- Image search for “smart city”: three dominant visual elements
The first eye-catching and most obvious theme is the visualization of the “invisible links” of smart cities, which could represent the internet, data transfers, or something else.
The second theme common is a background picture of a highly developed city, typically at night, emphasizing the use of electricity as a manifestation of development.
The third themes is a futuristic, or even cyberpunk, interpretation of the smart city.
- -Why are these themes used?
These themes are a symbolic representation of some of the characteristics of the smart city. They give people a feeling that smart cities are inadvertently linked to high-tech, the internet, highly-developed big metropolises.
- -What smart technologies do you use in the city (excluding your smart phone)
The shared bikes! Shared umbrellas sometimes too. Waimai (delivery services).
- -what are some of the benefits and what are some of the frustrations you encounter while interacting with these technologies?
The benefits are mostly convenience to commute (especially when the distance traveled is shorter than a taxi ride but too long for walking), and the fact that you can use the services by just having a phone. The frustration is that the placement of bikes are mostly random, and at peak times you cannot find a bike home.
- MIT Technology Review: The smart city is a perpetually unrealized utopia
I find that Constant’s idea of “the nomadic life of creative play” a very interesting concept. There are many ways to play in the city, and I think Constant meant creating a life of leisure inside the city, which could include things like going to the movies, a bar, or taking a walk in a park.
Technology could enhance play mainly by automation and awareness. The author of the article mentioned that “Spaces in New Babylon would somehow need to be ‘aware’ of the activities taking place in them so that the environment could know when to change its appearance and behavior.” The ambient environment and its automation enhances the experience of many leisure activities, but not to the extend that Constant may have envisioned.
- In terms of a more humane city, putting humans and their interactions at the center of the conversation should be the norms when we talk about smart cities. Because, as the article suggests, “The visions of the sensor-studded battlefield and the instrumented city both seem to lack a central ingredient: human bodies.” Technologies that improves communications between humans, and improves the living conditions of animals, should be considered helpful techonology.
- The deployment of complex networks of sensors and adaptive systems benefit both civilian and military use of these technologies, reflecting duality of the systems in place right now. The impact, I believe, is that while sensing and networking of cities benefit the people living in them, it leaves the city some vulnerbility for attacks and exploitation.
Lastly, diversity represents a significant factor in the making of a smart city. To quote from the article, “the smartness comes from the diverse human bodies of different genders, cultures, and classes whose rich, complex, and even fragile identities ultimately make the city what it is.” It’s the engagement and blending of people from different backgrounds that matters more than just the technology or the profit stream of companies.