4 External Forces Accelerating the Smart City Model
Smart cities may seem like a novel idea for now, but they’re becoming more of a necessity than people might think. For companies looking to capture the potential of the IoT market, it’s essential to understand the forces driving the need for smart cities as well as the trends that will give rise to new market leaders.
Before thinking about specific aspects of smart cities that present new opportunities for businesses (which is covered in our latest ebook), it’s important to know the challenges that are sparking the need for change. Urbanization trends are the predominant factor, but “urbanization” is too broad a topic for companies to innovate around.
Urbanization trends have created a ripple effect of external forces that will affect businesses moving forward. The following four external forces that will create tangible opportunities for smart city innovation in the coming years.
Climate change isn’t a new topic. Climate departure, on the other hand, is a much more daunting realization than the simple fact that Earth is getting warmer. In 2013, 14 ecologists published a paper explaining that climate departure — the point at which the global climate transcends historic data and enters an entirely new state — will hit around 2047.
It’s no coincidence that climate departure is running parallel with urbanization predictions. According to research from UN-HABITAT, cities already account for 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions despite claiming just 2% of land area. And as urbanization grows, this challenge will only continue to increase.
Scaling to meet urban demands simply won’t be possible without innovation in energy efficiency for sectors like transportation, industrial activities, waste management and more. Smart cities will be the key to making infrastructure and operations more efficient.
For a century, wisdom has dictated that job seekers find employment in large, stable corporations. These corporations have always been the center of activity for the workforce—employees commute to the office, work their 9-to-5, and commute home.
However, mobile and cloud technologies have given rise to a new workforce reality. Some have called it the “gig economy.” The gig economy has defined a workforce that is increasingly based on a project model.
