How to make unsmart cities smart

A Report on Intelligent Urbanization, prepared in 2010 for the Confederation of Indian Industry by Booz & Co and Cisco, offers some bold and comprehensive ideas, notes Subir Roy

The country is to have a 100 smart cities that will be both greenfield and brownfield.

While details of the scheme are not yet known, Shankar Aggarwal, the secretary to the Union government for urban development, has provided a preview.

Issues related to land, and to red tape, rules and regulations are being addressed so that the private sector can be brought in; it will provide 90 per cent of the investment.

The government is looking at building by-laws and floor area ratio so that you can build up instead of out, thus requiring less land.

A smart city will have smart infrastructure -- roads, water and sewer networks, solid-waste management systems, drainage network, street lighting, pedestrian walkways, signal system, public toilets, gas supply, and safety and security systems.

This looks like a laundry list of what any well-run city with a decent quality of life should have.

To be 'smart' beyond this presumably means extensively using information technology for better management and delivery.

But what is disturbing is the continued faith in raising the FAR as a substitute to bringing more urban land into play, despite contrary empirical evidence.

Originally posted here:
How to make unsmart cities smart