How should we think about 'smart cities'? This issue brings together a set of articles that examine current debates around the goals, ethics, potential and limitations of a concept that has become a metaphor for urban modernity. We also include an unusual addition, a short intervention that surfaces some of the controversial issues related to smart cities, as a conception and as a practical undertaking. Some of the seeds of today's smart cities can be found in a series of conversations among scholars and practitioners in the 1980s, reflecting on the future of cities. In a book review, Phil Harris, describes a particularly significant intervention by Sheridan Tatsuno of NeoConcepts, a consultant connected to the Institute for Constructive Capitalism at the University of Texas at Austin, a think tank founded in the 1980s by George Kosmetsky, an entrepreneur turned academic. Like others at the conference, Tatsuno was writing at a time when Silicon Valley was the place to emulate and ventures such as the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina served as alternative examples of successful future industrialisation. He, like many others, was propagating the idea that any and every place could be Silicon Valley-like, if they simply followed a prescription: As Harris (1992) describes: Tatsuno calls out \" the age of technopolis and the metamorphosis of traditional cities and even high-tech parks. One alternative is the global network city of dispersed, highly interactive economic nodes linked by massive networks of airports, highways, and communications. Another metaphor is the \" intelligent city \" featuring advanced information/ communication technologies, complexes wired for satellite and fiber optics. These network cities are inhabited by \" knowledge processors \" engaged in rapid information exchanges (Harris, 1992). As Rob Kitchin lays out in his article in this issue, however, the origins of the smart city are not found solely in the search for technological utopias (Kitchin, 2015). They also originate in the 1980s prescriptions for managed, entre-preneurial cities—whose speed and flexibility in adapting to global markets make them more efficient and competitive (Logan and Molotch, 1987). Kitchin also raises the provocative question of whether another model of 'smartness', the digital or wired city, belongs in the 'smart city' genre. The wired city in fact offered a somewhat different vision, that of inclusive-ness in access to digital technologies. These two competing visions of cities transformed by

Thinking about smart cities

This paper presents the results of a choice experiment to evaluate the extent to which electric motorcycles are a potential replacement for gasoline-powered motorcycles in Solo, Indonesia. Survey respondents faced five choice scenarios where they selected between a conventional motorcycle, an electric motorcycle, and no motorcycle based on price, speed, range, and charge time. Approximately 1200 individuals completed all five choice scenarios and fully responded to socioeconomic and preference questions. As in much of Southeast Asia, motorcycles dominate the transportation system and provide inexpensive, relatively safe, and convenient point-to-point travel. However, motorcycles also produce substantial, harmful local emissions. To estimate the probability of selecting different motorcycle types, the survey data are fit with a mixed logit model with random coefficients. This specification allows correlation across choices over time, flexible substitution across the choice alternatives, and variation in consumer preferences. The results of the survey and analysis indicate that there is almost certainly a market for electric motorcycles but their price and performance will have to be competitive with low-cost, gas-powered ones. Speed, range, charge time, and price all mattered substantially with respondents willing to pay a 7–13% premium for motorcycles with 10 km longer range, 10 km/h faster speed, or an hour shorter charge time. Charge time was particularly important, suggesting that improvements in battery charging technology and charging infrastructure could substantially impact consumers’ willingness to adopt electric motorcycles. Younger non-smoking respondents with concerns about the environment and favorable views of e-bikes were most likely to choose electric motorcycles.

Electric vehicles, air pollution, and the motorcycle city: A stated preference survey of consumers’ willingness to adopt electric motorcycles in Solo, Indonesia

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, is the eleventh largest megacity city in the world, with a population of 18.2 million people living in an area of 1528 km2. This city profile traces the trajectories of its urban development to becoming a megacity and characterizes its emerging challenges due to informal urbanization and climate change impacts. Due to rapid population growth and uncontrolled urbanization, Dhaka currently faces various socio-economic and environmental challenges in aspects such as providing basic urban services; reliable transportation framework; constant water and energy supply; effective sanitation; sustainable waste management and affordable housing. Moreover, the urban setting has further deteriorated as Dhaka is already facing various adverse impacts of climate change. Studies predict that most of the urban sectors, public health and surrounding agriculture and fisheries in Dhaka will be severely impacted by climate change. Dhaka is trying to transform its existing “incremental development” model to an “integrated development” framework in order to effectively mitigate its extreme urban challenges. The future of Dhaka city significantly relies on the successful execution of integrated infrastructure and service planning, development, and management practices, operating under an accountable and good governance system.

/pdf/transforming-urban-dichotomies-and-challenges-of-south-asian-1cxs0sia2c.pdf

Transforming Urban Dichotomies and Challenges of South Asian Megacities: Rethinking Sustainable Growth of Dhaka, Bangladesh

The digital matatu project: Using cell phones to create an open source data for Nairobi's semi-formal bus system

This paper discusses how information and communication technologies (ICT) may influence travel behavior of an informal transport system, and whether and in which ways merging digital technologies represents disruption for a specific sociotechnical ensemble. For decades, ojek has been a form of informal passenger transport, based on motorcycles in Jakarta, and recently smartphone apps have become available in that sociotechnical arrangement. We randomly surveyed passengers and drivers in the central district, for both those who do and do not use these apps. Despite many similarities between both groups, the drivers who use smartphones for their trips reported higher daily incomes, longer average trip distances and a larger coverage area. Passengers using conventional ojek transport reported lower levels of both safety perception and satisfaction when compared to app-based ojek users. For both categories of user, ojek seems to compete with, complement, and be an alternative to bus rapid transit and ...

Merging ICT and informal transport in Jakarta's ojek system

The smartphone exemplifies the rhetorical smart city movement. This paper examines one potential use of smartphone technology—mapping public transportation services in a megacity of the Global South. We examine the potential user impacts of introducing a smartphone-generated and analogue-delivered schematic bus map in Dhaka, Bangladesh. After distributing the map, we used a web-based survey to investigate impacts on users’ knowledge, as measured by their stated understanding, navigation and perceptions of the system. While a small and biased sample, the results suggest that the map fills a knowledge gap, provides useful and valued information and may stimulate ‘exploration’ of the city and its bus system.

/pdf/tracing-a-path-to-knowledge-indicative-user-impacts-of-17yximyxeh.pdf

Tracing a path to knowledge? Indicative user impacts of introducing a public transport map in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Singapore. National Research Foundation (Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Center. Future Urban Mobility Program)

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Tracing a path to knowledge? Indicative user impacts of introducing a public transport map in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Tracing a path to knowledge? Indicative user impacts of introducing a public transport map in Dhaka, Bangladesh