Smart cities and Our Future

Smart Cities and Our Future

This article attempts to explain the relation of Smart Cities on social dimensions of the Society – or the possible effects of Smart Cities on social behavior, since other articles focus more on the aspect of energy efficiency and optimization.

The nature of construction is at a point where boundaries between building technology, automation and IT are getting seamless (Shah, 2015). What does this mean for people and what kind of community does this way of living generate? Will this be an appropriate way of experiencing the life in the city? Let’s try to visualize these things:

Essentially, automation is an integral part of Smart City module. Whatever can be automated in terms of skills, resource management, monitoring and maintenance, will be programmed accordingly.  Examples of city level surveillance systems, management and treatment of water supply and plumbing and other service networks, traffic management, financial transaction systems employed in any business and service outlets will be controlled and fed in a central automated system. Weather updates also fall in this category. In sum, this is a management of people, resources and everything that the ‘city’ comprises of. Any parameter of life that can be represented as bits of ‘data’ (information) will eventually be managed by automation. Therefore, planning is done for increased automation (and not necessarily to cater to other human dimensions of experiencing city life). What kind of life an individual will experience here?

In situations where one is staying alone and can’t rely on social network for support, Smart Cities offer him ideal choice of living. He is reminded of his daily commitments by smart phone, his daily essentials such as cooking, washing, cleaning are automated; the indoor light, humidity, and temperature of air in his apartment is monitored depending on his individual parameters of comfort and so on. By sitting at one place, he is connected virtually to everything – he can purchase furniture, to gadgets, to food, to grocery, to banking. He can virtually connect with a physical site or a person present on any other location on the planet and coordinate activities. What this type of reality points out that the cost of increased automation in Smart Cities directly reduces chances of real-time personal interaction with people and the Society at large. This has a danger of eventually leading to emotional detachment with everything around us – from people’s concerns, feelings to the entire concept of environment and the ‘context’ required to design meaningful, social spaces. Loss of social experiences leads to detrimental rise in the feeling of mental insecurity, anxiety, stress. Therefore at risk, is our own detachment to the contextual environment around us. Will the ‘Smart City’ be “felt” as a City of diverse aspirations expressed by the people or will it resemble an autonomous space wherein a few lakh people are living individual lifestyles not intersecting with anyone else? If it is the later, the concept of Smart City has to be implemented with caution. Does Smart City lead to community living or heightened sense of isolation? Perhaps the fundamental question to be asked is what defines the quality of our experience? And is this experience born out of knowing a place, its people and interacting with them or does it evolve from an isolated existence? A truthful answer to this question will help us assess the role of technology inherent in Smart City model and what kind of impact it creates on people’s relation to each other and oneself. It would be worthwhile to consider case studies of recently constructed Smart Cities to know their impact on social dimensions (Keeton Rachel, Provoost Michelle, 2015) and to see those lessons with caution as we move towards implementing Smart City concept in India, which boasts of diversity of climate, culture, technology and aspirations.

As mentioned in other articles by different authors, cities are understood as places of great social opportunities and experiences. These experiences are born out of ways of doing things together and governing them, and by mutually being interdependent leading to personal commitment, emotional ties and sound judgement about people’s behavior and their minds. It also leads to greatest of values – “acceptance” of context and its interpretations.

I believe, that architecture should attempt to address this interpretation of ‘contextual’ relationship – climate, culture, technology and aspirations. Whatever technology we adopt – be it Smart City or otherwise, this respect for context should never diminish in our designs and understanding of people and places. Constant application of contextual thinking will correctly help us to define exact scope of Smart City model in India.

Niranjan Garde

References:

Shah, Mihir (2015). The Future of the Intelligent Building Market: The Indian Scenario, Quality Edge, Publisher: Market Forces, Pune, April-June, Page 7

Garde, Niranjan (2015). Smart Buildings for Whom? Architecture + Design, 32(11), 98-104

Keeton Rachel, Provoost Michelle (2015). Are Smart Cities Really Smart? myliveablecity, April-June, 67-71

Also published in Niranjan Garde (2016), Smart Cities and Our Future, Constro Souvenir, Series 14