Shaping Smart for Better Cities powerfully demonstrates the range of theoretical and practical challenges, opportunities and success factors involved in successfully deploying digital technologies in cities, focusing on the importance of recognizing local context and multi-layered urban relationships in designing successful urban interventions. The first section, ‘Rethinking Smart (in) Places’ interrogates the smart city from a theoretical vantage point. The second part, ‘Shaping Smart Places’ examines various case studies critically. Hence the volume offers an intellectual resource that expands on the current literature, but also provides a pedagogical resource to universities as well as a reflective opportunity for practitioners. The cases allow for an examination of the practical implications of smart interventions in space, whilst the theoretical reflections enable expansion of the literature. Students are encouraged to learn from case studies and apply that learning in design. Academics will gain from the learning embedded in the documentation of the case studies in different geographic contexts, while practitioners can apply their learning to the conceptualisation of new forms of technology use. Demonstrates how to adapt smart urban interventions for hyper-local context in geographic parameters, spatial relationships, and socio-political characteristics Provides a problem-solving approach based on specific smart place examples, applicable to real-life urban management Offers insights from numerous case studies of smart cities interventions in real civic spaces

An unflinching look at the aspiring city-builders of our smart, mobile, connected future. From Beijing to Boston, cities are deploying smart technology—sensors embedded in streets and subways, Wi-Fi broadcast airports and green spaces—to address the basic challenges faced by massive, interconnected metropolitan centers. In Smart Cities, Anthony M. Townsend documents this emerging futuristic landscape while considering the motivations, aspirations, and shortcomings of the key actors—entrepreneurs, mayors, philanthropists, and software developers—at work in shaping the new urban frontier.

The topic of streets and street design is of compelling interest today as public officials, developers, and community activists seek to reshape urban patterns to achieve more sustainable forms of growth and development. Streets and the Shaping of Towns and Cities traces ideas about street design and layout back to the early industrial era in London suburbs and then on through their institutionalization in housing and transportation planning in the United States. It critiques the situation we are in and suggests some ways out that are less rigidly controlled, more flexible, and responsive to local conditions. Originally published in 1997, this edition includes a new introduction that addresses topics of current interest including revised standards from the Institute of Transportation Engineers; changes in city plans and development standards following New Urbanist, Smart Growth, and sustainability principles; traffic calming; and ecologically oriented street design.

Smart cities are a fast-growing species, and a fascinating field for new experiments in a number of critical areas, ranging from urban planning, sustainable energy, and transport strategies to social integration and talent attraction, to name a few. As leaders and citizens around the world continue to assess, design, implement and improve on ways to create better cities, they often find themselves confronted with a multitude of decisions and a wide range of partial solutions to specific problems such as traffic congestion, waste management and crime. Unfortunately, they have precious few tools to enable them to define the strategies required and take advantage of the experience of other smart cities around the world. In such a context, metrics can play a significant and constructive role: by quantifying efforts and results, they increase the ability of decision-makers to identify where their priorities should lie as well as the relative merits of various approaches.

Untangling Smart Cities: From Theory to Practice helps all key stakeholders understand the complex and often conflicting nature of smart city research, offering valuable insights for designing and implementing strategies to improve the smart city decision-making processes. The book drives the reader to a better theoretical and practical comprehension of smart city development, beginning with a thorough and systematic analysis of the research literature published to date. The book provides an in-depth understanding of the entire smart city knowledge domain, revealing a deeply rooted division in its cognitive-epistemological structure as identified by bibliometric insights. Untangling Smart Cities fills the knowledge gap between theory and practice using case study research, with empirical evidence drawn from cities considered leaders in innovative smart city practices. An invaluable contribution to the growing scientific literature, Untangling Smart Cities provides an accurate and deep understanding of the strategic principles driving smart city development. Provides clarity on the smart city concepts and strategies Provides a systematic literature analysis on the state-of-the-art of Smart Cities research using bibliometrics combined with practical application to guide smart systems implementation Offers a comprehensive and systematic analysis of Smart Cities research produced during its first three decades, driven by statistical analysis techniques Generates a strong connection between theory and practice by providing the scientific knowledge necessary to approach the complex nature of Smart Cities sourced from the analysis of actual best practices Documents five main development pathways for smart cities development, serving the needs of city managers and policy makers with concrete advice and guidance

Are you future ready? The world we see now is very different from that of 25 years ago. Who would have thought by click of a button a taxi will stand in front of your house. Who would have imagined through YouTube each one of us has the power to travel the world with a single click. And the pace of change is accelerating the world in the next five to ten years. Shape up to Smart cities is the blue print of what is coming. Why some countries are better prepared than others, why some cities set the pace of innovation and how people can better prepare from what is coming than just be passive observer for a rude shock. I wrote this book precisely to answer the above questions. This is the first comprehensive book on Smart cities. Electric vehicles, Smart meters and Smart buildings are coming in the way of doing our business. It is time to get ready for these big changes and not left behind. All these concepts are explained in simple terms with no high technical jargon. These powerful concepts strongly connect to smart city initiatives. India, China, US, EU and many other countries are investing lots of resources and money in building the smart cities. It is time for all of us to be part of this discussion. Be Smart in Smart Cities.