Nov. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi6r3hZe5Tg.

[8] Ovec. “Singapore – World Class city.” Overseas Education Centre, 5 Oct. 2016, https://ovecedu.com/singapore-world-class-city/.

[9] Pushkin, Alexander. “The Queen of Spades.” The Literature Network, 1834, http://www.online-literature.com/alexander-pushkin/2800/.

[10] Shepard, Wade. “Songdo: Go Inside The City Of The Future.” Youtube, 10 Nov. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZKtr7vU5cI.

[11] TODAYonline. “‘Homeless’ in Singapore.” Youtube, 9 Nov, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9jyfJEnM4s.

[12] White, Chris. “South Korea’s ‘Smart City’ Songdo: not quite smart enough?” South China Morning Post, 25 Mar. 2018, https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2137838/south-koreas-smart-city-songdo-not-quite-smart-enough.