Smart Cities intend to provide better services to the people populating them. It is a network of smart devices that connect using the Internet. There can be private networks too (based on the Internet) so that only a few people know about its existence. Let’s see some frequently answered questions about smart cities.
Digital or Smart Cities are not the next big thing. They’ve arrived in many countries already and is currently helping places like NY, LA, in the US and Amravati in India. Amravati is a city which is under re-construction. Its designers have included Digital City Plan into the city architecture plan. For other already standing cities, like LA, it doesn’t take much to turn them into smart cities.
There are many definitions of smart cities available on the Internet. I would define it as follows:
How can the government create such huge networks without disturbing the existent structure of Smart Cities?
The city infrastructure is already there. The government, or municipality, already provides for networking. Each city, be is huge or small, has a network of street lights. The street light poles are already in existence. The government of the city simply need to set up a network by mounting smart data routers or something similar. You can see that the very basic foundation of smart cities is already there, in the form of street light networks.
The government usually invites tenders from different business-oriented entities. It then selects one or two of such businesses from among those who bid for smart cities. The government lays out its requirements. The profit-making businesses then design a plan. This plan is the result of brainstorming among its top-level executives of the company that was selected to build smart cities. Planning, Implementation, and maintenance of such digital cities by for-profit businesses also mean lesser overhead on the local governments.
Why do governments need third-party business houses for Smart Cities?
The main reason is that since they are profit-making entities, the companies selected to build smart cities will come up with a budget that is fit for building a network to avoid losses. Such for-profit companies will come up with plans to keep the costs low so that they (the business and the government) don’t fail. It is also feasible to have the private bodies operate and maintain smart networks because it reduces the overhead (costs) of municipalities or local governments.
The government might not want another team of coders, mechanics, and researchers at the cost of tax-payers’ money. Besides, outsourcing to such a business helps in timely implementations of smart cities’ plans.
The operating and maintenance part of smart cities lies with the profit-making business so that costs don’t go high. Building and operating such digital cities might mean employing more talent. The for-profit companies reduce the load by using already existing employees and thereby taking the load off the governments.
