However, these cities require smart environment because currently, cities are responsible for 75 percent of the world’s energy consumption, 80 percent of greenhouse gassess emission, and for production of the major part of the waste. Thus, ecological footprint of tomorrow’s cities should become small and smaller.
On the other hand, smart cituies have smart infrastructures. Transportation constitutes one of its most important aspects. Today, there is a direct and strong relationship between dynamism of urban transport an the level of cities’ development. High urban mobility and traffic lead to urban quality of life and citizens’ satisfaction. Introduction of concepts such as low-carbon cities, green cities, and smart citiess has resulted in promoting non-motorized and public transport.
Public transport system of the 21st century is expanding, changing, and innovating more than before. Currently, more than 24 billions travels i.e. equivalent to travel by more than three times of the earth population are handled by public transport and more than 13 million people are employed in this sector. Globally, if we double the capacity of public transport, 170 million tons of oil will be saved. Moreover, doubling the share of public transport would result in avoinding more than half a billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere by 2025 since each kilometer travel by private car produces 3.5 times more greenhouse gasses than public transport.
Another important aspect of smart city is smart construction. A smart building takes advantage of installation and use of advanced technical systems. This system consists of building automation, security of life, telecommunications, and facility management systems. Functional and practical information about overview of the building or its interior will be available for owners, renters, and building administrators. Today, costs of retrofitting and similar cases can be significantly reduced by using IT, resulting in increase of urban efficiency and sustainability. Cities interested in being smart should enhance data collection tools; they should produce detailed data, not disinformation.
Furthermore, citis of tomorrow should consider siocial issues more seriously. In other words, they are places for social progress. they present high level of quality of life, social cohesion, integrity and balance with security and stability. More importance should be directed to different classes of the society including the elderrly, children and the disabled. In addition, they should be a platform for democracy and a place for cultural diversity. For this purpose, urban public spaces, including streets, will be valuable more than before.
A third important issue that should be considered for cities of tomorrow is promoting social justice.Today, about 30 percent of citizens in the developing countries, i.e. more than one billion people, live in slums. One of the development purposes of the millennium is to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of 100 million people living in slums by 2030. City management should also reduce poverty and gap among urban classes. For this purpose, the UN proposed $2.5 tr. in investment in developing countries for filling the existing gap.
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