{"id":81699,"date":"2020-11-26T10:22:08","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T10:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alj.com\/?post_type=spotlight-fadyjameel&p=81699"},"modified":"2021-09-13T10:17:25","modified_gmt":"2021-09-13T10:17:25","slug":"redesigning-our-cities-for-the-21st-century","status":"publish","type":"spotlight-fadyjameel","link":"https:\/\/alj.com\/en\/spotlight-by-fady-jameel\/redesigning-our-cities-for-the-21st-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Redesigning our cities for the 21st Century"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cities embody one of society\u2019s great love-hate relationships: they are the gifts that keep on giving, and at the same time, they are quintessential poisoned chalices. <\/em><\/h4>\n

By <\/em>Fady Jameel<\/em><\/a>, Deputy President and Vice Chairman, Abdul Latif Jameel<\/em><\/p>\n

Cities are the engines that have spurred our economies to unprecedented growth and, accordingly, raised living standards to new highs. \u00a0They have served as melting pots for cultures and fermented ideas that have transformed both commerce and art. \u00a0They are statements to the world, honey pots for tourism, and stages upon which billions of lives play out, everyday.<\/p>\n

Simultaneously, cities have produced some of the worst problems of our age: overcrowding, when population densities have outgrown space; long-term public health failures<\/a>, when cheek-by-jowl living overwhelms sanitation; choking pollution<\/a> linked to industrialization and traffic; cyclical periods of mass unemployment and recessions; social dysfunction, and sometimes even conflict, where disparate communities have been thrust together and left to compete for values and resources.<\/p>\n

And yet, if there is one thing that cities have consistently demonstrated, it is resilience<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Today, more than half of us (4.2 billion people) dwell in cities, up from less than one-third (751 million people) in 1950. \u00a0That proportion is predicted to grow to two-thirds in another generation\u2019s time, confirming an uninterrupted trend.[1]<\/a> \u00a0Indeed, ten more cities are expected to join the list of \u2018megacities\u2019 (10 million+ inhabitants) by 2030, including Luanda (Angola), Hyderabad (India) and Chengdu (China).[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Largest<\/p>\n

Against this backdrop, our expectations of cities are changing at a dizzying rate. \u00a0History has never moved so fast. \u00a0Technological opportunities and environmental pressures ensure the future is accelerating towards us at exponential pace. \u00a0Since the turn of the millennium our attitudes towards the building blocks of society \u2013 how we live, how we work, how we move around, how we power of lives \u2013 have undergone a series of compelling shifts. \u00a0What do we want?\u00a0 We want to spend less time commuting and more time with our families and in our homes. \u00a0We want to work fewer days, more flexibly. \u00a0We want to enjoy more green spaces, even as our desire for housing grows. \u00a0We want \u2013 no, we need<\/em> – to cut our pollution, to breathe cleaner air, to consider the needs of our children and grandchildren.<\/p>\n

Consider the cities of our world today as a series of test tubes and incubators for better living. \u00a0They are experiments, with profoundly varied results, revealing how human intervention can help, or hinder, our utopian visions.<\/p>\n

And while not all questions are yet answered, one thing seems certain.<\/p>\n

If the future is going to be anything at all, it\u2019s going to be smart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Smarter, faster, cleaner, happier<\/h2>\n

Smartphones, as their name suggests, will lie at the heart of a smart city revolution. \u00a0These versatile devices will represent, in the words of leading consultancy McKinsey, \u201cthe keys to the city\u201d[3]<\/a>, transmitting real-time information about safety, mobility, jobs, health and leisure directly into the hands of millions.<\/p>\n

Consider the fact that few urban planners have the liberty of starting a new city from scratch; most cities come with an infrastructure legacy.\u00a0 The changes we make to them build on the opportunities and errors that have gone before. \u00a0The data-gathering potential of \u2018smart cities\u2019 can help ensure the right decisions are made: long-term, people-focused strategies that respond to changing patterns and tangibly improve life quality.<\/p>\n

A fully interconnected smart city relies on three foundations. \u00a0The first is interconnectivity – a \u2018critical mass\u2019 of smartphone adoption along with city-wide sensors to gather live information on a street by street, zone by zone basis. \u00a0The second is a range of interactive applications that are able to translate data into meaningful alerts for users.\u00a0 The third, inevitably, is mass adoption – common usage by the public, city officials and businesses.<\/p>\n

The seamless integration of these three layers can help people travel during quiet periods, choose the most efficient routes for journeys, consume less energy and water, and reduce stress on public systems.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>Studies suggest that, when rolled-out effectively, smart technology has the potential to:<\/p>\n