Smart Cities

Smart cities increase the quality of life of people with physical, digital and human systems compatible with the environment; offering a modern, competitive, functional and sustainable future; They are cities supported by advanced vital technologies.

While the emergence of cities dates back to ancient times, especially in the 18th century, the urbanization process accelerated with the industrial revolution. With the increase in population growth rate towards today, it has led to an increase in various problems in areas such as planning, management, security, transportation and regulation. As a result of this, the future planning of cities and the necessity of smart solutions have emerged and therefore the necessity of increasing the quality of life of people has arisen. As a result of all these developments, the concept of smart city has emerged.

The concept of urbanization expresses a process. The definition of urbanization made by the Turkish Language Association is: “The process of gathering the population in cities and expanding urban areas, especially as a result of the development of industry.”

Another definition for urbanization is “the population accumulation process that results in the increase in the number of cities and the growth of today’s cities in parallel with industrialization and economic development, creating an increasing degree of organization, division of labor and specialization in the social structure, and leading to urban-specific changes in human behavior and relations.”

Supported by the European Union and having an important place in the field of smart cities, Dr. According to Boyd Cohen’s Smart Cities Wheel (SCW), smart cities consist of 6 components.

The aim of smart cities is to increase the brand value of the city and increase the quality of life by improving living standards. Today, there are thousands of smart city studies that have been implemented or are under preparation. While some of these cities are trying to transform the existing established order into a smart one, some of them are newly established as smart cities.

The cities of Masdar-United Arab Emirates, Songdo-South Korea, Lavasa-India and Lusail-Qatar can be given as examples of cities built from scratch as smart cities. The example of the city of Barcelona-Spain will be discussed on the use of smart systems in cities. Although the city of Barcelona is a self-sufficient city today, the smart city adventure started in 1980 with the laying of fiber lines between municipalities. With the Olympics held in the following years, the deficiencies in their infrastructure systems were observed and renewed. This has enabled the city to become a brand in the field of tourism. In order to realize information management in cities, it has taken great steps in the field of smart cities with applications such as e-municipality, automation registration system, city area networks, fiber optic cabling, air pollution measurement systems, thematic database, historical digital cultural servers, city route address data system. Thanks to these developments, it became Spain’s first smart city in 2012.

One of the biggest examples of smart city in the city of Barcelona is the 22@ Smart Central Park Area. In order to revitalize this place, which was an old industrial site, it has been very successful in developing the region by hosting university students and researchers, volunteers who undertake the protection against climate change and carbon footprint of the city, municipal employees, technology companies, all individuals with an investor and entrepreneurial spirit.

A smart city is a city that uses technology to increase efficiency and improve service quality and quality of life for citizens. Smart city initiatives can encompass everything from power distribution, transportation systems, streetlights and even garbage collection. The population in urban areas is increasing day by day. This means that cities face environmental, social and economic challenges. By making cities smarter, some of these challenges can be overcome. Thus, cities can be made easier and safer places to live.

The traffic problem in cities is one of the biggest problems of a city. But technology offers some promising solutions. By using smart traffic light systems, the traffic jam problem can be solved by considering the hours that students and employees are in traffic. E.g; In Hangzhou, China, an artificial intelligence-based smart “City Brain” has helped reduce traffic congestion by 15 percent. (The Smart Cities Of The Future: 5 Ways Technology Is Transforming Our Cities, Bernard Marr, Forbes)

A more sustainable and cleaner environment can be achieved by using the resources in cities effectively. Collecting garbage at proper times, separating and recycling wastes suitable for recycling, increasing the use of smart air filters, using water and electricity resources correctly and according to needs, supporting sustainable energy by investing in clean energy resources, encouraging reduced energy consumption by integrating energy resources into smart systems. All living spaces can be monitored using technology and information systems.

Public safety can be improved by making cities more reliable, thanks to Wi-Fi connectivity, IoT (Internet of Things) technologies, and wide deployments of CCTV cameras. One of the most important elements in smart city technology is to encourage citizens to use the systems and give them feedback. The fact that they can detect local problems more easily makes it easier to improve the system and respond to potential problems quickly. The development of smart urbanism and the studies of countries on this subject are of great importance in order to transfer sustainable energies and living spaces to future generations and to ensure that societies live in prosperity.