Chapter 17

Humane Smart Cities

1 Today more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. There is no sign of a reversal of
this trend; United Nations studies point to a staggering 66% urban population figure by 2050 (United
Nations, 2008, 2014). China alone will place 300 million people in cities within this time frame – the
equivalent of nearly one United States. This will certainly bring about dramatic impacts on cities’
“livability”, which refers to the sum of the factors that add up to a community’s quality of life.

2 Cities can be great places to live, where one can find more opportunities for work and personal
development. Issues such as demographic shifts, health, security, sustainable housing, transportation,
energy, and environment primarily affect cities and are perceived by citizens as key factors affecting
their quality of life. However, problems are mounting due to the steady urbanization of our societies;
today, it has become increasingly difficult for city authorities to provide suitable services to address
citizens’ needs. Rapid urbanization has raised a completely new set of challenges related to efficient
mobility and parking, sustainable environment, effective delivery of water, assurance of low levels of
pollution, reduction of energy consumption, adequate lighting, and proper treatment of waste.

3 Problems in cities will continue as we insist on two of our practices: spatial distribution of the functions
of “live, work, and play,” and transport by private car. Segregation of the city into residential,
commercial, and entertainment areas and citizens commuting between these, back and forth, mostly in
their private cars is a common reality in most cities of the world today. The end result is what city
dwellers are so familiar with: traffic jams, pollution of all types, accidents, urban distress, and social
exclusion. Most world cities face all or some of these severe urban problems to some extent.

4 The question waiting to be answered, therefore, is this: Will cities of the future develop according to
the old paradigm of spatial segregation of daily functions, or should we strive to design a better living
experience in our cities by flexibly responding to citizens’ wishes and needs? A quick look into recent
interdisciplinary research concerning cities and urban planning indicates that a need for a new paradigm
for cities of the future has now been commonly acknowledged. But what is the way forward?
 17.1 A Brief History

5 Before addressing this question, a brief summary of how small villages evolved into big cities will
help us put the matter into some context. European villages in medieval times tended to be small, with
around a one-mile radius. Within this geographical area people lived, worked, played, and prayed. All
the work, living space, and entertainment were local, and thus villagers did not travel very often and
certainly not for daily work. One reason for this arrangement and perhaps one practical limitation to
growth was water: villages not close to rivers would usually have one clean water well in the main
square, which provided water but still required the difficult chore of carrying it home in heavy buckets.

6 This design was also adopted later, in the mid-nineteenth century, when the French emperor Napoleon
III hired the then-mayor of Bordeaux, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, to redevelop Paris as a symbol of
his empire in 1860. Hausmann demolished old buildings and dwellings to open large avenues, parks,
and also to promote sanitation for the town and redesigned Paris as a collection of four boroughs (later
20, as today, also known as arrondissements) of around 1-mile radius each. In each of these boroughs,
people could then (and still can now) live, work, and play. The large avenues we admire today, like the
Champs-Élysées, were not built for cars but for the passage (and glory) of Napoleon’s troops.

7 This arrangement lasted until the overall development of merchant trade and large cities came into
being all over Europe and other regions in the East. Beginning in the late 1800s, and increasingly after
the early 1900s with the arrival of the car in Europe and in the United States, in urban development, the
practice of segregating the main functions of working, living, and playing in different sections of the
city was adopted. City sprawl ensued. Cars became the preferred and desired means of transport mainly
between residence and work. This worked well for parts of the population while the number of cars was
small. Yet, eventually, widespread private car ownership encouraged further spatial segregation into
residential, commercial, and entertainment areas, and an increasing number of people commuting
between them in cars. Hence the urban problems city dwellers are experiencing each and every day.

8 The car is accorded such reverence today that even given its many problems, people question neither
its cost to the public nor to the individual. Yet, the car comes with costs we incur in terms of health
issues, accidents, pollution, urban land space, viaducts, roads, and so forth. In spite of that, local
governments usually face no difficulty in approving a road enlargement, as if anything to improve the
situation of the car were positive. In order to give incentives to local industries, governments tend to tax
the car industry at a minimum. In Brazil, for instance, the overall tax on the supply chain of a car is 37%
while that of a bicycle is 43% (Batista & Paula, 2013). When it comes to individuals, the cost of owning
and maintaining a car tends to be the costliest item in a family’s budget.
9 Perhaps the answer to the question of what kind of cities we would like to live in in the future should
involve a reconsideration of our dependency on the private car and segregation of the functions of life,
work, and play.

17.2 From Smart City to Humane Smart City

10 The rapid urbanization and the problems that come with it has paved the way to the emergence of
the concept of the smart city, which has promised to ensure that the various urban problems could be
addressed through a common perspective and framework, making cities more effective and “intelligent”
in addressing such challenges. Encouraged by a vision of the hyperconnected society, city authorities
have started exploring information and communication technologies to increase their ability to observe,
monitor, learn, digest, decide, and act on the various relevant factors that may make a city more livable.

11 A smart city, briefly, is associated with technology: sensors, cameras, fast Internet connections, and
control centers. Suppliers of technology in particular have been eager to push the concept of smart cities
and have promoted it quite well. Several countries have already adopted the idea and built their own
smart cities or installed the technological infrastructure to make their existing cities “smarter”.

12 In these smart cities, such as London, New York, Oslo, Copenhagen and Dubai, using the Internet of
Things (IoT), all relevant data is collected providing an integrated overview of all city processes. The
intensive use of models and data analytics, processed most likely in computing clouds, completes the
understanding of the city as a machine, and allows for adaptation to new circumstances. Cars can be
directed to the available parking places; ambulances can be rerouted, avoiding congested zones;
unnecessary consumption of energy can be reduced or prevented; citizens can be warned in advance
regarding environmental conditions, and so forth.

13 But the challenges are bigger and call for a more radical social transformation, affecting the way we
all work, live, play, and build our future. A thorough analysis of a large number of smart city
implementations indicate that a mere technology-driven implementation of the smart city concept,
although being an important step in the right direction, falls short of exploring the most important
dimension of cities – their human and social capital (Woolcock & Narayan, 2000) available in every
citizen and collectively in the society (Oliveira & Campolargo, 2015).

14 In fact, the smart city has attracted much criticism on several grounds, and its critics have contributed
to the formation of a newer concept and an emergent field of study – the smart city is now evolving into
the humane smart city. This alternative concept is built on sustainable models for urban living, working,
and governance enabled by future Internet infrastructures and services. This perspective balances the
technical “smartness” of sensors, meters, and infrastructures with softer features such as clarity of vision,
citizen empowerment, social interaction in physical urban settings, and public sector–citizen
partnership. The approach is interdisciplinary, with an emphasis on composite knowledge.

15 The “humane” dimension to smart cities is gaining increasing support from city governments across
Europe as well as from the research community (Marsh & Oliveira, 2014). It more effectively addresses
key challenges such as low-carbon strategies, the urban environment, sustainable mobility, and social
inclusion (Murray et al., 2010) through a more balanced, holistic approach to technology. In this
approach, the government agrees to be engaged and involved in citizens’ initiatives on the basis of an
open, transparent, and reliable relationship. Information technologies are used where appropriate to
solve social problems and address economic and environmental issues, focusing on the well-being and
happiness of the citizens.

16 The underlying difference between the two models is briefly what is being focused on. While the
smart city has placed technology in the center of everything else, the humane smart city addresses first
of all people and their needs. Then comes technology and only in direct connection with these needs. It
is of paramount importance to place citizens at the core of strategic thinking. Cities are smart only when
they take full advantage of the human capital of their citizens, create innovation ecosystems where new
dynamics of wealth and job creation take place, and promote new forms of participatory governance. In
short, transforming them into humane smart cities. Hence, humane smart cities use technology as an
enabler to connect and engage government and citizens, aiming to rebuild, recreate, and motivate urban
communities, stimulating and supporting their collaboration. This leads to a joint increase in social well-
being. In a humane smart city, people rather than technology are the true actors of the urban “smartness.”

17.3 The Seven Characteristics of Humane Smart Cities

17 Since solutions to cities’ problems are inevitably interdisciplinary in nature, this new field of humane
smart cities involves the social sciences, with studies on people’s behavior in communities, urban studies
of spatial distribution of people and functions, and studies of social networks and their use in the context
of cities. These solutions also involve studies of computer technology of sensors and high-speed
connections, electronic and participatory government, and big data and business intelligence. The
European Union’s description of the humane smart city reflects this interdisciplinary nature of the
concept, and lists six fields of study: Smart economy, smart people, smart mobility, smart living, smart
environment, and smart governance (Giffinger et al., 2007). Later, a further field has been added: smart
social inclusion, studying how poverty in cities can be tackled and the problems associated with rapid
growth and geographical expansion.
17.3.1 Smart Economy

18 The smart economy moves away from traditional industry and is concentrated in services, particularly
those related to the “creative industries.” For the purpose of this chapter, we define creative industry
broadly as the economic activity involving human work that is not repetitive. The smart economy is
diversified and involves all sectors of the creativity industry – software, medical services, entertainment,
the arts, consultancies, artisans, gastronomy, financial services, and so forth. And how is it “smart?”
These sectors involve human work and activities that are non-polluting and well-paid jobs. They also
generate most new jobs today, since the repetitive work that used to be done at factories is being
progressively replaced by machines (Costa, 2001).

17.3.2 Smart People

19 The smart economy attracts smart and creative people to work in its geography through all sorts of
incentives (Marques et al., 2015a, 2015b). And the reverse is also true: Places where the creative class
(Kanter, 1997) and the people exist in abundance are much more likely to develop a smart economy.
This change in behavior comes as a warning to large companies and city planners: Young and talented
graduates tend to choose the city where they want to live before the company they want to work for.

20 Smart people are associated with education – they have more years of study than the average. There
are also artists, performers, artisans, painters, dancers, and other types of creative people. These two
groups mingle very well in some cities. Through their interaction, they produce new goods and services
that are characteristic of the new economy. Smart people are eager to participate throughout their adult
life in many forms of knowledge-sharing courses and events, and they praise diversity. Flexibility to
adopt new ideas and concepts is also a common factor. Smart people also participate in their city’s public
affairs. A popular voice among smart people is the “greens,” those who are particularly concerned with
the conservation of the environment. Also, the rate of social media use is high among them, and they
can mobilize a crowd in support of their arguments on their specific networks in a very short time.

17.3.3 Smart Mobility

21 A humane smart city is concerned with the mobility of its citizens. The answer to the problem of
traffic jams we face today is public transport. Henrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, coined
a phrase that became popular: “A town has smart mobility not when the poor go to work by private car
but when the rich go to work by public transport.” However, this change in perspective is not easy.
Citizens are used to the idea that they have a right to drive their cars anywhere, so such changes will
take time. But they have to be enforced with positive and negative incentives. The true cost of the car to
society is huge and has to be taken into account: not only air pollution and used tire disposal but also,
most importantly, loss of lives, public health, cost of car accidents, and so forth.
22 As another alternative to cars, bike lanes have been built in many towns, but they should be
segregated from car lanes. In addition to bikes and public transport, cities should pay attention to
sidewalks, which should be the preferred mobility path. In many towns, they are too narrow (cut short
in order to make way for the cars), badly paved, and with many obstacles on the way, making the ride
of a wheelchair, for instance, almost impossible. Urban planners should consider public real estate as
the most valuable commodity, to be used in favor of those who use it most.

17.3.4 Smart Living

23 A place is considered smart when people see it as a good place to live. It is diverse in the sense that
it caters to different people’s wishes and needs. It also has interesting tourist attractions that contribute
to the sharing of experiences and knowledge between the locals and outsiders. It offers good quality
services in terms of schools, hospitals, clinics, and public safety. And it demonstrates social cohesion:
Different income levels of society mingle in a smart place with little signs of class tensions or racial
hatred.

17.3.5 Smart Environment

24 A place that intends to become smarter takes care of its environment. The major part of environmental
issues is a matter of control and active intervention. For instance, pollution caused by CO2 emissions
requires a definitive measure and should be followed closely. Electric transport vehicles help as well as
the implementation of penalties or tolls on the use of private cars. But there are also softer measures that
can make a significant contribution. For instance, why do most cities stick to the rigid 9-to-5 work hours
in every sector? This is a heritage from the industrial era, when all the workers on a production line had
to be there at the same time. Today, a flexible work time (anchored by flexible labor laws) could do
wonders to avoid massive traffic jams at peak time – and also to reduce all the pollution that comes with
it.

25 Some of this, on the other hand, is a given: natural resources such as rivers and greenery. The green
movement, even allowing for its excesses, made a major contribution to our awareness of the finite
nature of natural resources. A city is “environmentally smart” in the sense that it uses and conserves its
natural resources. Reuse of water, collection of rainwater, smart buildings that consume less energy,
LED lamps for public lighting, smart garbage collection, and recycling and disposal are all well-
established technologies that can be used by many towns. And strikingly, they may cost less in the long
run than the existing methods. But why are they not adopted by all? Inertia offers a partial explanation.
The fact is that governments tend to spend money on projects that are obviously visible and thus may
lead to votes. For instance, a new LED-driven public lighting system does not register on public
consciousness and does not add to the mayor’s popularity.
17.3.6 Smart Governance

26 Considering the poor reputation of different levels of government in many countries, citizens tend to
gather this characteristic as the most difficult to develop. This should be no excuse for inaction, though.
With the advent of new IT tools and systems, it is increasingly easier to provide better services to society
and many governments are pursuing that path. But the main change that is necessary in government is
in the mindset of officials: from gatekeeper to service provider, from authoritarian government to
participatory government, from secret data to full availability of data to citizens and companies. In a
nutshell, from talking to listening.

17.3.7 Smart Social Inclusion

27 This characteristic is not part of the original six categories proposed by the European Union. But as
the concept of humane smart cities moves into less developed countries, it becomes crucial. In the
process of growing, sometimes at a very fast pace, cities in emerging but also in developed countries
attract people from the hinterland and from abroad in search of better work opportunities. However,
these people cannot afford prices in town, so they live on the outskirts, sometimes in dire conditions in
slums. These communities need to be integrated into the local fabric of society as the city becomes
smarter. Job opportunities for the poor do not have to be necessarily related to manual labor. It might be
better to consider arts and crafts that in the creative world can find a distinctive niche. Ethnic diversity
may lead to opportunities in gastronomy, music, arts and crafts, and many other cultural manifestations.
The principle of live, work, and play in the same area should be open to all.

17.4 Conclusion

28 The humane smart city concept aims at developing a citizen-driven, smart, all-inclusive, and
sustainable environment, with a new governance framework in which citizens and government engage
in listening and talking to each other. And it is important to point out that the implementation of the
humane smart city can be made through the use of frugal technology and does not always require
sophisticated and complex infrastructures. This fact is relevant, especially in what concerns the
scalability of the solution. Simple and creative solutions can emerge from the local communities, which
allow, for example, big cities to extend their strategies and include broad metropolitan areas, or small
cities to integrate new strategies. This is an important advantage for city administrations, as it enables
the creation of humanly smart services without having to make significant investments, leading to a
general increase of social well-being.
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EADING TASK 2.3.1: Comprehension

Answer the following questions based on the text.

1. What are the problems that cities face today and what are the two reasons for
them? Howare these two reasons connected to each other and why do they
create problems?

2. How can smart cities address some of the problems that cities face? Are
there anyproblems related to smart cities? If yes, what?

3. What is the difference between smart cities and humane smart cities? How
does eachmodel use technology?
4. Read the seven characteristics of humane smart cities and write down the key
words /phrases that are associated with each characteristic.

EADING TASK 2.3.2: Inferencing & Evaluation

1. Why do the writers think that placing technology at the core of city planning
would bringproblems?
 2. What is the purpose of the “A Brief History” section? Why have the writers
given a brief history of the cities? What is the point they are making at the end of
this section?

READ SMART STRATEGY 5: LET’S APPLY

WRITER’S TECHNIQUE
Study how the word choice helps you to identify the tone and purpose of the writer in
thefollowing excerpt taken from the reading text.

1. The author’s purpose in this paragraph is to ___________

2. The author’s tone is ___________