Topic: smart-city-technology

This city portrait is in two parts. The first part (Alba Iulia Smart City: How Central Romania Quietly Created a Hidden Champion in Europe) described the ambitious plans of the Alba Iulia City Hall as it uses tourism and strong partnerships with private companies to transform Alba Iulia into Romania’s first smart city. This second part takes a closer look at some of the smart solutions being implemented there.

This city portrait is in two parts. This first part describes the ambitious plans of the Alba Iulia City Hall as it uses tourism and strong partnerships to transform Alba Iulia into Romania’s first smart city. The second part takes a closer look at some of the more than 100 smart city solutions being implemented there.

Zaragoza: Pioneering a Citizen-Centric Smart City Vision

Fifteen years ago, Zaragoza - the historic Spanish city situated between Madrid and Barcelona - pioneered a vision of a future digital district and knowledge-based society. Since then, the city has developed an impressive portfolio of smart city projects and new urban services. According to Daniel Sarasa, Urban Innovation Planner in Zaragoza and internationally recognized smart city innovator, one of Zaragoza's unique strengths is its culture of citizen involvement and participation. This culture has its roots in the reawakening of democracy. In the late 1970s, the city of Zaragoza (like other cities in Spain) looked back on thirty five years of dictatorship – and looked ahead to an uncertain future. During the years of dictatorship, Zaragoza had grown in population from approximately 235,000 to more than 500,000, but the civic infrastructure and public services needed to support this urban growth were inhibited by an autocratic national government which maintained severe austerity measures.

This smart city portrait provides an overview on the smart city strategy and intelligent solutions implemented in the City and nation-state of Singapore. Cities all over the world are applying new technologies to solve their problems and become smarter. Singapore’s take on technology, as endorsed by bee smart city, is that it should not be an end in itself – it should be made to serve the people, who should be firmly at the centre of the smart city concept. Singapore’s holistic strategy and innovative solutions can serve as best practice examples for many other cities around the world.