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THEME »» the vision »» voice is dead
31
a new state of mind «« planning for a smarter society «« THEME
society
smarter
Planning for a
The digital revolution is deeply influencing the way new cities are designed.
But the impact so far on existing cities has been limited. What is needed is one
common, comprehensive model to help planners agree on priorities for
new infrastructures and new services. Adding the dynamics of ICT to present
models is a necessary first step.
F
ROM ANCIENT Greece’s polis to the new glo-
bal megalopolis, cities have always repre-
sented the fundamental aggregation and so-
cialization paradigm for mankind. Ideas about
the economy and the organization of life in towns
came early and are still central to most social and
scientific disciplines.
During the past  years, the digital revolution
and the emergence of a global internet connect-
ing people, enterprises and – increasingly – ob-
jects, have generated a massive opportunity to
“dematerialize” daily life in cities.
Dematerialization was the basis of the ques-
tion Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the mit’s
Media Lab, asked in the early s: Why move
atoms when, in many cases, it is better to move
data bits?
The answer has been provided by technology,
as many of us now have one or more intercon-
nected devices that help in our daily activities.
Finding a place to stay when travelling, getting a
bus timetable, and reserving a restaurant table be-
come normal activities in “nomadic”¹ environ-
ments.
Leonard Kleinrock, an important contributor
to the development of the internet, wrote about
nomadicity in : “We are in the midst of some
revolutionary changes in the field of computer-
communications […]. One of these changes has
to do with nomadic computing and communica-
tions. Nomadicity refers to the system support
needed to provide a rich set of capabilities and
services to the nomad as he moves from place to
place in a transparent and convenient form.”
In these words it is possible to find the founda-
tion of smart environments, such as smart cities.
This paradigm shift has been embraced with
enthusiasm in several countries, where brand new
“techno-towns” have been built in deserted or un-
der-urbanized areas, with the goal of creating self-
sustainable cities with state-of-the-art services.
Existing urban systems, however, have been
much slower to adopt new ict solutions to make
city life and processes more efficient and sustain-
▶
32
▶
THEME »» planning for a smarter society »» a new state of mind
able. In many developed countries, in fact,
policy makers, regulators and investors are still
debating the need for public financing to enable
the digital revolution, the best approach to fol-
low and which investments to prioritize in order
to provide advanced e-government, health care,
e-learning and telework services to citizens.
A key reason for the difficulty of reengineer-
ing citizens’ daily activities (such as consuming,
working, producing, socializing, entertaining and
learning) by leveraging the new ict capabilities,
lies in the lack of a comprehensive, quantitative
model to evaluate the overall return on invest-
ment, related to available investment options.
AN ABSTRACT MODEL FOR SMART CITIES
Several city models have been elaborated, but
most of them are rooted in one single discipline
and are difficult to utilize in policy making, where
all the complexity of modern societies needs to
be taken into consideration.
A recent example of a multi disciplinary smart
city model is the one devised by scientists from
Vienna University of Technology in Austria in co-
operation with the University of Ljubljana in Slov-
enia and Delft University of Technology in the
Netherlands. This model² takes into considera-
tion up to  variables and introduces a metric
that enables the quantitative assessment of a
town’s “smartness.”
The following figures illustrate a proposed al-
ternative abstract city model that attempts to
identify and define classes of elements and how
they relate. Two elements – infrastructures and
processes – are of particular interest owing to
their central role in how urban systems develop
and work.
Figure  and Figure  outline a comprehensive
and multi-disciplinary model demonstrating the
relationship between the elements that impact
urban life.
The model is based on the interacting of five
fundamental elements:
Needs (or inputs)▶
Expressions (or outputs)▶
Resources▶
Processes▶
Infrastructures▶
NEEDS: This is the set of material or immaterial
goods that every citizen, as an individual or as a
community member, requires in order to survive
and be well, and in general to give a proper sense
to their life. According to Maslow³, needs are or-
ganized according to a hierarchical structure,
which he depicts as a pyramid, from basic to in-
Figure 1
Abstract city model – needs
INFRASTRUCTURES
ACCESS and UTILIZATION
PROCESSES
ICTservices
Natural resources
Artificial resources
Language
Culture
Law and regulation
Governance
PaymentsLogistics
NEEDS
(inputs)
RESOURCES
Buildings and constructions
buildings, bridges, roads, harbors
Energy and utilities
energy grid, pipelines, waste handling
Transport systems
subways, buses, trains
Sales and distribution
shops, warehouses
Financial services
banks, money transfer
Health
hospitals, pharmacies, medical centers
Knowledge and education
schools, universities, libraries, bookstores
Civil administration
law court, public administration
Entertainment
arenas, parks, gym, churches
air
water
food
physical space
natural light
acoustic environment
environment and wildlife
Quality
of life
Safety, health
Air, food, water, sleep
Participation
Identity vs. inclusion
Freedom, privacy
Needs as a community member
Needs as individual
goods or
services
money
knowledge
construction
energy and artificial light
transportation facilities
contents (books, movies etc.)
family/community membership
law enforcement/army
civil protection
awareness (communication, promotion)
reservation (booking, ticketing)
payment
support (customer care)
...policy makers, regulators and investors are
still debating the need for public financing to
enable the digital revolution...
33
a new state of mind «« planning for a smarter society «« THEME
creasingly sophisticated. Some of the needs – such
as freedom, privacy, need for inclusion – are born
from belonging to a community.
EXPRESSIONS: Beyond needs, human beings also
generate material or immaterial outputs, or “ex-
pressions.” These in turn can be resources and
become directly available to the community, such
as personal time, talents or caring, or may be
transformed into artificial resources through the
utilization of proper infrastructures and process-
es. This is what happens in work environments
(factories, farms, enterprises, shops, schools,
firms, hospitals) and during the production of re-
sources (goods or services) that are later con-
sumed by other citizens.
Some expressions are negative – such as waste,
pollution, co₂ emissions and crime – and these
need to be limited or eliminated in order to pre-
serve the city’s stability.
RESOURCES: Urban communities require (and gen-
erate) a lot of resources in their daily activities.
One of the key characteristics of cities is the high
population density, which requires a concentrat-
ed and constant huge supply of resources. In a
city, beyond natural resources like air, water and
sunlight, fabricated resources (such as buildings
and roads, energy, artificial light and money) are
needed to secure the survival, safety and pros-
perity of the city. Natural resources may be re-
newable or not, but artificial resources are by def-
inition renewable, as an effect of different human
expressions.
PROCESSES: The processes are the set of proce-
dures, or rites, that citizens have to follow in order
to access resources, usually through the utiliza-
tion of infrastructures. One of the characteristics
of the processes is that they are of limited dura-
tion, meaning that they usually involve activities
with a well defined beginning and end. Some of
these processes are implicit and hardly noticed in
daily life; for example, paying for something in a
shop, making a reservation, or obtaining a trans-
port ticket. However, they are fundamental to
optimizing the utilization of infrastructures.
INFRASTRUCTURES: Infrastructures are the key me-
diation elements between needs, expressions and
resources. In fact, infrastructures – in combina-
tion with processes – are a fundamental broker-
ing element in urban systems. The role of infra-
structures is also key for the evolution towards
smarter cities, since its presence allows urban
communities and society to access – and to uti-
lize in an orderly and optimal way– the precious
resources.
Similarly to needs, infrastructures are organ-
ized hierarchically, and it is possible to recognize
“infrastructure platforms” with a special role.
Such platforms are infrastructures that can not
only be used directly by citizens, but also lever-
aged to increase the efficiency of other infrastruc-
tures, or to change the way they are used.
According to business and corporate strategist
Kenichi Ohmae⁴, three relevant infrastructure
platforms are:
ict
Logistics
Payments
META-INFRASTRUCTURES: Some infrastructures are
so central to life in society that they are often not
considered “infrastructures” in the sense de-
scribed above. However, when societies and cul-
tures are compared, it is possible to recog-
Figure 2
Abstract city model – expressions
INFRASTRUCTURES
ACCESS and UTILIZATION
PROCESSES
Natural resources
Artificial resources
Language
Culture
Law and regulation
Governance
PaymentsLogistics
EXPRESSIONS
(outputs)
RESOURCES
Buildings and constructions
buildings, bridges, roads, harbors
Energy and utilities
energy grid, pipelines, waste handling
Transport systems
subways, buses, trains
Sales and distribution
shops, warehouses
Financial services
banks, money transfer
Health
hospitals, pharmacies, medical centers
Knowledge and education
schools, universities, libraries, bookstores
Civil administration
law court, public administration
Entertainment
arenas, parks, gym, churches
air
water
food
physical space
natural light
acoustic environment
environment and wildlife
sense
work
care
talent/ability
contents
crime
pollution/CO2
waste
material or
immaterial
money
knowledge
construction
energy and artificial light
transportation facilities
contents (books, movies etc.)
family/community membership
law enforcement/army
civil protection
awareness (communication, promotion)
reservation (booking, ticketing)
payment
support (customer care)
ICTservices
▶
34
▶
THEME »» planning for a smarter society »» a new state of mind
nize that such elements are indeed infra-
structures, since they contribute heavily to deter-
mining the competitive characteristics of socie-
ties or urban systems – for example, in terms of
efficiency. These “meta-infrastructures” are:
Language
Culture
Laws and regulations
Governance
It is important to note that all elements are
strongly interleaved. To take one example, money
is an artificial resource that can be used to satisfy
needs from basic to sophisticated. One infrastruc-
ture regulating the access and utilization of mon-
ey is the payments system, which operates through
a set of processes that includes withdrawals, de-
posits, credit transfers and card payments. In this
case, ict is changing the way payments are made,
with coins and notes giving way to electronic pay-
ments through the internet and mobile phones.
Another example is health and well-being. These
are basic needs, which everybody strives to pre-
serve and increase. The key infrastructure used to
manage health is the hospital, in combination with
medical centers, pharmacies and the gym. Using
these infrastructures, citizens may get both health-
care related goods (for example, pharmaceuticals)
and services (care or surgery). A typical way to ac-
cess such infrastructures is to book a medical vis-
it and pay a fee. Here, ict can play an important
role, not only in increasing the overall efficiency
in the set of solutions called “e-health,” but also in
making payments and logistics work better.
CHANGE AGENTS AND A DYNAMIC CITY MODEL
The model presented in Figure  and  is a static
model; however cities, like human beings, are ex-
posed to a dynamic, ever-changing environment
that forces them to evolve over time.
In Figure  the same city model is represented
in a dynamic context, under the impact of four
different forces, whose intensity and direction
may change over time.
DEMOGRAPHIC PRESSURE: This is the most obvious
element in modifying a city’s population mix and
undermining city stability, and can be caused by
factors such as migration flows, aging popula-
tions, and pandemic events.
ECONOMIC PRESSURE: Economic cycles may result
in both positive and negative stress on cities, con-
tributing to creating wealth, employment and gen-
eral growth, or the opposite.
COMPETITIVE PRESSURE: Cities – like individu-
als – compete among themselves to secure the
best resources. In the past, this took the form of
wars among city-states, in order, for example, to
control territory or neighboring towns. Today, this
is taking the form of regional marketing initiatives
to attract tourists, incentives to invite multina-
tional companies to open factories, or investment
in events designed to attract talent and skills.
SUSTAINABILITY PRESSURE: All human activities con-
sume energy, and most of them produce co₂ and
other pollutants. Drinkable water is an increas-
ingly scarce resource, and in some countries so
is food. These problems are becoming increas-
ingly relevant for megalopolises because they ab-
sorb an incredible amount of such resources.
All of these pressure elements force cities to
change and find a dynamic balance.
The quality of infrastructures (in particular
the platform infrastructures) and the efficiency
and effectiveness of processes, are key to im-
proving the way cities cope with such forces, in-
creasing benefits for citizens and reducing neg-
ative effects.
ADDING COMPUTING TO THE CITY MODEL
A smart city could be defined as the realization
of computer scientist Mark Weiser’s⁵ words from
: “Ubiquitous computing names the third
wave in computing, just now beginning. …Next
comes ubiquitous computing, or the age of calm
technology, when technology recedes into the
background of our lives.”⁶ In defining the concept
of ubiquitous computing (see Figure ), he set the
minimum needs for building a smart city.
The smart city environment is increasingly
based on the disassociated and dynamic use of
The personal computer disappears to become
integrated with every object we use or possess.
Ubiquitous computing promises the transparent
integration of ICT into daily life.
Figure 3
Abstract city model in a dynamic context
ECONOMYand
WELFARE
COMPETITION
withothercities
DEMOGRAPHY
in/out migration, aging
SUSTAINABILITY
water, pollution, energy
Urban system
Needs
Natural
resources
Artifical
resourcesExpressions
Infrastructures
Processes
35
a new state of mind «« planning for a smarter society «« THEME
computers. Users are not just sitting at a desk or
waiting for answers from computers. They are
mobile, and the services they use are a mix of dis-
tributed components collaborating with each oth-
er. The personal computer disappears to become
integrated with every object we use or possess.
Ubiquitous computing promises the transparent
integration of ict into daily life.
In this way, ict has the potential to generate a
dramatic dematerialization of city processes, and
to greatly increase the efficiency of infrastruc-
tures to distribute resources and satisfy needs,
leading in turn to a more sustainable – and
smart – city life.
FROM ABSTRACT MODEL TO PLANNING TOOL
While new cities, built from scratch, already em-
brace this concept, the potential of ict has been
slow to gain ground in established cities and de-
veloped countries. The reasons for this lie in the
high costs needed to evolve existing cities, and in
the difficulty of evaluating long-term effects of
investments and policy decisions on traditional
infrastructures and well established processes.
This article has described an abstract city mod-
el, aiming to show the relevance of infrastruc-
tures and processes – and their interrelations – in
a city’s organization and success. The next step
would be to turn such a qualitative model into a
quantitative one, finding quantitative relation-
ships between citizens’ needs (or expressions),
and the ability to better satisfy such needs – or
to better cope with expressions – by improving
the efficiency of infrastructures and processes.
The complexity of, and the level of ambition in-
volved in building a quantitative model is very
high, but the rewards would be enormous. With
such a model in place it would be possible for city
managers and policy makers to measure the re-
turn on their investments options, by taking into
proper consideration a wider number of variables
and how they interrelate in contemporary cities.
From a telecom industry perspective it is cru-
cial that we are aware of the new state of mind
governing the role of future communications so-
lutions in order to actively contribute to the wid-
er planning process.
Background
This article is based on a research paper aimed at aggregating academic
support in developing a theoretical model for city planning that includes the
role of ICT.
Footnotes
Kleinrock, L. Nomadic Computing: An Opportunity, Computer Communication1.
Review, vol. 25, no. 1, January 1995, pp. 36-40
As described at http://www.smart-cities.eu/2.
Maslow, A. ATheory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review 50(4),3.
1943, pp 370-396.
Ohmae, K.The Invisible Continent: Four Strategic Imperatives of the New4.
Economy, 2001
MarkWeiser (1952-1999) is widely considered the father of ubiquitous5.
computing, a term he coined in 1988.
Weiser, M.The computer for the 21st century, Scientific American,6.
September 1991, pp. 94-104
AUTHOR
▶ GIORGIO ANDREOLI is Director,
Strategic Marketing for Ericsson
South-East Europe (SEE). He has 15
years of experience in ICT and the
internet, having worked in a varie-
ty of roles both in telecommunications and other indus-
tries, including finance and banking. Since 2007, he has
been responsible for a strategic program on mobile pay-
ments at the SEE level. Giorgio holds an MSc in Informa-
tion Technology from Cefriel, Polytechnic University of
Milan. (giorgio.andreoli@ericsson.com)
AUTHOR
▶ CARLO MARIA MEDAGLIA is
full professor of Human Computer
Interfaces and Wireless/Mobile
Systems at the Sapienza University
of Rome. He has been Scientific Di-
rector of the Italian ICT research center CATTID since 2006.
He has a Doctorate in Telecommunications Engineering
from the Sapienza University of Rome.
(carlomaria.medaglia@uniroma1.it).
Figure 4
The three waves of computing
One computer, many people One person, one computer One person, many computers
▶

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Planning for a Smarter Society - Ericsson Business Review #1 2010

  • 1. 30 THEME »» the vision »» voice is dead
  • 2. 31 a new state of mind «« planning for a smarter society «« THEME society smarter Planning for a The digital revolution is deeply influencing the way new cities are designed. But the impact so far on existing cities has been limited. What is needed is one common, comprehensive model to help planners agree on priorities for new infrastructures and new services. Adding the dynamics of ICT to present models is a necessary first step. F ROM ANCIENT Greece’s polis to the new glo- bal megalopolis, cities have always repre- sented the fundamental aggregation and so- cialization paradigm for mankind. Ideas about the economy and the organization of life in towns came early and are still central to most social and scientific disciplines. During the past  years, the digital revolution and the emergence of a global internet connect- ing people, enterprises and – increasingly – ob- jects, have generated a massive opportunity to “dematerialize” daily life in cities. Dematerialization was the basis of the ques- tion Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the mit’s Media Lab, asked in the early s: Why move atoms when, in many cases, it is better to move data bits? The answer has been provided by technology, as many of us now have one or more intercon- nected devices that help in our daily activities. Finding a place to stay when travelling, getting a bus timetable, and reserving a restaurant table be- come normal activities in “nomadic”¹ environ- ments. Leonard Kleinrock, an important contributor to the development of the internet, wrote about nomadicity in : “We are in the midst of some revolutionary changes in the field of computer- communications […]. One of these changes has to do with nomadic computing and communica- tions. Nomadicity refers to the system support needed to provide a rich set of capabilities and services to the nomad as he moves from place to place in a transparent and convenient form.” In these words it is possible to find the founda- tion of smart environments, such as smart cities. This paradigm shift has been embraced with enthusiasm in several countries, where brand new “techno-towns” have been built in deserted or un- der-urbanized areas, with the goal of creating self- sustainable cities with state-of-the-art services. Existing urban systems, however, have been much slower to adopt new ict solutions to make city life and processes more efficient and sustain- ▶
  • 3. 32 ▶ THEME »» planning for a smarter society »» a new state of mind able. In many developed countries, in fact, policy makers, regulators and investors are still debating the need for public financing to enable the digital revolution, the best approach to fol- low and which investments to prioritize in order to provide advanced e-government, health care, e-learning and telework services to citizens. A key reason for the difficulty of reengineer- ing citizens’ daily activities (such as consuming, working, producing, socializing, entertaining and learning) by leveraging the new ict capabilities, lies in the lack of a comprehensive, quantitative model to evaluate the overall return on invest- ment, related to available investment options. AN ABSTRACT MODEL FOR SMART CITIES Several city models have been elaborated, but most of them are rooted in one single discipline and are difficult to utilize in policy making, where all the complexity of modern societies needs to be taken into consideration. A recent example of a multi disciplinary smart city model is the one devised by scientists from Vienna University of Technology in Austria in co- operation with the University of Ljubljana in Slov- enia and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. This model² takes into considera- tion up to  variables and introduces a metric that enables the quantitative assessment of a town’s “smartness.” The following figures illustrate a proposed al- ternative abstract city model that attempts to identify and define classes of elements and how they relate. Two elements – infrastructures and processes – are of particular interest owing to their central role in how urban systems develop and work. Figure  and Figure  outline a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary model demonstrating the relationship between the elements that impact urban life. The model is based on the interacting of five fundamental elements: Needs (or inputs)▶ Expressions (or outputs)▶ Resources▶ Processes▶ Infrastructures▶ NEEDS: This is the set of material or immaterial goods that every citizen, as an individual or as a community member, requires in order to survive and be well, and in general to give a proper sense to their life. According to Maslow³, needs are or- ganized according to a hierarchical structure, which he depicts as a pyramid, from basic to in- Figure 1 Abstract city model – needs INFRASTRUCTURES ACCESS and UTILIZATION PROCESSES ICTservices Natural resources Artificial resources Language Culture Law and regulation Governance PaymentsLogistics NEEDS (inputs) RESOURCES Buildings and constructions buildings, bridges, roads, harbors Energy and utilities energy grid, pipelines, waste handling Transport systems subways, buses, trains Sales and distribution shops, warehouses Financial services banks, money transfer Health hospitals, pharmacies, medical centers Knowledge and education schools, universities, libraries, bookstores Civil administration law court, public administration Entertainment arenas, parks, gym, churches air water food physical space natural light acoustic environment environment and wildlife Quality of life Safety, health Air, food, water, sleep Participation Identity vs. inclusion Freedom, privacy Needs as a community member Needs as individual goods or services money knowledge construction energy and artificial light transportation facilities contents (books, movies etc.) family/community membership law enforcement/army civil protection awareness (communication, promotion) reservation (booking, ticketing) payment support (customer care) ...policy makers, regulators and investors are still debating the need for public financing to enable the digital revolution...
  • 4. 33 a new state of mind «« planning for a smarter society «« THEME creasingly sophisticated. Some of the needs – such as freedom, privacy, need for inclusion – are born from belonging to a community. EXPRESSIONS: Beyond needs, human beings also generate material or immaterial outputs, or “ex- pressions.” These in turn can be resources and become directly available to the community, such as personal time, talents or caring, or may be transformed into artificial resources through the utilization of proper infrastructures and process- es. This is what happens in work environments (factories, farms, enterprises, shops, schools, firms, hospitals) and during the production of re- sources (goods or services) that are later con- sumed by other citizens. Some expressions are negative – such as waste, pollution, co₂ emissions and crime – and these need to be limited or eliminated in order to pre- serve the city’s stability. RESOURCES: Urban communities require (and gen- erate) a lot of resources in their daily activities. One of the key characteristics of cities is the high population density, which requires a concentrat- ed and constant huge supply of resources. In a city, beyond natural resources like air, water and sunlight, fabricated resources (such as buildings and roads, energy, artificial light and money) are needed to secure the survival, safety and pros- perity of the city. Natural resources may be re- newable or not, but artificial resources are by def- inition renewable, as an effect of different human expressions. PROCESSES: The processes are the set of proce- dures, or rites, that citizens have to follow in order to access resources, usually through the utiliza- tion of infrastructures. One of the characteristics of the processes is that they are of limited dura- tion, meaning that they usually involve activities with a well defined beginning and end. Some of these processes are implicit and hardly noticed in daily life; for example, paying for something in a shop, making a reservation, or obtaining a trans- port ticket. However, they are fundamental to optimizing the utilization of infrastructures. INFRASTRUCTURES: Infrastructures are the key me- diation elements between needs, expressions and resources. In fact, infrastructures – in combina- tion with processes – are a fundamental broker- ing element in urban systems. The role of infra- structures is also key for the evolution towards smarter cities, since its presence allows urban communities and society to access – and to uti- lize in an orderly and optimal way– the precious resources. Similarly to needs, infrastructures are organ- ized hierarchically, and it is possible to recognize “infrastructure platforms” with a special role. Such platforms are infrastructures that can not only be used directly by citizens, but also lever- aged to increase the efficiency of other infrastruc- tures, or to change the way they are used. According to business and corporate strategist Kenichi Ohmae⁴, three relevant infrastructure platforms are: ict Logistics Payments META-INFRASTRUCTURES: Some infrastructures are so central to life in society that they are often not considered “infrastructures” in the sense de- scribed above. However, when societies and cul- tures are compared, it is possible to recog- Figure 2 Abstract city model – expressions INFRASTRUCTURES ACCESS and UTILIZATION PROCESSES Natural resources Artificial resources Language Culture Law and regulation Governance PaymentsLogistics EXPRESSIONS (outputs) RESOURCES Buildings and constructions buildings, bridges, roads, harbors Energy and utilities energy grid, pipelines, waste handling Transport systems subways, buses, trains Sales and distribution shops, warehouses Financial services banks, money transfer Health hospitals, pharmacies, medical centers Knowledge and education schools, universities, libraries, bookstores Civil administration law court, public administration Entertainment arenas, parks, gym, churches air water food physical space natural light acoustic environment environment and wildlife sense work care talent/ability contents crime pollution/CO2 waste material or immaterial money knowledge construction energy and artificial light transportation facilities contents (books, movies etc.) family/community membership law enforcement/army civil protection awareness (communication, promotion) reservation (booking, ticketing) payment support (customer care) ICTservices ▶
  • 5. 34 ▶ THEME »» planning for a smarter society »» a new state of mind nize that such elements are indeed infra- structures, since they contribute heavily to deter- mining the competitive characteristics of socie- ties or urban systems – for example, in terms of efficiency. These “meta-infrastructures” are: Language Culture Laws and regulations Governance It is important to note that all elements are strongly interleaved. To take one example, money is an artificial resource that can be used to satisfy needs from basic to sophisticated. One infrastruc- ture regulating the access and utilization of mon- ey is the payments system, which operates through a set of processes that includes withdrawals, de- posits, credit transfers and card payments. In this case, ict is changing the way payments are made, with coins and notes giving way to electronic pay- ments through the internet and mobile phones. Another example is health and well-being. These are basic needs, which everybody strives to pre- serve and increase. The key infrastructure used to manage health is the hospital, in combination with medical centers, pharmacies and the gym. Using these infrastructures, citizens may get both health- care related goods (for example, pharmaceuticals) and services (care or surgery). A typical way to ac- cess such infrastructures is to book a medical vis- it and pay a fee. Here, ict can play an important role, not only in increasing the overall efficiency in the set of solutions called “e-health,” but also in making payments and logistics work better. CHANGE AGENTS AND A DYNAMIC CITY MODEL The model presented in Figure  and  is a static model; however cities, like human beings, are ex- posed to a dynamic, ever-changing environment that forces them to evolve over time. In Figure  the same city model is represented in a dynamic context, under the impact of four different forces, whose intensity and direction may change over time. DEMOGRAPHIC PRESSURE: This is the most obvious element in modifying a city’s population mix and undermining city stability, and can be caused by factors such as migration flows, aging popula- tions, and pandemic events. ECONOMIC PRESSURE: Economic cycles may result in both positive and negative stress on cities, con- tributing to creating wealth, employment and gen- eral growth, or the opposite. COMPETITIVE PRESSURE: Cities – like individu- als – compete among themselves to secure the best resources. In the past, this took the form of wars among city-states, in order, for example, to control territory or neighboring towns. Today, this is taking the form of regional marketing initiatives to attract tourists, incentives to invite multina- tional companies to open factories, or investment in events designed to attract talent and skills. SUSTAINABILITY PRESSURE: All human activities con- sume energy, and most of them produce co₂ and other pollutants. Drinkable water is an increas- ingly scarce resource, and in some countries so is food. These problems are becoming increas- ingly relevant for megalopolises because they ab- sorb an incredible amount of such resources. All of these pressure elements force cities to change and find a dynamic balance. The quality of infrastructures (in particular the platform infrastructures) and the efficiency and effectiveness of processes, are key to im- proving the way cities cope with such forces, in- creasing benefits for citizens and reducing neg- ative effects. ADDING COMPUTING TO THE CITY MODEL A smart city could be defined as the realization of computer scientist Mark Weiser’s⁵ words from : “Ubiquitous computing names the third wave in computing, just now beginning. …Next comes ubiquitous computing, or the age of calm technology, when technology recedes into the background of our lives.”⁶ In defining the concept of ubiquitous computing (see Figure ), he set the minimum needs for building a smart city. The smart city environment is increasingly based on the disassociated and dynamic use of The personal computer disappears to become integrated with every object we use or possess. Ubiquitous computing promises the transparent integration of ICT into daily life. Figure 3 Abstract city model in a dynamic context ECONOMYand WELFARE COMPETITION withothercities DEMOGRAPHY in/out migration, aging SUSTAINABILITY water, pollution, energy Urban system Needs Natural resources Artifical resourcesExpressions Infrastructures Processes
  • 6. 35 a new state of mind «« planning for a smarter society «« THEME computers. Users are not just sitting at a desk or waiting for answers from computers. They are mobile, and the services they use are a mix of dis- tributed components collaborating with each oth- er. The personal computer disappears to become integrated with every object we use or possess. Ubiquitous computing promises the transparent integration of ict into daily life. In this way, ict has the potential to generate a dramatic dematerialization of city processes, and to greatly increase the efficiency of infrastruc- tures to distribute resources and satisfy needs, leading in turn to a more sustainable – and smart – city life. FROM ABSTRACT MODEL TO PLANNING TOOL While new cities, built from scratch, already em- brace this concept, the potential of ict has been slow to gain ground in established cities and de- veloped countries. The reasons for this lie in the high costs needed to evolve existing cities, and in the difficulty of evaluating long-term effects of investments and policy decisions on traditional infrastructures and well established processes. This article has described an abstract city mod- el, aiming to show the relevance of infrastruc- tures and processes – and their interrelations – in a city’s organization and success. The next step would be to turn such a qualitative model into a quantitative one, finding quantitative relation- ships between citizens’ needs (or expressions), and the ability to better satisfy such needs – or to better cope with expressions – by improving the efficiency of infrastructures and processes. The complexity of, and the level of ambition in- volved in building a quantitative model is very high, but the rewards would be enormous. With such a model in place it would be possible for city managers and policy makers to measure the re- turn on their investments options, by taking into proper consideration a wider number of variables and how they interrelate in contemporary cities. From a telecom industry perspective it is cru- cial that we are aware of the new state of mind governing the role of future communications so- lutions in order to actively contribute to the wid- er planning process. Background This article is based on a research paper aimed at aggregating academic support in developing a theoretical model for city planning that includes the role of ICT. Footnotes Kleinrock, L. Nomadic Computing: An Opportunity, Computer Communication1. Review, vol. 25, no. 1, January 1995, pp. 36-40 As described at http://www.smart-cities.eu/2. Maslow, A. ATheory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review 50(4),3. 1943, pp 370-396. Ohmae, K.The Invisible Continent: Four Strategic Imperatives of the New4. Economy, 2001 MarkWeiser (1952-1999) is widely considered the father of ubiquitous5. computing, a term he coined in 1988. Weiser, M.The computer for the 21st century, Scientific American,6. September 1991, pp. 94-104 AUTHOR ▶ GIORGIO ANDREOLI is Director, Strategic Marketing for Ericsson South-East Europe (SEE). He has 15 years of experience in ICT and the internet, having worked in a varie- ty of roles both in telecommunications and other indus- tries, including finance and banking. Since 2007, he has been responsible for a strategic program on mobile pay- ments at the SEE level. Giorgio holds an MSc in Informa- tion Technology from Cefriel, Polytechnic University of Milan. (giorgio.andreoli@ericsson.com) AUTHOR ▶ CARLO MARIA MEDAGLIA is full professor of Human Computer Interfaces and Wireless/Mobile Systems at the Sapienza University of Rome. He has been Scientific Di- rector of the Italian ICT research center CATTID since 2006. He has a Doctorate in Telecommunications Engineering from the Sapienza University of Rome. (carlomaria.medaglia@uniroma1.it). Figure 4 The three waves of computing One computer, many people One person, one computer One person, many computers ▶