Today, Smart City is becoming an urban development trend that has
received the attention of many countries and cities as a way of
international integration, catching up with the era of technology
development 4.0. storm, and especially is expected as an inevitable
trend that can help cities combat today's urban development problems
such as rapid population growth, pollution, environmental degradation,
Global risks including crime, traffic congestion, inefficient services
and economic stagnation...
When it comes to "Smart Cities", most of us easily think of a city
that uses and relies on information and communication technology (ICT)
to create a quality life. than. In other words, a smart city is
associated with the concept of achieving sustainability through the
large-scale application and use of advanced information technology. Even
the main goal of Smart Cities is said to be to increase sustainability
through the use of modern technology, hence many scientists think that
smart sustainable city is the right and correct term. more precise than
the smart city term. Variants of “smart cities” are cities that are used
with similar terms such as: virtual city; digital city (digital city);
knowledge city (knowledge city); wired city; IT smart cities are
everywhere in urban spaces (U-city), cyber cities, or urban informatics.
These terms all emphasize the importance of technology and the use of
technology as a way to compete and create an advantage for urban
development.
Thus, with a common understanding, it is possible to imagine a smart
city as: An urban area fully equipped with technological equipment such
as sensor systems, surveillance cameras, satellite receivers...
everywhere to get information about urban activities such as traffic
situation, number of people, demand for urban services... to turn them
into big data for analysis to receive accurately represent urban
problems or urban development needs and urban service needs (increasing
knowledge), thereby supporting better decision-making. Even the
decision-making process is carried out not only by the government, but
any citizen can contribute thanks to the network of connections and
information sharing. People become "smarter" thanks to this system, they
can make the right decisions for themselves or participate in the
decision to build the city.
The trend of "smart city" development is increasingly popular and
implemented in many parts of the world such as the smart country program
(Singapore), the digital government program (Malaysia), and Fujisawa
smart city. (Japan), the project of 100 smart cities (India),... The
labeling of building a "smart city" is considered a "way" to add value
to a city, increasing its importance. interest of the community and
thereby attract more investment. In other words “Smart” is being used as
an attractive brand. However, much of the development of the concept of
“smart cities” is still in the testing and development stage. In fact,
most of the current smart city projects in Vietnam and even the world
have a lot of ambiguity about the concept, as well as the way of
operation. The debate surrounding the term "smarter" or "smarter" raises
a series of questions about what it means to be intelligent; Smart has
the need to rely on technology; Is this development really smart when
besides being smart in one aspect, it's a decline in another? [Deputy
Duc Tung, 2017]; or intelligence in what aspect is the most important;
whether we are stuck in this cleverness when our lives are so dependent
on technology; Will people really be happy and develop in a smart city
or become weaker and weaker mentally and depend on machines and
technology? Is a smart city really for the poor, who do not have high
knowledge and limited ability to pay for expensive technology equipment…
What are the criteria for a smart city in terms of size, growth,…?;
Doubts about "smart" or "unintelligent", as well as the lack of
assessment of intelligence in the relationship between infrastructure
and utilities for people... The article will review the concept of
intelligence, then discuss smart vision as an important foundation when
considering the smart or unintelligent of the city, thereby contributing
an important foundation for achieving sustainable intelligence.
The development process and awareness of the smart city concept
The idea of smart city development has been around for a long time;
However, by the year 2005, this topic was raised more strongly thanks to
the birth and rapid development of technology companies, the promotion
of information technology products and applications in various fields.
more urban [Nguyen Ngoc Hieu, 2016]. Up to now, two prominent schools
can be seen when talking about smart cities. The first school focuses on
the application of technology to achieve smart utilities. The second
school emphasizes the importance of smart people, smart thinking
together with the support of information technology as the foundation to
orient the application of modern technologies in urban areas.
The first school asserts: A smart city is a city that meets
development challenges through the implementation of strategies for
developing IT resources, networks and services in providing services.
essential services for urban dwellers and effective infrastructure
management [Hall, 2000; IBM, 2015; Angelidou, 2014].
In 2011, Caragliu et al. stated that a city is considered smart when it
has the investment of human capital, social capital, transportation and
modern IT. It is also capable of generating sustainable economic growth
and quality of life with good management of natural resources through
governance. Goldsmith and Crawford (2014), also discuss the importance
of community participation and good leadership, meaning that community
empowerment and related factors are also needed for smart city
implementation. With the same point of view, corresponding to smart
cities must be smart residents, so that people are not dominated and
dependent, but must be the masters of this intelligence. Thus,
confirming whether urban dwellers are intelligent or whether there is
equality and equity among all levels of society in accessing and using
IT, as well as in modern technology, provides urban level – It is one of
the special challenges in developing and implementing the smart city
concept(1). Thus, a smart city is not simply the application of pure
information technology (ICT), but the key point is to use initiatives to
serve the problem of people, technology must be for the purpose of
social goals [Cocchia, 2014, Dameri, 2013, Caragliu et al., 2009].
The practice of developing and perfecting the idea of smart cities has
gone through 3 stages of awareness: Until the 2000s, smart cities
focused on "hardware", also known as smart cities or digital cities.
(digital city) – Focusing on the use of information technology, the
importance of urban infrastructure, utilities and urban systems (city's
integrated infrastructure, utilities and urban system). In the 2005s,
this idea was more concerned with the development of "software" of the
city, focusing on people (including intelligence, awareness, health,
happiness, participation, etc.) human capacity, competitiveness and
efficiency) to prepare for a social inclusive city. Recently, around
2010, many cities have focused on improving both hardware and software,
forming an efficient smart city with a good quality of life.
The process of building a smart city (stages of building a smart city)
From the awareness of smart city, many cities have planned smart city
implementation roadmap, often emphasizing the following contents: i)
Development planning focusing on hard infrastructure, for example (
Management of transportation, water, drainage, waste and energy...); ii)
Focus on soft infrastructure, including community focus, community
capacity building, human resources, knowledge improvement, community
participation, social innovation, social justice, … Which content
priority to focus on is determined based on the study of local
characteristics, potentials, challenges and needs in the new context.
The smart city construction process is simplified through 3 levels: i)
Building smart tools (technology solutions to intelligently solve
situations in urban life) through data collection Real-time data
collection and information analysis through hypothetical modeling, ii)
Smart human development (solution to improve technology awareness and
progress towards technology mastery) for the citizen); iii) Building a
smart community towards a common goal that meets both hardware
infrastructure and software capabilities [Pho Duc Tung, 2016]. In the
context of Vietnam, the smart city development roadmap is also divided
into 3 phases, in which the first phase usually focuses on hardware, the
second phase focuses on software and finally the development. hardware
and software synchronization.
Smart vision
Before defining a smart vision for a city, many experts have concretized
smart city destinations into key areas. According to Mauritus,
Giffinger, those are 6 areas including smart life, smart economy, smart
people, smart government, smart mobility, smart environment. Some other
scholars, Frost and Sullivan selected other smart fields including:
Smart buildings, smart energy, smart mobility, smart technology, smart
healthcare, smart infrastructure Smart, smart governance, smart
citizens. While many experts mention more than smart domains for a smart
city (Figure 1).
Besides smart fields, many experts try to implement smart ideas into
different implementation themes, depending on the vision of each city.
In other words, cities are trying to come up with smart criteria or
visions to guide construction routes. Usually, it is thought that smart
cities can be related to four main themes [Arafah & Winarso, 2017]:
(1) Innovation, economy, competition and value added at the global
level. Which focuses on local value-added in a global context, as well
as on innovation to enhance people's capacity and development in the
global network to increase competitiveness; (2) Focus on technology and
IT development; (3) Attention to development stakeholders, emphasizing
the importance of the private sector, the importance of community
participation and leadership in the implementation of Smart Cities, (4)
The process towards a smart city needs to be done in both top-down as
well as bottom-up directions.
Cocchia, 2014 [6] suggests that there can be four important themes of
smart cities to address, including: (1) The role of public services and
the private sector in improving the quality of life; (2) The importance
of attention to the damage caused by urban activities; (3) The
importance of the concept of good natural resource management; (4)
Sustainable economic growth.
Smart thinking towards establishing a smart development vision for TP
Thanks to a new approach with the support of technology and big data, it
is possible to understand clearly and correctly the nature of cities,
thereby supporting the right decision-making process, smart cities is
expected to solve many current urban problems (such as the accumulation
of urban growth, urban management...). This expectation is also tied to
the forecast that the future of the city will not be the same as the way
it is still operating today.
In a smart city (in the hope of solving the current problems of the
city) there will be a different way of operating thanks to technological
advances, changing many traditional concepts of distance, boundaries,
time, space, urban concept, functional areas, connectivity... People in
smart cities will carry out their lives in both the virtual world and
the real world in parallel; smart cities can exploit and search for
urban spaces different from the traditional ones, expanding urban
construction areas without expanding boundaries or land resources; The
way of traveling will not be the same as the present one to ensure fast
speed and high automation… In that space, people can experience the
services "in person" but also face a series of problems. accompanying
challenges such as the possibility of more isolation instead of social
connection, health problems, stress, information addiction or lost in
information… At the same time, the risk of dependence on technology and
processing data-driven, machines can impede creativity; Uncontrolled
unauthorized information intrusion (hackers) can cause the whole city to
stop production or operation…; The domination of information can help a
business segment become an exclusive partner in providing products that
threaten small production and business activities [Pho Duc Tung].
These challenges can be multiplied many times due to the rapid and
unpredictable change of climate change development as well as issues
such as current global climate change… Therefore, smart vision is
Extremely important, each city needs to base on the capacity, potential
and needs of its residents to shape its smart capacity and choose its
development vision. On the basis of the planned vision, each
municipality determines the assistive technology solution and service
facilities that the city needs. Finally, the city needs to widely
replicate these technologies and services to develop the whole city.
Vision of smart city – recovery
In the context that the effects of climate change are increasingly clear
and strong, as well as data warning the risks of many cities to the
effects of climate change, the concept of smart cities is being
mentioned associated with the possibility of recovery capacity. With
this view, the concept of smart cities is associated with the resilience
and resilience of cities in dealing with unexpected situations, such as
natural disasters, terrorism, energy crises, etc. Climate change and
unpredictable phenomena… When a city is smartly planned, it must also be
prepared to increase its ability to withstand, adapt and recover from
the risks and impacts of climate change.
In some countries, some cities are located in geographical space with
many risks from the impact of natural disasters and weather, they can
choose a smart vision, aiming for a capable city. resilience to natural
disasters and impacts of climate change. On the basis of cultural
traditions, lifestyles, management capacity, financial capacity and
people's desires..., they "position" their urban future in association
with the need for a city with a Smart planning, urban space in high
locations, and ensuring environmental friendliness as well as the
ability to adapt to changes from the weather (eco-friendly
technologies). The urban infrastructure system attaches importance to
the forecast and early warning system of natural disasters and connects
to the personal telephone system to promptly inform the people. With
this future in mind, they begin to apply technology to advance these
visions. Figure 2 shows an intelligently oriented urban model to respond
to climate change. In this model, urban centers focus on important
contents: i) Reducing risks with available knowledge, ii) Raising public
awareness, iii) Bringing technology to meet mobility dispersal, iv)
Dissemination of information through technologies, v) Early warning by
means of a network system, vi) Response, vii) Habitat restoration and
resettlement; viii) Reconstruction and renewal from experiences…).
Experience in establishing Singapore's Smart Vision
Singapore is known as a country that has successfully applied science,
technology and information and communication technology in many urban
areas, from transportation, construction, water supply, electricity,
agriculture, education, medicine. economic. As a result, this country is
ranked the smartest city in the world. Singapore's development vision
is oriented to 3 goals: Economic, environmental and social are
implemented simultaneously in all areas of urban development with the
aim of developing Singapore into an attractive, livable and sustainable
city. steady. To realize these three goals, the Government identifies an
important foundation as integrated urban planning and dynamic urban
governance. The government absolutely does not compromise the economy
for the environment or vice versa, and many initiatives have been
launched to pursue this single goal. Singapore strives to build a smart
city with information technology and utilities at the forefront, the
value of life for people and the community is always accompanied. To
realize this vision, long-term planning and infrastructure framework
development are first identified as the foundation. The state oriented
planning ideas, urban general planning while the private sector and the
community are encouraged to participate in subsequent development
projects. With this coordination approach (combining top-down and
bottom-up planning approaches), the state can reduce the burden of
planning costs and facilitate the operation of market rules when people
and The private sector participates in the ideation and construction of
the living space they desire. Transport framework infrastructure is
implemented entirely by the government and with state budget while the
private sector will provide the services and the people will pay. This
requires the state to spend more on infrastructure construction, but the
government has complete control over the quality and framework of the
infrastructure. The provision of services belonging to the private
sector promotes competition with each other to be able to provide better
services at cheaper prices and thereby bring more benefits to the
people.
In the housing sector, the goal is "everyone can own a home" and "don't
build a house but build a home", Singapore's strategy is for everyone,
rich or poor. Everyone can rest assured to own an apartment or house
that is suitable for their finances, from which each citizen is
completely assured to contribute to the national economy. This policy is
also a strategic policy in accordance with the characteristics of
Singapore's population as an open country and contributed to economic
growth by the majority of foreign immigrants.
In terms of environmental goals, they oriented to greening the city, in
which orientations were made in 3 clear stages: Phase 1 aimed at forming
many green spaces in the city (gardens in the city); phase 2 develops
green spaces that are linked together and create large green areas,
occupying the main space in the city (city in the garden); Phase 3
establishes a friendly living environment with natural living forms in
the available green spaces, so that urban life is closest to the natural
ecosystem (the city is located in nature). With this effort, currently,
although Singapore's population density is among the largest in the
world, the tree cover density is among the highest in the world. Green
space has created a good quality of life and a good sense of urban space
for people.
Conclude
Although information and communication technology platforms can
accelerate the development of smart cities, it is only one part of the
smart city. In other words, smart city is a complex concept dealing with
many aspects, in which information technology is only a content or a
motivating tool to achieve the goal of making community life better. and
more personal development. Smart vision will regulate and decide all
action plans as well as a guide and destination for multi-disciplinary
fields. Although each city certainly has its own smart vision, it can be
said that the ultimate goal of urban development is towards sustainable
development, without sacrificing economic and social development. and
environment.
Dr. Dao Thi Nhu/ Urban Development Department – Ministry of Construction
(Posted on Architecture Magazine No. 01-2021)