Banner 160 x 60 Cities,Reality

5 Data-Driven Cities Making the Internet of Things a Reality

1.Songdo, South Korea

Songdo, South Korea’s newest Smart City, is located 40 miles southwest of Seoul and features architectural marvels and landmarks from international cities including New York City’s Central Park and Venice’s waterways. But what makes Songdo so smart after all? Well, the city’s innovative garbage tactics, for one. in Songdo, you’ll never see a trash truck. Instead, all household waste is sucked directly from individual kitchens through a vast underground network of tunnels, to waste processing centers, where it is automatically sorted, deodorized and treated. In the future, some of this household waste will be used to produce renewable energy.

Other Songdo smart city highlights include a water-recycling system that prevents clean drinks water from being used to flush office toilets, sensors that monitor temperature, energy use and traffic flow, charging stations for electric cars, and a central park that designed so that every resident can walk to work in the business district.

2.New York City

For a city that never sleeps, you’d expect some pretty cool tech to help foster a hyperactive people. And while NYC has been a little slow going on the Smart City uptake, all street lights have been replaced with LED lights and the city boasts the largest city-wide WiFi network in the U.S, turning even old phone booths into WiFi hotspots. What’s more? New York City is embarking on the Hudson Yards project. The project, a $20 billion, 28-acre commercial and residential area on Manhattan’s west side, is touted as being the largest development in the city since the Rockefeller center. Hudson Yards will digitally track environmental and lifestyle factors — like traffic, energy consumption, and air quality — and will include a trash-disposal system, much like Songdo’s, to remove waste via underground pneumatic tubes.

3.Dallas, Texas

Dallas, Texas is a rising fashion star and business hub, not only for the state of Texas, but for the U.S. as a whole. Add to that data-driven policies and improvements, and Dallas turns out to be one of the smartest cities in the nation. Wi-Fi provides city communities with Wi-Fi hot spots that promote city services such as water meters, leak sensors, parking meter and other city services to operate on the same secure government network. Video camera outfitted in all police cars allow citizens the ability to view their video related to traffic citation, code enforcement and more ahead of their hearing date. E-counter provides a secure way for citizen to do business with the city. The solution provides citizens with an option to submit information 24/7 and avoid traveling or visiting city hall. And the Dallas 311 Mobile app makes it possible for residents to report code violation with their smart phones and attach photos of the violation to their service request. Citizens can also track the status and location of their service requests.

4.Detroit, MIAMI

Detroit has a rare opportunity to rebuild and become a leading smart city within the U.S. Already, the city is taking multiple initiatives to make this a reality. For instance, the Detroit Light Switch is an innovative street lighting and art project. It is a creative, yet practical, way of thinking about the street lighting crisis in Detroit that will transform public space, stimulate economic activity, increase the visibility of public art, foster solidarity among Detroiters, energize neighborhoods by providing a source of community identity and pride, and make Detroit a more walkable and cyclist-friendly city. Also, Through the treatment of vacant land near expressways with green infrastructure, “carbon buffers” would absorb carbon dioxide, particulate matter, and other pollution stemming from vehicular traffic and exhaust. In Detroit, these efforts are known as the Detroit Future City program, and its initiatives are far reaching.

5.Montpellier, France

Montpellier is the fastest growing city in France, and is implementing ways through which to expand without exhausting resources. To do that, the city opened a living laboratory for open innovation in cooperation with the University of Montpellier 1 and University of Montpellier 2, encouraging the development of new technology, urban innovations, new start-up organizations and the exploration of new economic models. These efforts have already resulted in a 10% improvement in water yield, and future goals are to reduce flooding by 20% and reduce car traffic by 10%.