The smart cities, such as Dubuque in Iowa and Portland in Oregon, aim to track the use of resources by its citizens and provide this data to the citizens so that they are aware of how the resources can be conserved and the environment improved. These analyses generate significant amounts of data; therefore, the cities need the cloud to store and give access to this data. The cloud allows putting all the information together in a particular “hub”. As Dubuque officials notice, a smart city focuses on giving the citizens information about the resources they use. Moreover, its aim is to make the use of these resources cost-efficient and avoid any useless waste of them (e.g. eliminate water leaks).
The major “smarter city” programs in Dubuque are smarter water, smarter electric, smarter natural gas, and smarter travel. The smarter water program allowed citizens to understand how many gallons of water leaked in their houses per hour. It was estimated that 28% of the water produced in the country is lost through leaks. The data gathered by the officials has shown 6.6% reduction in water consumption in the houses that took part in the pilot program in Dubuque.
The next step of the program is to move the silos together and understand what interrelationships are there between these hubs (smarter water, smarter electric, etc.). The cloud computing is expected to help in these calculations. The IBM and the community also plan to save 64,944,218 gallons of water using its cloud system.
The approach in Portland is different to the existing one in Dubuque but very similar to what the Dubuque’s officials aim to reach. A simulation model and a decision support system were created to develop what-if scenarios. These scenarios will predict negative and positive consequences of a proposed policy. The model allows the officials explore the relationships between the core systems (economy, education, healthcare, transportation, utilities, government services, etc.). The city and IBM collected ten years of the city’s data to build the system that would support the creation of metrics used for the Portland Plan, the city’s roadmap for the next twenty-five years. The model helps to understand what policies should be implemented to achieve the goals that the city has set. The model uses a holistic approach together with predictive capabilities to make Portland “a smarter city”. It is possible to assume that Dubuque will also follow this framework once when all the data from its systems are combined. So far, the difference between the methods used in Dubuque and Portland is that Dubuque uses separate data from different “hubs”, while Portland’s system analyze the data sets from all systems and provide predictions and solutions. It also should be noted that Dubuque does not use prediction systems but only provides data about the existing issues.
The idea of smarter cities is exciting because it can decrease the waste of resources that is happening throughout the country. My recommendation would be to implement this approach in all the main cities in the USA, especially in those where the waste of resources can be critical (e.g. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, etc.). The use of smarter cities has a potential to reduce the damage that the humanity has already done to the environment.
To conclude, the smarter cities are the future of the urban areas that will be more cost-effective and less dangerous to nature. They will also allow citizens use the resources more wisely and effective, reducing their expenditures on bills.