The Future of Urban Planning AKA Smart Cities
When we picture the urban environments of the future, most of us know what we want our cities to achieve. Clean air and streets. Manageable traffic. Safe pedestrian spaces. Green recreation areas. And technology invisibly humming along underneath it all.
But how much do we think about the infrastructure changes required to bring about these futuristic utopias? These cities are not places that someone else will come and build for us. To make smart cities happen, we need to lay the foundations now.
Energy Efficiency
The strain on urban power grids has never been more intense. As we craft built environments that rely ever more on electricity and computers, we need to ensure continued stability of our power sources. Partial or complete power outages result in problems ranging from lost productivity and personal inconvenience to medical equipment failure and mass food spoilage.
Connecting devices to the Internet of Things (IoT) can help us ensure that everything drawing power in a given area is operating at maximum efficiency. Systems, machinery, and appliances can be monitored. Through the use of AI, software can analyze, anticipate, and produce natural language reports to keep every part of a city as energy efficient as possible.
Waste Management
Garbage collection, recycling, and sewage maintenance serve more than just an aesthetic purpose. We all know dirty cities breed infections and chronic illnesses. Over time, a filthy living space degrades health for every resident. While we encourage waste reduction, we know that even the greenest cities of the future will still produce a certain amount of waste materials.
Augmented Analytics help improve the cleanliness of urban environments by combining sensors and software to transform huge amounts of data into actionable solutions. We hope to see cities of the future employing technology ranging from street-sweeping robots to remote substrate repairs.
Traffic & Transportation
Thanks to Reality Capture technology, the cities of our future will be mapped out in so much detail that self-driving cars and public transportation will be safer and more efficient than ever before.
We envision publicly available traffic data and bus or train schedules projected on windshields and smart glasses. Navigating the increasingly complex urban terrain of the future will rely on spatial computing almost entirely.
Clean Air & Water
Air and water quality are at the heart of any discussion about a city’s health. Providing these two basic essentials for life is a top priority for any municipality. Fortunately, the IoT and the AR Cloud can help. Related to energy efficiency (pollution reduction) and waste management (sanitary spaces) creating smart cities will take a holistic approach.
Once we can achieve liveable standards for healthy city environments, we can start to fine tune these systems, maximizing wellness and making it an equal priority for everyone.
Amenities & Structures
As we start to explore the democratization of wellness and a high standard of living, we need to look at ways to provide excellence in all a city’s amenities and services. Specifically, we need affordable housing, food, clothing, health care, education, and entertainment. Not a small to-do list!
When we start by building the towers and facilities of the future – using BIMfinity as we call it at Stambol – cities have the foundation we need for housing and facilities that are accessible in every way. Whether we’re talking about apartment buildings, recreational complexes, shopping centres, or schools, these structures can be also be upgraded so that an older building can still be threaded into the IoT like any other device, albeit a complicated one.
Stambol visionaries are always looking for opportunities to pitch in and do our part to build the cities of the future. Email us to ask about how we can help with your urban planning project.
Image Credit: connect world / Adobe Stock