How technology in cities can help deliver a sustainable future

“People want to live in cities where there’s a high quality of life. These demands are placing a huge strain on city infrastructures and the planet’s resources. We need a “smarter” approach to delivering vital services, such as transportation, healthcare, education, public safety, energy and water. It’s estimated that lost productivity and energy use due to traffic congestion alone wastes between 1% and 3% of the world’s gross domestic product.”

More on The Guardian

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“Technology will play a central role in determining whether future cities are harmonious, vibrant and sustainable or discontented, wasteful and unsustainable. Efficient future cities will integrate technologies to reduce their environmental impacts while sustainably coping with growing populations.”

A recent report by Lux Research identifies seven cities that could be used as models for smart cities in the future.

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carl-vs-karl: Walking an biking to elementary school used to be common. Now it`s rare. What happened? We started building fewer, bigger schools between neighborhoods. We built new wide roads to reduce congestion on the way to school. We thought schools would be safer away from Main Street, with its sidewalks of commerce and distractions. We can see the consequences now, making connections between those decisions and rising health problems. With better information, can we make our neighborhood intelligent? We can.What makes a city intelligent? You do. Text: Jan Gehl: Infographic by The National Building Museum in Washington DC

carl-vs-karl:

Walking an biking to elementary school used to be common. Now it`s rare. What happened? We started building fewer, bigger schools between neighborhoods. We built new wide roads to reduce congestion on the way to school. We thought schools would be safer away from Main Street, with its sidewalks of commerce and distractions. We can see the consequences now, making connections between those decisions and rising health problems. With better information, can we make our neighborhood intelligent? We can.
What makes a city intelligent? You do.
Text: Jan Gehl: Infographic by The National Building Museum in Washington DC

(via carl-vs-karl)

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How Citizen Mapmakers are Changing the Stories of our Cities “Individuals inside cities and elsewhere are creating maps for themselves and in fact giving us their own narrative of what a cityscape is about. They are telling us what is important to them, and they’re mapping the kinds of things that previously would not be mapped. It’s becoming part of the creation of a culture of a city.” More on This Big City

How Citizen Mapmakers are Changing the Stories of our Cities

“Individuals inside cities and elsewhere are creating maps for themselves and in fact giving us their own narrative of what a cityscape is about. They are telling us what is important to them, and they’re mapping the kinds of things that previously would not be mapped. It’s becoming part of the creation of a culture of a city.”

More on This Big City

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Sense and the City: Smart, Connected, and on the Move If you find yourself in London between now and March 18th, check out this exhibition: ‘Comparing contemporary experiences of London with past visions of the future, the show looks at GPS, electric vehicles, internet access, smart phones and other recent advances in data and communication technologies, presenting these alongside works from the past by architects Le Corbusier, Archigram and others who imagined what the twenty-first-century city might look like.’ More on Time Out

Sense and the City: Smart, Connected, and on the Move

If you find yourself in London between now and March 18th, check out this exhibition:

‘Comparing contemporary experiences of London with past visions of the future, the show looks at GPS, electric vehicles, internet access, smart phones and other recent advances in data and communication technologies, presenting these alongside works from the past by architects Le Corbusier, Archigram and others who imagined what the twenty-first-century city might look like.’

More on Time Out

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